MDDE 604, my sixth course, was largely a hands-on course where I had many opportunities to draw on my prior knowledge and skills that I gained in the Program. For example, in Assignment 1, I carried out the first stages of instructional system design process, which involved a needs assessment and proposal writing. In the needs assessment, I identified a problem relating to what the Standardization of Power Engineer Examinations Committee (SOPEEC) does not have in its syllabi but the operating engineers need to know when working in the Industry: basic understanding of how computers work.

“Engineers today, need to be fully conversant with the principals of modern Distributed Control Systems technologies and also have the knowledge and ability to troubleshoot and carry out repairs to these computer-based networked instrumentation and control systems.”
MDDE 604 Assignment 1

Next I looked into several models including problem, discrepancy and innovation models and I found the innovation model the most appropriate for this project as it could address the changes in the field of power engineering.

In the proposal section, I utilized systems theory to analyze the characteristics of the learning/teaching environment. This step was important for me, in that, it allowed me to better understand the various layers of the environment however, I now think that I did not employ a deep critical analysis.

Assignment 2 was challenging for two reasons. First, due to the controversies relating to writing behavioral objectives and second, the task of writing learning objectives. Some educators believe that writing detailed statements of learning outcome leads to lower levels of learning; there are studies suggesting no significant differences between courses with and without learning objectives (see page 2 in the supporting file). However, behavioral objectives are widely accepted as a necessary component of the instructional design process and the challenge is how specific or general the objectives should be.

Given the task of writing learning objectives, I was tempted to over-analyze the unit of instruction and ended up writing 3 learning goals comprising 10 corresponding learning objectives. My professor commented¹:

“Personally, I would just have one learning goal and lump these together”

and warned:

“The level of analysis should be comfortable and logical – too much analysis and you end up with too many nitty gritty objectives and courses end up being overstuffed with content, and over evaluated – drives both students and learners bonkers”.

I think these temptations were due to my aspirations to put what I had been learning in 604 and courses that came before it to work. For example incorporating learning goals in three domains (i.e. cognitive, psychomotor and affective) and matching them with appropriate learning activities was important for me.  A detailed account of LO development is presented in the main supporting file under “File(s) to Download” section.

¹:Permission to use this graded assignment as artefact was received by email on 11/25/2010.