Category: LRNT 524

My experience with the design solution process has allowed me to evaluate my own needs for a design solution and further refine several design principles I feel are unique to my field. The following design principles are relevant to my practice as a paramedic educator and are reflective of the foundational objectives I prioritize when teaching paramedic students. These principles are resultant from my experience both as an instructor and practitioner in the field and will continue to evolve.

Paramedic Education Design Manifesto

 

 

 

Design Thinking Challenge: The Solution Paper

Reimagining digital learning environments to realize the potential of critical instructional design is a necessity for all instructional designers as education systems evolve to prepare learners for the 21st century. Morris (2017) defined critical instructional design as “an early, emerging attempt to get at some concrete methodologies for creating agentive spaces in online and hybrid learning environments” (para. 22). By engaging in the d.School design thinking process (Doorley et al., 2018), we developed a design solution focused on creating human centered, agentive spaces for learning in digital environments. Our solution, as shown in Figure 1, includes five guiding principles: 1) facilitating peer connections prior to course beginning, 2) creating an open and common space for connection and collaboration, 3) building a peer mentorship program, 4) moving towards ungrading and valuing learning for learning, and 5) encouraging engagement through gamification.

Figure 1

Design Thinking Solution

 

Facilitating Peer Connections

The first guiding principle of our design solution incorporates an introductory padlet forum at the beginning of the program design. One challenge of a digital learning space is the ability for learners to recognize each other as people, real people, and relate to each other as such. Weller (2020) wisely reminded us that education “is a fundamentally human experience” (p. 159), and our aim was to recognize and celebrate the lives and people behind the screens. Learners begin the course by completing a questionnaire answering questions about themselves, their interests, characteristics, and other personal information that would be shared in an open space such as Padlet. In doing so learners may gain an idea of who their classmates are as individuals, and develop an identity as a group. Sharing characteristics of each learner such as height or favourite food may help classmates relate to each other. Connections between learners may be made as the unique characteristics and traits that may not otherwise be visible are discovered.

Creating an Open Common Space for Connection and Collaboration

The second guiding principle of our design solution focuses on connectivist learning theory: the theory that knowledge exists in the connections or relationships had with others and learning is not an individual activity (Siemens, 2005). Digital platforms such as Collaborate, Google sites, Microsoft Teams, or Gather.Town can be utilized to construct virtual common rooms that provide a common space for learners to gather, problem solve, and connect on academic and personal levels. Creating this open, common space for those connections to be made may increase the collaboration and overall cohesiveness of the group, and give learners an opportunity to engage in a digital version of campus life outside of the classroom (Rogers et al., 2021). 

Building Peer Mentorship Programs 

The third guiding principle of our design solution incorporates a peer mentorship program as an integral component of our course structure. Peer mentorships can be defined as a relationship between a more experienced peer and less experienced peer(s) who are close in age and position, with the more experienced peer providing support (Marshall et al., 2021). Research has shown that learners who are part of peer mentorships are supported both academically and personally, as many students struggle with stressors and issues that are not academic in nature (Rosenthal & Shinebarger, 2010). Having the ability to go to an experienced peer mentor for advice may result in improved levels of understanding course content, higher achievement, and higher levels of comfort and belonging (Marshall et al., 2021). Our design solution includes assigning small groups of students to an experienced peer mentor who has already completed the course. Mentor and mentee meetings will initially be set by the instructor and will take place in the course’s common open space. As the relationship between the mentor and mentees develops, mentees will be encouraged to reach out to their mentor when needed, and mentors will regularly check in with their mentees. By building a peer mentorship program, learners will be able to make personalized connections and develop supportive peer relationships, which will in turn result in deeper levels of engagement and learning. 

Ungrading

The fourth guiding principle of our solution is moving towards ungrading. Ungrading began trending on Twitter in 2016, and quickly developed a following of educators who were committed to “eliminating grades from the teaching and learning environment to the greatest extent possible” (Moore, 2021). An examination of the history of grading makes it evident that grading is entrenched in a culture of establishing evidence, but as Shavelson (2007) argued, “cultures of evidence do not automatically lead to educational improvement if what counts as evidence does not also count as education or counts as only part of it” (p. 28). Stommel (2018) further argued that “the work of grading is framed less in terms of giving feedback or encouraging learning and more as a way of ranking students against one another” (para. 4). Our design solution is based on a philosophy of ungrading in order to encourage students to engage in learning for the joy of learning itself, not to receive grades or arbitrarily assigned evidence of levels of learning achieved. By providing formative feedback, engaging in dialogues with learners, encouraging self-reflection and self-assessment, learners will have the opportunity to see the intrinsic value of learning as opposed to the extrinsic reward of receiving grades. 

