Instructional Design Model: CAFE

Charles Xiaoxue Wang, Ph.D.

Professor of Educational Technology

Florida Gulf Coast University

The impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic on schools and universities are massive. Teachers are working hard to transform their classes into a virtual platform while simultaneously seeking a practical way to complete this daunting task. In addition to many well-known instructional design models, such as ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) (Branch, 2009), ASSURE by Smaldino, Russell, Heinich, &; Molenda, (2008), Systematic Design of Instruction by Dick and Carey (2001), and Morrison, Ross, and Kemp Model (2010), I would like to offer you a simple one called CAFE.

CAFE is a simple instructional design model to assist you with transforming the classroom-based classes into “emergency remote teaching” ones (Hodges, et al., 2020). The assumptions are that you clearly understand your students, their learning needs, available technology and resources for learning at home and your instructional contents. CAFE offers some crucial considerations that guide you through from designing learning contents through evaluating your students’ learning in a remote virtual setting.

Figure 1: CAFE for Design Online Remote Teaching

Below is a brief explanation of the CAFE instructional design model.

Content

Organize your instructional content in a systematic way. You have four levels of content – Course, Module, Lesson, and Activities - you need to consider in this step as illustrated below.

Figure 2: Content Organization

• Course Level: Check your course content against your program requirements and standards. Make sure that they are well aligned with your program requirements and standards.

• Module Level: Organize your instructional contents for the semester into a weekly module. Give a title to each module and write out its instructional goals.

• Lesson Level: Identify the learning contents for each module first. You might have several instructional units or lessons within each module. Write out the title of each lesson for each module and list of learning outcomes/objectives you want to achieve.

• Activity Level: List out all the needed materials for the lesson. This includes reading materials such as textbook chapters, activities, instructions on how to perform tasks in your remote class, assignments, project explanations, technological or other types of tools needed.

Have consistent expectations (repetitive structure) each week in the development of your instructional content. This will assist the K-12 students with developing a routine and engage in learning with less confusion.

Activities

Activities here refer to those organized learning efforts to help your students achieve learning objectives/outcomes you set up for your students. They can be a collaborative project, individual assignments, tests and quizzes, discussions, online explorations for problem solving. Organize your thoughts according to (1) Prior to the Activities, (2) During Activities, and (3) Post Activities.

Figure 3: Activities for Learning

Here are a few more considerations when you locate activities online or design and develop learning activities.

• If the learning activities are found online, make sure they are adapted to your own classroom situations and check for accessibility to make them compliant with ADA for students with disabilities.

• If you design and develop your own activities, ask a student to read your instructions to ensure they are clearly written. This will save you a lot of trouble down the road.

• When requiring students to complete a task that involves the use of a new platform, model the learning and provide examples for students.

• When setting activities up in a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Canvas, be sure to test them before launching. It is also very important to make them ADA compliant. There might be some students with disabilities sitting in your online class.

There are a wide variety of learning activities that can be used in your lessons. Some commonly-used online activities include:

• Reflective Activities: Online discussions, writing a chapter summary, or writing an argument.

• Productive Activities: Creating a plan for online learning, sharing a piece of newly-composed music, a collaborative writing project, or recording a video talk to synthesize a book chapter.

• Synchronous Activities: Participating in a live class polling, and synchronous online discussion forums.

• Asynchronous Activities: Sharing personal understanding of a chapter through social media, hosting an asynchronous discussion forum, or a math problem solving assignment.

Facilitation

Over 30 years ago, Moore (1989) listed three types of interaction responsible for distance and online learning: (1) learner-content interaction, (2) learner-instructor interaction, and (3) learner-learner interaction. These types of interaction can also be applied in an emergency remote teaching situation. Providing appropriate scaffolding and clear guidance, offering needed tools and resources, and motivating students to engage in these three types of interaction to help your students to achieve pre-established learning objectives.

Figure 4: Learning Variables and Three Types of Interaction for Learning

Here are some tips or considerations for facilitating different types of interaction.

• Learner-Content Interaction: Use appropriate instructional materials in appropriate formats. It is easily said but not that easy to implement in an online class. Have a student proofread your materials or let them select material formats. If possible, offer your materials in multiple formats. Please consider adapting long reading materials into shorter sections to accommodate attention span for student learning at home. Also pay special attention to students with disabilities and make sure your online materials have gone through an ADA access check. Many LMSs have this function that you can use to check your materials online.

• Learner-Instructor Interaction: Establish regular communications with the class using text, audio, and video messages. Use virtual office hours to answer questions and to support student online learning. Set up a regular instructional time to monitor student learning and provide timely feedback and encouragement. In addition to using one-to-one communications with students, you can use one-to-group (e.g. group emails) and one-to-class communication (e.g. class announcements) to increase your communication efficiency. Change your communication formats occasionally and use more audio and video messages in addition to texts. These efforts will increase the teaching (social, cognitive, emotional) presence in your online classes.

• Learner-Learner Interaction: Create learning groups and encourage student collaboration. Embrace student differences in class. Ask some students to take a leadership role in learning so that they can learn from and help each other in your online class. Use learner-content interaction as a preparation for learner-learner interaction to ensure they read before sharing their thoughts and understanding in later discussions. Although this type of interaction is just between learners, you need to closely monitor it and frequently offer advice to some students whenever necessary. This ties closely to learner-instructor interaction as well.

For K-12, parent involvement is key here. Assist parents and offer them helpful hints and resources. In addition, perhaps provide training to encourage them to become your co-teachers at home.

Evaluation

Evaluation of online learning can be challenging for many of us in an emergency remote teaching situation. Use multiple sources of data to evaluate student learning holistically is highly recommended.

Figure 5: Holistic Evaluation Data Sources