Blog #1 Reflection

What do I currently know about instructional design, working on teams, and working with community partners that will help me succeed in this course?



After reading Chap 1 of Instructional Design, I have got a clear clue about many concepts. The reason why I was not fully aware of these concepts was, in the past time, I was designed as a learner. Yet when I stepped out of myself and looked at myself from an instructional designer’s angle, things become distinct.


Instructional design is a systematic development of instructional specifications using learning theory to ensure the quality of instruction. It also has a close relation to planning. Instructional design is like a translator, translating instructional principles to plans for activities, goals, evaluation. When we begin a process of instructional design, we need to think about the goals of the instruction, the instructional strategy, the result of the task, how to evaluate the task and how to revise the materials to make it better. They can equally be expressed by three activities: analysis, strategy development and evaluation. They are the essence of most instructional design models.

There are several advantages of using instructional design. When a designer designs the instruction, he/she needs to stand in the learners’ shoes. So it could be easier for designer to receive sympathetic response from learners. Also the process of design focuses on effectiveness and efficiency, coordination among designers and developer, dissemination, development of alternative delivery and congruence, which could be a great help for learner. However we cannot turn a blind eye to its limitation. When learning goals cannot be indentified in advance or no particular goals are ever identified, instructional design is not applicable.


Working on team and working with community partners could be a great help for me to succeed in the course. Just as the saying goes, “Many heads are better than one”. Our society is a stratified one, so people from different walks may offer different opinions on the same task. Particularly in a team or in a community, people adopt various methods to achieve a same goal. Therefore, multi-understanding is critical in a team. I need to construct my ideas on an overall horizon, rather than insisting on my own originality. I think my experience has taught me how to be a team member. And I definitely believe the power of a team.



What will I need to learn as I work on the project?


I think working on the project could offer me a vivid example of instructional design. Totally participating in the project could help me understand the concepts of instructional design, the components of ID, how these components relate to each other. Also as to the specific project, I think I will learn to find out/represent the problems, generate and select the solutions, evaluate if the solution could work, and revise the solution.


What do I expect to get out of this course?

There are some objectives for me to achieve:
1) Know the basic concepts, theories and principles of ID.
2) Use what I learned to analyze the real case.
3) Be able to apply what I learn into a real instructional design in future.
4) Use the textbook as a guide book to help me see the forests despite trees :>)