Activity 1: Thoughts on Week 1 Readings

Although many of the concepts and models introduced by Bates (2014) and Thomas (2010) were review, there were some less common models that were provided in a way I found interesting and relevant as well as some statements that provoked questions. 

As Thomas (2010) introduces Instructional Design Models, he states that, “The effectiveness of a model is heavily dependant on the context in which it is applied” (p. 187).  This comment summarizes conclusions of previous courses and I found it important to keep in mind when reviewing the literature. 

Keller’s ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) Model was particularly relevant to the assignment this week and the issue of motivating and engaging students (Thomas, 2010, p. 212).  Specifically, “the focus is not on how people can be motivated but on how the conditions can be created…to have people…motivate themselves” (Thomas, 2010, p. 212).  Creation of a motivating environment for students is a necessity for any training that is not mandated and promotes engagement once the training is underway.  At its core, this was what we are trying to do during the Design Thinking Process. 

One thing that I found controversial relating to understanding the learner’s needs and characteristics was the statement “Individual students learn in different ways; most students need strong human interaction and there are also students who prefer to study independently without interacting with others. Therefore, the right way to design a high-quality blended learning course depends largely on the type of students involved” (Thomas, 2010, p. 224).  As Kirschner (2017) identifies, “there is quite a difference between the way that someone prefers to learn and that which actually leads to effective and efficient learning” (p. 166).  When we are identifying learner needs and characteristics, it is important to understand the learner’s experience, knowledge and skillsets that we can leverage, but where to use interaction within the course should be based on solid learning theory, not student preferences.   This is different than the concept of standardization discussed by Thomas (2010, p. 231-232) where he argues that not all learners will learn at the same pace and customization should be built into the course to account for this.   

The lessons learned for online instruction derived from the The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Online Courses were well explained (Thomas, 2010, p. 220-222).  The use of these principles inherently required an understanding of your learner’s needs and characteristics.  For example, “Lesson derived from Principle 5: Online courses need deadlines” (Thomas, 2010, p. 222) requires an understanding of whether the learner is working on the course as a full-time student or in conjunction with a full-time job.   This is also true of concepts discussed related to the constructivist approach such as the concept of situated learning (Thomas, 2010, p. 243), for which you would need to understand the learner’s environment and how they will be using the information. 

In addition to the implicit requirement to understand learner needs when designing learning, constructivist learning directly solicits learning needs during learning by allowing, “the negotiation, rather than imposition, of goals and objectives” (Thomas, 2010, p. 244).  I am still somewhat unsure of how this would practically work and how learning could be assessed or quantifiably compared.  Other works described by Thomas (2010) such as Driscoll’s constructivist conditions for learning (p. 249-250) did not clarify for me how this could be practically implemented.  In fact, Savery and Duffy’s Constructivist/Problem Based Learning-based Design Principle seems to contradict this by stating that, “learners’ goals must be consistent with the instructional goals” (Thomas, 2010, p. 252).  Figure 3.10 (Thomas, 2010, p. 254) also shows the teacher setting the goals in Laurillard’s Conversational Framework.  Although constructivist design models are described by Thomas (2010), how to practically resolve the problem of assessment when goals and objectives are not standardized is not detailed although the issue is recognized.  It is identified that “Constructivist models advocate personal goal-setting by learners and diverse learning activities that may vary from learner to learner; therefore, objective tests are not suitable for evaluating the success of instruction, since different students learn different things in different ways” (p. 259-260). 

When discussing the constructivist approach, Thomas (2010) points out a continuum rather a binary description should be used to describe the learner (p. 247).  Although specifically directed towards the constructivist approach, this should be the case whenever describing learners as they will enter the course with a range of experience, knowledge and skillsets and it is the range that should be described. 

I also had one observation not directly related to understanding the needs and characteristics of the learners.  I found it interesting that some models such as the Smith and Ragan’s Model (Thomas, 2010, p. 201) and the Morrison, Ross and Kemp Model (Thomas, 2010, p. 199), do not break out assessment creation as a specific early step.  As Thomas (2010) notes, setting up assessment tools prior to developing the instructional strategy ensures that the instruction is correctly focused (p. 198). 

References:

Bates, T. (2014, September 9). Is the ADDIE model appropriate for teaching in a digital age? [Blog post]

Kirschner, P. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166-171.

Thomas, P. Y. (2010). Learning and instructional systems design. In Towards developing a web-based blended learning environment at the University of Botswana. (Doctoral dissertation).