Encouraging Engagement Through Gamification

The final principle of our design solution revolved around the use of gamification in learning. Well designed, computer-based games have been shown to improve engagement and motivation, and lead to improved knowledge retention and overall learning (Sanchez et al, 2020; Whitton, 2011). Gamification can be utilized by all fields and can be designed to be highly adaptable to fit varying levels of education, including higher education (Whitton, 2011). Gamification as a central principle of our course design may lead to increased levels of engagement, collaboration, and risk-taking. Crichton and Carter (2017) refer to Papert’s idea of “hard fun” (p. 40) and explore the benefits of bringing designing thinking into classrooms by encouraging innovation and creativity in a safe environment that supports risk-taking. By incorporating gamification into the learning design learners benefit from a highly stimulating and engaging learning environment. 

Instructional designers would be well-served by being mindful of the needs of 21st century learners. Technology is increasingly connecting people around the globe across time and distance, and as such, the skills needed to engage are evolving. By focusing our design solution on creating human centred, agentive spaces for learning in digital environments, learners will be empowered with the skills and confidence to be agents of change in a brave new world. 

 

References

Crichton, S. & Carter, D. (2017). Taking Making into Classrooms Toolkit. Open School/ITA.

Doorley et al. (2018). Design Thinking Bootcamp Bootleg. Adapted from Hasso Plattner Institute for Design, Stanford University. dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg  

Marshall, M., Dobbs-Oates, J., Kunberger, T., & Greene, J. (2021). The peer mentor experience: benefits and challenges in undergraduate programs. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 29(1).

Moore, C. (2021). #Ungrading: A Digital Ethnography. [Doctoral dissertation, Oakland University]. https://sites.google.com/view/christinamoorework/ungrading-a-digital-ethnography 

Morris, S. M. (2017). A Call for Critical Instructional Design. https://www.seanmichaelmorris.com/a-call-for-critical-instructional-design/

Rogers, Y., Lettieri, P., & Meunier, B. (2021, March 30). Life beyond Zoom and Teams: Students are ready for next gen online spaces. THECampus: Part of Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/life-beyond-zoom-and-teams-students-are-ready-next-gen-online-spaces 

Rosenthal, K. I., & Shinebarger, S. H. (2010). Peer mentors: helping bridge the advising gap. About Campus, 15(1), 24–27.

Sanchez, D. R., Langer, M., & Kaur, R. (2020). Gamification in the classroom: Examining the impact of gamified quizzes on student learning. Computers & Education, 144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103666

Shavelson, R. J. (2007). Assessing student learning responsibly: From history to an audacious proposal. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 39(1), 26-33.

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning (ITDL). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1089.2000&rep=rep1&type=pdf  

Stommel, J. (2018). How to Ungrade. https://www.jessestommel.com/how-to-ungrade/ 

Weller, M. (2020). 25 Years of Ed Tech. Athabasca University Press.

Whitton, N. (2011). Game Engagement Theory and Adult Learning. Simulation & Gaming, 42(5), 596–609. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878110378587

 

For this activity we looked at our own design superpowers, and when, how, and why we use them. My practice is in designing curriculum for paramedic education, creating faculty and student resources, and collaborating with other educators and instructional designers to create a valuable student experience. I’ve identified the following as design characteristics or “superpowers” that I use:

Champion for the field: As an educator I am responsible for laying the foundation in my students; one that will carry them through their career. It is important to inspire and motivate them to continue their own learning journey long after they leave school. In healthcare it is imperative that we remain up to date on patient treatments and medical practices therefore fostering an ongoing desire for learning in my students is important. Being a champion of ongoing learning helps set an example for students and faculty alike. Supporting other educators is also a huge part of moving the field forward. Encouraging my peers to expand their instructional tools helps to ensure our delivery of knowledge remains current.

