Jansie Villanueva, PharmD PGY-1 Pharmacy Resident MedStar Montgomery Medical Center
In the last several years, virtual education has been an evolving and prominent part of our lives. Although online learning is a natural part of education today, the concept of distance learning was born with correspondence colleges in the mid nineteenth century. Utilizing the newly developed U.S. postal service, students were encouraged to partake in instruction delivered to the student and returned to professors. In 1873, the “Society to Encourage Home Studies” was established as the first correspondence education program in Boston, Massachusetts. “The Channel That Changes You” was offered in 1953 as the first program to offer televised classes on public television. Notably, the channel offered many televised courses in the evening to allow for working individuals to participate in distance learning. In 1989, the University of Phoenix launched their online institution for higher learning.1 As technology continues to evolve and expand, virtual learning continues to grow in popularity and complexity.
Virtual
learning’s intended purpose was for intermittent instruction but has become an
answer to educating students throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Intermittent instruction through online modalities and long-term online
education share many similarities, including the need for a systematic approach
for instructional design to deliver effective and engaging content. Although online learning provides an
opportunity to further one’s education while tending to other responsibilities,
the quality of online programs is varied.
Instructors spend a large amount of time planning and developing content
for in-person lectures, but the development of online courses requires a
different kind of instructional design, combined with tried-and-true methods. Farmer and colleagues have developed three
sequential learning modules to facilitate better design and development of
virtual learning experiences with a focus on ‘design judgement’. 2 Both
deliberate and unconscious thinking processes contribute to design judgement
and can be applied to the three steps in the development of virtual learning
experiences.
Design
judgements are described as “deliberate and unconscious thinking processes
experienced by designers in the design and development of learning experiences”.2 Design judgements occur throughout the design
process and into the implementation of virtual learning experiences. Although
some schools had adopted virtual learning procedures prior to the COVID-19
pandemic, professional development and special training was not mandated prior
to implementing a virtual learning program. The learning modules that Farmer
and their group have described are focused on design judgements throughout the
processes of preparation, design, and facilitation of material. This process of
instructional design for virtual learning programs facilitates the development
of a more effective design vetted for challenges that can be anticipated, as
well as those that cannot.
Module 1:
Preparation
Module 1 is
focused on the development of policies and expectations that can then be
communicated to students and/or families. Instructors should explore the challenges
that may affect their learning plan and develop solutions or methods to
circumvent these challenges. This module
closely aligns with the first step in the ADDIE training system, in which an
instructor should analyze the audience and what prerequisites the students must
have for success and allow for review as necessary.3 The instructor should also analyze what
technology is available to each learner and the feasibility of the chosen
technology. Further analysis should be
made in methods to communicate procedure and policy to learners. Instructors
may use ‘appreciative judgement’ to prioritize the concerns and principles that
are of most importance. Instructors should also use ‘instrumental judgement’ to
determine what technological tools will be used and in what ratio to other
methods of learning. Care must be taken
to ensure that the tools chosen are easy for students to obtain and utilize.
Finally, ‘default judgements’ are made instinctually and without conscious
deliberation.2 Many instructors choose the type of
technological tools that they are familiar with and do not consider other tools
of the same variety. Challenges in
delivery may be uncovered that can often be solved by choosing to use different
tools. Once analysis is made to uncover
needs and goals of learners as well as appropriate instructional tools, instructors
may move into Module 2.
Module 2:
Designing
Instructors
use their established procedures and expectations to develop instructional
objectives and connect both content and learner activities to drive goals. This
module closely aligns with the design and development steps of the ADDIE
training system. Instructors may choose
to incorporate analysis as they uncover strengths and weaknesses of their
chosen delivery method. Instructors will also use ‘connective judgements’ to
ensure that activities, tools, and teaching methods are designed to connect the
goals and objectives of the course to the needs of the students. 2
Teachers in this module are encouraged to use Merrill’s 5 Principles of
Instruction: demonstration, application, activation, integration, and engagement.
4 Instructors completing module 2 are encouraged
to solicit feedback from a colleague regarding their designed lesson and adjust
accordingly.
Module 3:
Facilitating eLearning
The
instructor is now preparing to deliver their lesson plans and explore
challenges that they may experience with a variety of student populations and
prior experience with technology. These issues may not have been considered
earlier and will need to have solutions in order to move forward. More instrumental
judgement may be necessary to ensure appropriate tools for the variety of
learners and compositional judgements can now be considered to consider the cohesiveness
of the elements of the design. This may be an opportunity for instructors to
become comfortable with new tools. Teachers who have more experience with
technology feel more confident about virtual learning, in general. 2 Finally, instructors will need to use more
analysis and navigational judgement as they consider unpredictable scenarios and
adapt their lesson plan to account for challenges. Many times, navigational
judgements must be made in response to a challenge during instruction, so
having a plan is beneficial.
The
implementation of instructional design is seldom a straight path, but if a
systematic approach is taken, there may be fewer excursions and challenges
during delivery of instruction. Farmer’s
modules are an approach to instructional design to analyze audience, content,
and needs and align these initial considerations with tools and delivery to
work toward a common goal. Both
intrinsic and intentional judgements are considered in developing content to
anticipate challenges and provide solutions before instruction is interrupted. Overall, instructional design is a complex and
unpredictable process and must be met with cycles of analysis and judgement.
References:
1. Visual Academy, (2022). The History of
Online Schooling. [online] OnlineSchools.org. Available at:
<https://www.onlineschools.org/visual-academy/the-history-of-online-schooling/>
[Accessed 19 September 2022].
2. Farmer, T. and Koehler, A., (2022). Design
Judgments in the Creation of eLearning Modules. Journal of Formative
Design in Learning, 6(1), pp.1-12.
3. Allen, W., (2006). Overview and Evolution of the
ADDIE Training System. Advances in Developing Human Resources,
8(4), pp.430-441.
4. Pappas, C., (2022). Merrill's Principles Of
Instruction: The Definitive Guide. [online] eLearning Industry.
Available at:
<https://elearningindustry.com/merrills-principles-instruction-definitive-guide>
[Accessed 23 September 2022].
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