Sub-Badge 2: Applying ID Research & Theory

Challenge: Apply systems thinking to instructional design and performance improvement projects. 

Criteria for successful completion of this challenge: Evidence that shows the breakdown of the design process into individualized pieces and analyzing each section in order to see how each piece interacts with other pieces.  Reflection must address: Explain how you broke down the design process (ADDIE, Kirkpatrick, ARCs Model, Universal Backward Design, etc.) and utilized individual pieces to make your recommendations.     

Examples: Case studies (EDCI 672), Design Documents (EDCI 588), Final Projects (EDCI 572, EDCI 577, EDCI 528), other evidence showing systems thinking to ID and performance projects (design, performance, workplace, educational, other).

Reflection

This competency asks for a demonstration of breaking down the design process into individual pieces and analyzing each section to ensure true synthesis amongst all parts. The artifact that I have chosen is the final, instructor-graded Design Document from EDCI 572. In this course, we followed the Dick & Carey model of instructional design to create a workshop of our choice. Because of my background as a yoga teacher, and the fact that I had informally taught this material, I decided to fully develop a workshop using Dick & Carey on the topic of designing a yoga class from scratch using my Class Blocking Methodology. The artifact demonstrates the full Dick & Carey model in action.

Considering all instructional design projects should include some sort of methodological approach that is situated in validated ID processes, demonstrating a fully fleshed-out learning experience that follows one of these design processes is integral to one’s success in this field. The Design Document artifact demonstrates all of the following expected, requisite parts of the Dick & Carey model, and therefore demonstrates my ability to fully design a learning experience using this ID process.  

·       Subject-matter approach is stated and validated.

·       Need Gap Analysis is performed.

·       Instructional Goal is identified.

·       Goal Analysis Diagram is completed, including inclusion of Entry Skills.

·       A Learner Analysis is performed.

·       The Learning Context is evaluated.

·       The Performance Context is evaluated.

·       An Assessment Plan is established.

·       Performance Objectives and their respective Subordinate Objectives are written.

·       A Design Evaluation Chart is completed, including lining up all performance objectives with their parallel test items.

·       An Instructional Strategy Alignment analysis is done, ensuring objectives, content, and student participation is adequate across all learning clusters.

·       An Implementation Plan is included.

·       An Evaluation Plan is included, including a list of all assessments.

My prior knowledge as a university English teacher who has worked with instructional designers in the past greatly informed my ability to create a learning experience using the Dick & Carey model of instructional design. Though I had never written out such a detailed level of justifications for my curricular choices, and certainly not for each of the categories listed above, I have had the benefit of addressing some of these categories in my time working with instructional designers, so this design document demonstrates both a truly new experience for me (in the full-write up sense), and one that is grounded in an otherwise decent, prior understanding of things like performance objectives and assessments, especially. I certainly wish I had known about this full model at any point in my teaching past. For example, in designing critical thinking and reading comprehension lessons for my English classes, I can see how this approach would be helpful, especially when considering the diversity of learners and how to approach those lessons a little more effectively.  Working with an instructional designer truly expanded my teaching practice, but we never got too deep into a method like this; instead, we worked on individual parts like improving assessments. Now that I have the full picture, I can see much better how to fully implement this type of model on an ongoing basis. Dick & Carey is a rather complex model to use, and appears to be one that is best suited for learning experience that do, in fact, need significant justification for the design choices, so I am confident that whenever I am in that scenario in the future, I will practice the Dick & Carey model, or others, with ease.

This artifact demonstrates breaking down the design process into individual steps, and analyzing how they all work together for the whole. Each step builds on the last and contributes to the next! I have learned a lot from this experience—taking a topic I’ve informally taught before and really “beefing” it up using Dick & Carey! I would not change anything about my experience using the Dick & Carey model. I am so proud of how well this project turned out—from inception to design to pilot test to final evaluation by my professor. I can’t wait to get my feet wet designing other learning experiences using other ID processes. Because I designed this in my first semester, and later found out EDCI 572 is one of the hardest courses of the program, I am left feeling very confident that I am a capable and knowledgeable instructional designer already, and I will continue learning, growing, and expanding my repertoire!