Creative:  Being able to use something in a way it wasn’t designed for or creating a new method for the use of technology that already exists. There are plenty of healthcare educational tools that are designed for physician or nursing students, but not many solely designed for paramedics. Often open access knowledge resources such as curriculum developed by health authorities or other agencies like Prodegy EMS or Jems can be used in combination with my own curriculum design.

Flexible: Working with various faculty and ever-changing schedules poses some challenges. Being flexible to coworkers’ shift hours and short notice changes is a must. Instructor meetings are often set using the online tool Doodle and held via Zoom.

Accountable: Being on task, on time, and within budget. This is a skill I must use when creating curriculum and educational resources. I need to be accountable to other faculty, the institution, stake holders and students. The online tracking programs Wagepoint and Tsheets makes tracking faculty hours simple and easy online.

Inventive: Keeping the interest of students in a training program can be a challenge. I am constantly challenged to keep developing interesting, interactive activities to maximize student attention and motivation. Games such as Kahoot is a great way to build energy in the students.

Resourceful: Using technology in an education program is a lot easier with an unlimited budget, which few have. Our students come from varied backgrounds with varied access to technology tools. Creating Facebook pages devoted to students allows them to re-home their printed texts, uniforms, and other learning equipment like digital tablets. Some students are even able to share online access to books or resources to limit costs.

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In 1967 Barson introduced the term ‘instructional development’ as a systematic process for improving instruction (as cited in Dousay, 2017). Since its inception, many different methods have evolved that aid instructional design professionals in their approach to the development of learning material. Most instructional design methods include a design phase, a development phase, and often some variation of the popular ADDIE instructional design method which is made up of the following steps: analyze, design, develop, implement, evaluate. Although the popular ADDIE instructional design method is still widely used, many more instructional design methods have since emerged (Dousay, 2017). In this paper I will discuss two instructional design models that have emerged for e-learning, and provide a critical evaluation of both.

The TAPPA (Target, Accomplishment, Past, Prototype, Artifact) instructional design model was developed by Robert Moore and publicly presented in 2016. TAPPA is primarily built on an instructional model called the Generic Model for Design Research (GMDR) originally created by Susan McKenney and Thomas Reeves in 2012. The TAPPA model focuses more on the microinstruction strategies (multimedia documents and interactive activities) and is designed to be more suited to e-learning and distance education (Bourdeau & Bates, 1996; Moore, 2016). TAPPA uses concepts from several instructional design models including ADDIE, the Dick and Carey Model, Backwards Design, and the non-linear approach of the Rapid Prototyping model (Moore, 2016). ADDIE and Dick and Carey models are highly focused on the front end, or the design and planning of instructional design, whereas the TAPPA model is more reflective and adaptive, allowing it to be more flexible, a strength when designing predominantly e-learning material as the environment is quite dynamic. (Dick, 1996; Molenda, 2003; Moore, 2016).

The prototype step of the TAPPA model allows for many useable variations to be developed within a short amount of time, and those prototypes to be tested, altered, and varied according to their successes and failures. TAPPA model uses three phases from McKenney and Reeves’ GMDR model: analysis and exploration, design and construction, and evaluation and reflection (Moore, 2016). This also allows the model to be more reactive to follow the ever-changing environment of digital learning material. To put another way, the TAPPA model allows instructional designers a method of quickly putting their work to practice, receiving feedback, and altering their design according to that feedback.

The author chose to develop the TAPPA process using webinars because they were the platform most frequently chosen by the developing school’s faculty (Moore, 2016). Exclusively using webinars provided a large volume of feedback within a short amount of time, and that student feedback was then refed into the development of the TAPPA method. This may have positively selected traits specific to webinars, therefor the TAPPA method may be most useful in a webinar medium and less useful when applied to other digital learning environments such as group collaborative projects, multimodal course content, or large scale instruction. Another limitation of the TAPPA model is that it was designed for use with government officials, and therefore may be more successful with adult learners, or learners with similar environments to government workers receiving webinar instruction (Moore, 2016). The TAPPA model has however, been successfully used in the development of more than 25 webinars and 12 e-learning modules (Moore, 2016). Overall, the TAPPA method is a strong design method that allows for an adaptive and responsive process useful for both novices and experienced practitioners.

