Sub-Badge 2: Target population and environment

Challenge: Determine characteristics of a target population and/or environment that may impact the design and delivery of instruction

Criteria for successful completion of this challenge: Evidence of assessing, testing, or surveying a population or environment in part of a learner or content analysis. Evidence must show data collection methods (such as survey, interview, observation, research or other data).  Reflection must address: How you collected your data, determined the characteristics of your target population, and how these characteristics impacted your design choices (cultural and educational background, learner skills, organizational performance factors, environmental characteristics, etc.).  

Examples: Conducting a learner or content analysis by survey, observation, inspection, study, interview, EDCI 572 Design Documents, Artifacts from EDCI 573 Practicum, Project Plan (EDCI 569 if taken in Spring 2021 or later), evidence based on the above criteria (design, performance, workplace, educational, other). 

Reflection

In this challenge, I have determined characteristics of a target population and/or environment that may impact the design and delivery of instruction. The artifact I am using to showcase this competency is the 2nd part of the Design document created for EDCI 572, in which we used the Dick & Carey Model of Instructional Design to develop a fully functional learning module. My module was a yoga teacher training workshop to help new yoga teachers design safe and effective yoga classes using a particular method I created called the Class Blocking Methodology. This artifact covers the Learner Analysis, Learning Context, Performance Context, Assessment Plan, & Performance Objectives for the learning module, and therefore is evidence of my ability to assess a population in order to determine effective learning strategies.

Ability to understand a target population and/or environment is fundamental to instructional design. What separates the field of instructional design from other education sub-fields is that learners are at the center of most ID models for a reason—because they are the targets of the instruction that is being so painstakingly designed for them. We must take necessary steps to understand our target populations so that what we design for them will be relevant, ethical, and equitable. This artifact demonstrates the competency because I perform all necessary steps within the very elaborate Dick & Carey Model in order to properly understand my target audience.

Prior to EDCI 572, I had not done a fully-fledged learner analysis before. I have taught college-level writing for many years and have gained knowledge about my target population over the years through exposure to the population and due to trial and error. Therefore, when given the opportunity to dig more deeply into the target population and environment through the Dick & Carey Model, I was able to more fully realize my ability to understand more nuanced aspects of my target audience. For instance, in completing the Performance Context section of the design document, I realized that the performance environment for my workshop actually did not need to be in a yoga studio, despite the workshop pertaining to yoga teachers. Because my learners for the workshop would be learning how to design a class (not teach it), then any environment where they would design a class (sitting at their kitchen table, at work, at a park, or at a yoga studio) would suffice. This information informs decisions for how to best approach the learning scenario, and it was invaluable to my holistic understanding of how to make this workshop effective for my target population. If I had known how to do this when I first started teaching college writing, I am sure I would have done a better job addressing the subtleties across a spectrum of needs for students. Now, I will take this information and do everything I can to make sure I am completing adequate learner analysis and performance context analyses for my projects.

Because the EDCI 572 workshop project was such a large endeavor and had so many parts to it, since we were following the Dick & Carey Model, this particular section (Design Document 2) fits very well to showcase my competency in these areas. The only thing I would have done differently is sent out a more formal survey to all the yoga teachers in my area, if I had more time, in order to get an even better set of data to use. That would have taken too much time given what we had to work with in our 8-week course. Because of the time constraints of the class, informal interviews with a smaller cohort of yoga teachers were the primary source of information for the Learner Analysis. I will continue developing this competency in the profession by making sure I am always incorporating this step in the design of my learning experiences even if the elaborate Dick & Carey Model isn’t the standard by which I am going. You learn so much by reflecting on and analyzing your audience and the context in which they will be practicing what you are teaching them; it seems so obvious, but as an educator for many years, most of us have just done what we can to get by. Now that I am in instructional design, I know better, and I will do better with all I design.

Artifact

The Design Document showcasing all aspects of this competency have been met.