View 4 | Designing in Action - MDDE 604

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Overview

This VIEW displays my use of Moodle to create an online version of a course I have taught face-to-face for several years. This is the second VIEW I've created with the goal of demonstrating my program interest in curriculum design.

In writing this assignment, I believe I have touched upon the following MDE competencies:

1. Problem Solving, Analysis, & Decision Making

1.1. Recognize problems.
1.2. Define the aspects of problems.
1.5. Evaluate the relevance of information for a given situation.
1.6. Compare alternatives.
1.7. Make reasoned arguments leading to rational solutions.
1.8. Justify these solutions.
1.9. Present them to others.
1.11. Adapt solutions to suit varied situations.

2. Instructional Design & Development

2.2. Apply systems theory and systems analysis techniques to instructional design situations in distance education.
2.3. Describe and apply a range of learning and motivational theories to instructional design situations in distance education.
2.5. Develop instructional products or learning objects in distance education.
2.7. Apply instructional design principles and models in distance education, in your workplace, or in other instructional contexts.

3. Communication Technologies and Networking

3.1. Use a variety of communication and document sharing tools to create, reflect, and communicate with others.
3.3. Justify the applications of these technologies in real-life contexts on the basis of theory and research.
3.5. Apply these technologies in distance education and in real-life instructional contexts.

4. Communication & Interpersonal Skills

4.1. Write clearly and in a style appropriate to purpose (e.g. assignments, essays, published documents, and theses).
4.3. Justify and defend your ideas orally and in writing in meetings, forums, seminars, exams and other contexts.
4.4. Support the learning of others when involved in teaching, mentoring, moderating, or demonstration activities.
4.5. Participate effectively in collaborative group activities.
4.7. Work cooperatively with diverse groups and individuals both within the university and/or in the workplace.
4.8. Organize, and convey your ideas effectively through a range of communication skills and work collaboratively and in teams.

6. Management, Organization and Leadership

6.5. Manage workload, other commitments, and information needs within time and structural constraints (in both personal and team management situations).


Reflection on Competencies

This project required a lot of work. Primarily, outlining the idea for my course, then creating the content, including the instructional materials, the quizzes and assignments, and the graphics. It is the culmination of dozens of hours of writing and creating.

The proposal itself meant identifying learning goals, types of learning involved, objectives, instructional strategies and assessment strategies (2.2, 2.3). That initial work was a fair bit of reflection and writing (4.1). Then came the need to start creating content. Of course, some of this content came from materials I'd created over the years that I'd taught the course at my current job, but a lot of those materials still had to be adjusted or re-thought for the Moodle format. As I was taking this course alongside another (MDDE 614), I had to manage my time carefully (6.5).

What's more, the process wasn't as straightforward as one might imagine. I had to whittle down 18 weeks of material into what was suppose to be 3 hours or so of instruction. That meant carefully considering the process of TEM 4 writing and deciding what would and wouldn't be absolutely necessary to do it. A lot of important information was deemed 'not important enough', and simply didn't make the cut (1.1, 1.2, 1.5 – 1.7, 1.11). Likewise, I had to decide whether to incorporate the suggested changes I received from my student-reviewer. What's more, I had to offer suggested changes in return, and this required a fair bit of tact, so as to be useful while remain polite and constructive (4.4, 4.5, 4.7, 4.8). Through the use of the right communication tools, I believe we both found the experience rewarding (1.8, 1.9, 3.1, 3.3, 3.5, 4.3).

Overall, I feel I met my goal of creating a course that is useful, interactive, differentiated, accessible to its target audience, and supportive. Its usefulness lied in the fact that the TEM 4 exam was a real-world examination that all my writing students eventually faced, and the course as outlined offered one possible way of passing the writing component of the exam. Meanwhile, the interaction I hoped for was achieved through the use of forums, and the differentiation was offered through the use of outside content for aide and the use of further topics for practice. Students could therefore access the course with a wide range on incoming competencies. Finally, the supportive aspect of the course was offered both through the interaction with peers and the required feedback process, as well as through the use of positive language and reassuring advice throughout. All in all, I feel the result was an excellent course (2.5, 2.7).

Theory Into Practice

After discovering a love of curriculum design while working on my theory of practice paper for MDDE 603, outlined in my third VIEW, MDDE 604 became the logical place for me to show off some of my design skills and demonstrate some of my theory of practice in action.

And so I was given the chance to design a sample course using the platform of my choice (provided it was approved by the instructor). Being a proponent of open-source software solutions, I jumped upon the chance to use Moodle for my design, and began familiarizing myself with its functions.

Furthermore, having the choice of content, I decided to continue on the topic of my writing classes. This gave my designed course a nice continuity from my theory of practice paper from MDDE 603, and also allowed me to continue in an area where I feel most comfortable teaching, and which is most relevant to the students I teach.

While this was not a group project, I feel I should mention that giving feedback to and receiving feedback from a classmate was a part of the design process, so the content I created was tweaked before being displayed on-line. The most challenging aspect of this feedback process was remaining tactful while still being honest. It proved challenging in formal writing, but my teammate and I managed to use synchronous chat to make the process less stressful. All in all, I was happy with the feedback I gave and received, and feel as though the finished design incorporated the suggested changes while still reflecting my personal theory of practice very well.

Specifically, I tried to create as many opportunities as possible for students to review each others' work and to discuss their writing process in small groups. I did this through the use of forums and team exercises, and feel the final result is exactly as I'd hoped. I also made sure to offer further resources for students who needed extra help or who might be curious about aspects of writing not covered in the design. Lastly, I included extra writing topics at the end of the design for students who might be interested in further practice to sharpen their skills.

Also of note: While it was not required that I create graphics for the design, I felt that, to make the finished product as appealing as possible to the intended students, tables and graphics should be used when beneficial, and a few added niceties (such as the Course Logo on the homepage) could be included to make the design eye-catching. I designed all the graphics using open-source solutions, namely the GIMP image editor and OpenOffice Presentation for the charts and graphs.

Going forward, I have recently convinced my current employer to deploy Moodle on the campus network, and have become the sole administrator (and user, for now) of the system. I am using it to design content for incoming foreign teachers, who have complained in the past of feeling lost when first arriving on campus from abroad. At the moment, the university does not allow courses to be delivered via Moodle, but I am also working on changing that policy.

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de
12 April 2016, 8:02 PM
de
05 May 2016, 6:38 AM
Letz
09 May 2016, 5:20 PM
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