Best Practices in Course Development and Instructional Design Jonan Donaldson August 23, 2012

Overview “One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try. We learn by doing.” - Aristotle

Principle: Sense of Community “An impressive collection of studies has shown that participation in well-functioning cooperative groups leads students to feel more positive about themselves, about each other, and about the subject they're studying. Students also learn more effectively on a variety of measures” – Alfie Kohn

Principle: Sense of Community Student-Teacher Interaction

Principle: Sense of Community Student-Student Interaction

Principle: Sense of Community Prompt feedback

Principle: Begin with the End in Mind “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” – Stephen Covey

Principle: Begin with the End in Mind Course-level Learning Outcomes

Principle: Begin with the End in Mind Unit-level Objectives

Principle: Multiple Pathways of Learning “The brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc.” – Howard Gardner

Principle: Multiple Pathways of Learning Text, Graphics, Audio, and Video

Principle: Engage Students at Higher-order Thinking “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” – Mark Van Doren

Principle: Engage Students at Higher-order Thinking Blooms Taxonomy

Principle: Authentic Assessment “The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think” – John Dewey “The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done.” – Jean Piaget

Principle: Authentic Assessment Variety of Assessment Methods

Principle: Authentic Assessment Minimize High-stakes Assessments

Principle: Authentic Assessment Alternatives to Tests

Principle: Authentic Assessment Use Rubrics Whenever Possible

Principle: Authentic Assessment Regularity of Due Dates

Principle: Clarity of Process “Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” – A. A. Milne

Principle: Clarity of Process Navigation

Principle: Clarity of Process Routine/Organization

Principle: Clarity of Process Weekly Overviews

Principle: Student Autonomy “A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” – Thomas Carruthers

Principle: Student Autonomy Individualization in Activities

Principle: Student Autonomy Multiple options for Activities and Assessments

Principle: Student Autonomy Self- and Peer-grading

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles “Design is about choices and intentions, it is not accidental. Design is about process. The end user will usually not notice ‘the design of it.’ It may seem like it just works, assuming they think about it at all, but this ease-of-use (or ease-of-understanding) is not by accident, it’s a result of your careful choices and decisions.” – Garr Reynolds

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles If it can be embedded, it should be embedded.

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles Order of power: Video-Image-Audio-Text

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles Content Blocking

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles Contrast

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles Fonts Design professionals such as Robin Williams and Garr Reynolds argue that any design should contain no more than two fonts. Furthermore, those fonts should be of contrasting type. For example, if your primary font is a serif font (has those little hats and feet), your secondary font should be a sans serif font (without those little hats and feet). Using an Ariel font with a Calibri front causes discomfort for the reader because both are sans serif fonts. The same is true if you use a Times New Roman font with a Book Antiqua font because both are serif fonts.

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles Alignment

Principle: Online Presentation Design Principles Color

Conclusion “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

Best Practices in Course Development and Instructional Design Jonan Donaldson