Philosophy.... More Thoughts

My design philosophy and process has been influenced by a number of things including studies during my tenure as a graduate student in music education, the mission of the department at UNCG where I currently work (DCL), my creative side, my admiration for socializing [more later], my anal retentive nature, etc., etc., etc. For example, as I mentioned in response to one of Lauren's blog entries,
at DCL, one of our Dean's missions is to have faculty design instruction that challenges students to think critically. Moreover, while in graduate school, I took several classes taught by advocates of constructivism and student-centered learning--two arenas of education that distance themselves far from the tired direct instruction-knowledge spitback cycle.

I strongly believe that design should grow from an analysis of what the ultimate learning goals are--what do you want your students to remember a month from now? 5 years from now? 10 years from now? And, as Dr. King, suggested in his week two narrated slideshow presentation, the "what" (content) is often already set, but it is the job of the designer to worry more about the "how" (the structure of design and delivery). I also think that design should be based on a desire to deliver instructional content and design learning situations that can appeal to a variety of student learner types. One of the slides in Dr. King's week two narrated slideshow presented the "formula" audience + content + structure = instruction and indicated that most of our work would be concentrated on the structure part of the formula. Yes, there's not much we can do about the audience; however, hopefully, within our design (whether for face-to-face or online instruction), we can build in ways for all students to succeed and learn. This is important in terms of assessment--I believe that a number of different types of assessments should be considered as part of a course design (some students do better with essays than others... while other students might do better with authentic types of assessments like portfolios... and, yes, [egads!] some students are more successful with multiple-choice exams). Another audience consideration that I feel is very important is accessibility. This is not just important for online courses but for face-to-face courses as well. I mean, have you ever sat on the back row in a classroom and tried to interpret a PowerPoint presentation where the typeface was much too small to be seen from the back row... or the background color did not complement the text color, so everything just blurred together?