MY INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IS GUIDED BY THESE KEY PRINCIPLES OF HOW PEOPLE LEARN:

• COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING: Account for how learners move new information from limited working memory into unlimited long-term memory.

• DESIGN THINKING: Empathize with the intended learners and what they should be doing - and then determine why they're not doing it. Is it a skill and/or knowledge gap? If so, then an e-LEARNING SOLUTION is appropriate.

• DICK & CAREY SYSTEMS MODEL: Given a knowledge and/or skill gap, what should learners be able to do? And why aren't they doing it? Based on this analysis, create the standard of evidence that will demonstrate the gap has been closed - the learning objective. What is it learners should be able to do? With the final assessment in place, ideate the learning activities, artifacts and interim-assessments - the instructional strategy - that will support the learner to excel at the final assessment, indicating the learning objective has been achieved.

• KIRKPATRICK MODEL: Keep the endpoint in mind - the desired results - and work backward. Based on the desired results (the learning objective, Level 4), what will learners need to do? To exhibit this desired behavior (Level 3), what skill or knowledge gap needs to be addressed? And to motivate them to give their attention to the learning experience and be motivated to learn (Level 2), what learning activities and artifacts would be most engaging to them (Level 1)?

  • Level 1: Reactions - How did learners like the learning experience?

  • Level 2: Learning - What did they learn?

  • Level 3: Behavior - Did learner behavior change?

  • Level 4: Results - What results were produced?

• LEARNER MOTIVATION: The ARCS Model - Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction - provides learners with ample opportunities to practice what they learn, which improves confidence and satisfaction by improving competence. Competence underlies my other favorite motivation model: SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY. When a learner grows in competence, is able to make their own choices and see the results of their choices (Autonomy), and understands how they fit into a relevant social structure (Relatedness), they become intrinsically motivated.

• MAYER'S MULTIMEDIA PRINCIPLES: Learning outcomes improve significantly when death-by-Powerpoint and walls of endless text are replaced with more visuals - including pictures, photographs, diagrams, flowcharts, animations, videos, concept maps, mind maps - to explain key ideas. People remember imagery far more than words. It's also best to avoid narration and text at the same time, as this combo of simply reading the words on a slide is boring and creates unnecessary cognitive load.

• GAGNE'S 9 EVENTS, MERRILL'S PRINCIPLES OF INSTRUCTION & KNOWLES' PRINCIPLES: A comprehensive set of checklists to ensure a learning experience is robust and effective.

  • Gain the learner's attention - the basic that underpins learning - using the power of story (at the doctor's and getting scary scan results) plus a mix of learning activities and artifacts.

  • Make sure learners can relate the new material to their lives so it feels relevant. Relevance not only helps focus the learner's attention, which is mandatory for learning to occur, but helps activate prior knowledge. Activating prior knowledge gives the learner a relevant and big-picture context for the new material. Lack of the big picture makes it difficult to understand new material, and even more difficult to remember it.

  • Accommodate the limited capacity of working memory by presenting the content in smaller pieces - ie. chunking or microlearning.

  • To learn new material and move it from limited working memory into long-term memory requires the learner to think about the meaning and importance of the new material, connect it with what they already know and believe. This process is called elaborative rehearsal and is the opposite of what happens when the learn sits passively watching an instructor talk or wading through a wall of text.

  • Scaffold ample opportunities to practice new learnings opportunities and pair it with immediate & meaningful feedback to facilitate long-term learning.

  • Help transfer & integrate what was learned into the job or real life - like a job aid or handy pdf so they remember it for the long-term rather than it falling victim to the Forgetting Curve, which can set in within a matter of days.

  • Provide many opportunities for refection. To be able to recall new material for the long term, a learner first has to hold it in working memory while thinking about it. Reflecting on the deeper meaning of new material and how it connects to what someone already knows or believes to be true is vital for learning. The process of reflection increases learner self-efficacy, particularly when combined with effective feedback. While pauses for reflection can be awkward in the traditional classroom, online is a different matter! Research-back questions for effective reflection include:

    • What is the most useful or valuable thing you learned?

