Supra Badge Reflection

Overall Importance

In reality, no one phase of the instructional design process is more important than the other because they all play a pivotal role in the success of a project, but the design and development phase can certainly set a project up for success or failure if the instructional designer doesn’t know what she is doing. Because I have been a student myself for many years, as well as a teacher and a tutor, I have seen and personally experienced so many learning experiences that were designed well and designed poorly, including some that were developed in a modality that didn’t really fit the expectations of learners or the learning environment, or maybe even didn’t hit benchmarks established by the organization.  The problem, of course, is that not all learning experiences are designed and developed by a trained instructional designer, and most curricula in school settings at least (which is my background, in higher education) are designed and developed by incredibly busy people who are just doing their best with the time and resources they have. This is why we need qualified instructional designers to help offset this burden and help teachers and faculty to maximize their learning outcomes and student engagement through the effective design and development of learning experiences.

Achievements within the Sub-Badges

Instructional Design & Development Process

One of the most impactful courses I took in this program was EDCI 577 (Program Evaluation). I can see now how incredibly important it is to look ahead to the evaluation phase and include a broad awareness of evaluation best practices in the design and development phase. Learning about Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Program Evaluation model reinforced what I had begun learning years ago when I designed an assessment plan for my student services office. Had I known more then, like I know now, I’m sure I would have done an even better job. In EDCI 577, I had the opportunity to work with my partner, Ritika Bhargo Chari, to design an evaluation plan for my actual job in a breast cancer education and support program at a hospital system. The ability to work on this particular project has monumentally affected my understanding of the role of evaluation in the design and development phase because we successfully created a robust evaluation plan for an actual program that exists in the world. 

Systematic Design

All of instructional design is systematic; it just depends on the ID model the person wants to use. It can be as elaborate as Dick & Carey or as generic as ADDIE. For this competency, I was able to showcase my Design Document that outlined all of the major elements of the design of my e-Learning module on Preparing Yourself for Breast Cancer Surgery. Since this course, and the creation of a streamlined Design Document such as this, I have been able to succinctly design and develop the plan for my practicum project in EDCI 573. Each thing I have learned and each piece I have created in Purdue’s MSEd program in LDT has built upon itself to set me up for success for the next project. I now have the confidence to design and develop a project with a solid base that has been validated by specialized faculty.

Design Instructional Interventions

Not everyone likes to deal with theoretical components. They can be overly lofty ideas that lack practical application in the real world. But in EDCI 531, I challenged myself to take something I know a lot about (the teaching of college writing) and identify ways someone could incorporate the following theories into the writing classroom: Behaviorism, Social Cognitive Theory, Cognitive Information Processing, Gagné’s Theory of Instruction, Cognitive Learning Processes, and Constructivism. This was not easy because most people just do the same-old thing in their classrooms, but because I have worked with an instructional designer to learn to do things like flip my classroom, improve metacognition, and design scaffolded assignments that built knowledge across assignments, I was very comfortable with the task. Though it required quite a lot of brain power to frame so many different types of assignments around all of those theories, I have grown enormously in my ability to create practical ways to integrate learning theories into the design and development of my own projects, including my practicum project which intentionally uses Constructivism and Cognitive Learning Process theory.

Lastly, in contemporary instructional design circles, professionals must learn to use a variety of digital authoring tools, and I am very pleased with my ability to teach myself how to develop in Adobe Captivate during this program. I plan to commit to an Adobe Captivate certification after graduation so that I build on my skills and set myself up for more success on the job market.

Select or Modify Existing Instructional Materials

I am very pleased with my inclusion of a real-world integration of what I have learned in the MSEd LDT program through the use of an adaptation of what I designed with my partner, Ritika Bhargo Chari, in EDCI 577 (Program Evaluation). Learning about Kirkpatrick’s four levels model was integral to my understanding of how to effectively design and develop educational engagements in my job as the program coordinator of a breast cancer education program. The program evaluation we designed and developed directly affected my design and development of instructional materials (a reading worksheet and a PowerPoint presentation) as well as the post-program survey (in which I was able to incorporate Kirkpatrick’s Level 1 & 2 questions, as well as touching on Level 4). I was very deliberate in asking particular questions in the assessments when I adapted what we created for my breast cancer program into an actual learning experience for patients at my job.

Develop Instructional Materials

Because of my background as a college writing instructor, as the director of a university writing center, and as an academic services adjunct faculty member, I have developed so many instructional materials from course assignments, to in-person workshops, to professional development e-Learning modules, to an asynchronous video series. But my ability to develop instructional materials using an e-authoring tool like Adobe Captivate, did not begin until I started at Purdue. Since, I have designed two fully functioning Adobe Captivate e-Learning modules. I have grown exponentially in the Purdue MSEd LDT program in this regard, and my artifacts across my entire Portfolio reflect my ability to develop instructional materials in a variety of ways to be most effective for their intended purpose and for their intended learners and learning environment. My practicum project is the culmination of what I’ve learned in this regard.

Design Learning Assessment

My ability to design a learning assessment did not start when I started at Purdue, but it has certainly been amplified by what I have learned here. As I mentioned above, one of the most important courses I have taken was on Program Evaluation, and the knowledge I have gained by designing a full program evaluation plan for my day-job has been monumental for immediate real-world applicability of the LDT program’s relevance to my professional life. I have since taken and adapted several elements from that program evaluation and turned them into two things: a learning experience for patients, including a post-module survey that invoked Kirkpatrick’s model; and I have used it for a grant application for breast cancer patients where I had to describe our assessment plan for grant reporting. In both cases, I referenced what we designed in EDCI 577 in the design and development of those real-world elements.

ID Skills Gained & Applying What I’ve Learned in the ID Field

I’ve written a lot about program evaluation as part of the design and development phase because it truly is necessary if you want to create a quality learning experience that validates learner satisfaction and organizational benchmarks. I have gained immense skills in this area as a result of this program and in the design and development of the artifacts I have displayed here for review. I have taken my existing curriculum design experiences and built on them by using e-authoring tools like Adobe Captivate and in adapting existing materials for use in different ways. Effective design and development are not easy to accomplish, as we’ve all seen the good, the bad, and the ugly out in the world. For my part, I’m feeling confident about designing good, quality learning experiences thanks to what I’ve learned at Purdue.