Introduction

In this unit we were introduced to Allen's (2007) 3M's (meaningful, memorable, motivational). Allen discusses four important components of any lesson (context, challenge, activity and feedback) and ways to design those components to make the lesson meaningful, memorable and motivational. While I am always trying to create effective web-based activities for my students, the concept of the 3M's gave me a framework through which I could better organize my thoughts and considerations.

The artifact I created is a rubric that can be used to evaluate a lesson during or after it's creation in order to determine how meaningful, memorable and motivational each component is. I have also included a cheat sheet that outlines strategies given by Allen to improve the lesson design.

Artifact

Reflection

When reading Allen's Designing successful e-learning (2007), I started to think about the activities I assign my students (both web based on classroom based). Were my activities meaningful, memorable and motivational? Did I put enough consideration into developing effective contexts, challenges, activities and provide quality feedback? Allen provided a great deal of suggestions on how to do this but the sheer volume of information was a bit overwhelming.

I created a table to take notes when reading so I would have an organized list of suggestions. That table quickly turned into the rubric I've presented above. I started to use the rubric, to evaluate some of my current lessons and then to make minor and major adjustments based on strategies outlines. Below is a copy of a lesson that I evaluated along with the completed rubric. I used the colors red, yellow and green to indicate where I am lacking, where I could use some improvement and where I am being successful.

After using this rubric to improve upon some of my pre-existing lessons, I decided to use it as a framework when developing new lessons. It allowed me to plan out my activities within a table first, making sure I included as many of Allen's elements as possible.

I think that it is important to have some sort of structure when developing lessons and activities so that we can ensure we are not missing key elements that can make the lessons more effective and engaging.

Resources

Allen, M. W. (2007). Designing successful e-learning: forget what you know about instructional design and do something interesting. San Francisco, Calif: Pfeiffer.