    • What did you learn that surprised you? Why?

    • How will now incorporate what you've learned throughout this course in your daily life going forward?

REFERENCES:

• Andragogy in Action: Applying Modern Principles of Adult Learning (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1984) by Malcolm Knowles

• Applying Cognitive Science to Online Teaching and Learning Strategies, Ch.4, Online Teaching at Its Best : Merging Instructional Design with Teaching and Learning Research, (John Wiley & Sons, 2017) Nilson, Linda B. & Ludwika A. Goodson

• Cognitive Load Theory and Educational Technology (2019) by John Sweller https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-019-09701-3

• MAP IT: The Hands-On Guide to Strategic Training Design (Montesa Press, 2017) by Cathy Moore

• The eLearning Designer's Handbook (2020) by Tim Slade

• Employing Kirkpatrick's Evaluation Framework to Determine the Effectiveness of Health Information Management Courses and Programs https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3070232

• Scenario-Based e-Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Online Workforce Learning (Pfeiffer) by Ruth Colvin Clark

• The Development and Testing of an Online Scenario-Based Learning Activity to Prepare Preservice Teachers for Teaching placement, Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 104 (August 2021) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0742051X21001098

AN EXAMPLE OF HOW I APPLIED KEY INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES TO TURN THE BOOK "AGE LIKE A SUPERNOVA" INTO AN ENGAGING & EFFECTIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE:

AN APPROPRIATE SOLUTION:

• There is a knowledge gap: post-menopausal women don't understand why protein is so crucial in the fight against age-related muscle loss.

• There is a skill gap: these women don't know how to calculate their optimal protein, how to assess the quality of protein, and how to space out their protein meals.

PROVIDES A BIG PICTURE:

• The SBL-X transforms abstract and general principles of dietary protein and muscle-protein synthesis into a relatable story about a post-menopausal woman getting her muscle scans results from the doctor, who shares how it could impact the rest of her life with everything from diabetes to hypertension to Alzheimer's.

ATTENTION, ACTIVATION OF PRIOR KNOWLEDGE & RELEVANCE:

• Each decision point in the SBL-X demonstrates the real-world consequences of ignoring protein as a post-menopausal woman. These real word outcomes create a relevant context onto which the remainder of the learning experience is scaffolded.

HARNESSES THE LEARNING POWER OF EMOTION:

• When new material evokes emotion, learners remember what they learned for much longer. Learners typically forget much of what they learn within days due to the Forgetting Curve. So powerful images of what happens to you when muscle is destroyed with age accompanied by a soulful soundtrack work together to create emotional resonance - and enhanced learning. The initial SBL-X that provides the context for the big, overarching ideas uses the power of story, which makes any new material easier to remember.

FOLLOWS MAYER'S MULTIMEDIA PRINCIPLES:

• The SBL-X is visually driven and narration is accompanied mostly by images, with a key word added for emphasis. I designed the SBL-X so that the doctor delivers his explanation of age-related muscle loss, sarcopenia, through audio, which is accompanied by images that illustrate his various points.

• The doctor's non academic-speak way of explaining age-related muscle loss, as well as the settings for the choices - including the supermarket, the bookstore and the kitchen - feel less formal and off-putting (personalization principle).

• The backward-design of the project and starting with the final assessment minimizes the amount of "nice to know" excess or unnecessary information - the Coherence Principle. For fleshing out the full learning experience, it was key to ensure learners had a variety of different learning activities and a minimum of text-heavy artifacts.

ENGAGES MULTIPLE SENSES:

• The more modalities, the better the learning outcomes. This learning experience involves a number of different videos, text excerpts from the book, audio narration, and multiple opportunities to write down reflections on learning - all of which involve multiple parts of the brain and enhance learning.

HAS LEARNERS DOING:

• Elaborative rehearsal is extremely active, and mandatory for any learning experience or training to be effective and memorable. The SBL-X requires the learner to make choices and see the consequences and if they choose unwisely, go back and try again.

PROVIDES EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK:

• The SBL-X provides immediate feedback by showing the learner the consequence on their health of the choices they make around protein. This targeted feedback then enables them to improve performance with further practice. Research also backs up the fact that when learners receive immediate feedback, they learn more effectively from their mistakes. Feedback that is targeted and immediate helps quickly close the knowledge gap.

ADDRESSES THE FORGETTING CURVE:

• This learning experience was designed starting with the final assessment. The final assessment is a case study, where the learner is presented with a post-menopausal woman and tasked with applying what they learned to create a protein plan for her: calculate her optimal protein, help her select high quality sources of protein, and do protein-centric meal planning for her. Not only does a final assessment determine that the learning objective has been met, but it helps fight against the Forgetting Curve: when learners expect to have to recall information in a final, comprehensive assessment, they remember more material for longer.

MINIMIZES COGNITIVE LOAD:

• Cognitive load on working memory was minimized as much as possible by breaking up each larger topic into a series of much shorter segments - chunking - and incorporates a variety of modalities, from video, to podcasts, to text, to infographics.

DESIRABLE DIFFICULTY:

• When people sit in a lecture or watch a video, they are passive - and don't learn. However, when learners problem-solve they learn, as research has long confirmed. Active learning means having to work to think about and choose the right answer. This proven strategy is known as desirable difficulty. Overcoming desirable difficulties requires learners to stretch their abilities in order to acquire new material. When they do, they learn better and remember longer. Choosing incorrectly and experiencing the negative consequences of a mistaken belief makes the learner discover - for themselves - that their current mental model about protein is at odds with the consensus of credible science.

USES COMMON MISTAKES & MYTH-BUSTS TO ENHANCE LEARNING:

• And any time a learner experiences an impasse in their current mental model - a contradiction, conflict or uncertainty - curiosity is stimulated. They ask why and become motivated to engage in deeper reasoning until their cognitive equilibrium is restored. (SOURCE) In short, showing them their mental model is flawed and presenting them with the consensus of the data is a powerful teaching moment.

EMPHASIZES REFLECTION:

• Each module of the learning experience contains a reflection activity, culminating in a final reflection. Reflecting on new material helps ensure it transits from limited working memory into longterm memory, facilitating learning. As learning technology expert Dr. Karl Kapp has observed: without reflection, there is no learning.

MY PROCESS:

• First, I determine whether the issue is a knowledge and/or skill gap. If so, then an e-Learning solution can be appropriate.

• Then I start with the end in mind: what specifically should learners be able to do? This determines the key learning objective.

• Learning objective identified, I use Bloom's Taxonomy to select the appropriate behaviors to observe and assess at the end of the learning experience.

• The final assessment is then determined, representing the standard of evidence that will demonstrate the learning objective has been met.

• Finally, a course map guides the course content: an interesting & engaging variety of learning activities and learning artifacts that will support the learner's performance on the final assessment.

• Tools:I am proficient with for ideating and developing learning experiences:

  • Figma: for moodboards (eg. one inspired by the French New Wave sci-fi classic, La Jetee)

  • Mindmeister: creating Action Maps

  • SnagIt: Professional-quality screen captures & layouts (for tutorials)

  • Powerpoint & Google Docs: Storyboarding

  • Canva: Visual Storyboarding, Infographics, Illustrations, etc.

  • Articulate Storyline: interactive Scenario-Based Learning

  • Brightspace LMS: full course development

The final result is a full & robust learning experience that is intuitive for learners to follow, provides them with a clear layout for them in which to learn and explore, and is premised in the fundamental learning theories of Instructional Design.