The KEMP instructional design model is unique in its design due to its non-linear structure and the interconnectedness of its components. Also known as the Morrison, Ross, and Kemp Model, it was designed by Jerrold Kemp in 1971 (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020). The current model is the 8^th edition, adapted from the original, and is made up of 9 key components: instructional problems, learners characteristics, task analysis, instructional objectives, content sequencing, instructional strategies, designing the message, instructional delivery, and evaluation instruments (Kurt, 2016). Each component is independent of each other rather than connected in a step by step model; designers can enter into the model at any step or work simultaneously on any number of steps making this a very flexible model to use (Bajracharya, 2020; Kurt, 2016). The cyclic component structure is heavily learner dependent, with a focus on how to improve the learner’s performance rather than learning content (Morrison et al, 2013 as cited in Heaster-Ekholm, 2020). Including a step devoted solely to learner characteristics addresses the uniqueness of the learner, while the ‘instructional problems’ step provides a space for reflection and adaptation. Designing the Message, and Instructional Delivery are steps in the KEMP model that can be easily adapted to include e-learning or digital resources: this model is highly adaptable for online learning instructional design.

Although the KEMP model is highly flexible, it lacks an official start to finish algorithm, possibly making it more challenging for novice instructional designers to ‘dive in’ per say without knowing where to start or having a clear path through the design model (Bajracharya, 2020). The KEMP model focusses on the learner and curriculum design in general rather than on a small lesson plan as previously discussed with the TAPPA model.  The KEMP model does, however, allow for individual instructor strategies and resources by including the steps Instructional Strategies, and Instructional Delivery (Bajracharya, 2020). Both steps can easily accommodate digital resources in an e-learning environment.

Instructional design models aim to help develop learning material that is reproduceable, applicable, and free of individual bias that may occur due to resources or individual instruction methods (Dousay, 2017). Many different instructional design methods are available to choose from, and although it is impossible to remove all bias, matching an instructional design model with the goals, values, and practices of the user is possible if a critical evaluation of the instructional design model is done (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020). Each model employs different theories, it is important to carefully analyze the model, especially when designing specifically for e-learning or diverse learners. Using more than one instructional design method may help to decrease the bias and increase the effectiveness of the design, however, an overall critical evaluation of the instructional design being used is important (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020).

References

Bajracharya, J. (2020). Instructional Design and Models: ASSURE and Kemp. Journal of Education and Research. 9(2),1-8. 10.3126/jer.v9i2.30459

Bourdeau, J., & Bates, A. (1996). Instructional design for distance learning. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 5(4), 267–283

Dick, W. (1996). The Dick and Carey Model: Will it survive the decade? Educational Technology Research and Development, 44(3), 55–63

Dousay. T. A. (2017). Chapter 22. Instructional Design Models. In R. West (Ed.), Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology (1st ed.)

Heaster-Ekholm, K. L. (2020). Popular Instructional Design Models: Their Theoretical Roots and Cultural Considerations. International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, 16(3), 50–65

Kurt, S. (2016). Kemp Design Model. https://educationaltechnology.net/kemp-design-model/

Molenda, M. (2003). In search of the elusive ADDIE model. Performance Improvement, 42(5), 34–37

Moore, R. L. (2016). Developing distance education content using the TAPPA process. TechTrends, 60(5), 425–432

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. J., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2013). Designing effective instruction. (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

 

When we talk about learning methods or modalities it is natural to assume they are a product of their predecessor, unfortunately for e-learning there is only so much history to build on and most of the time we are pioneering the learning methods as none have previously been defined as applying solely to e-learning. With emerging new technology, we may need to shift our focus and develop new learning methods that have never been seen before. The concepts of learning and teaching that have succeeded in traditional classrooms may or may not be relevant or transferable to an e-learning or distance environment, especially when we consider very recent technologies such as the use of AI. New or old, learning environments must do something that enable people to learn. They need to facilitate some method that makes learning occur, or employ a method for bringing about learning (Dron, 2014). With learning environments changing so quickly, are we keeping up? And has the way we learn changed? Should we radically change the way we look at instructional design?

Rothwell et al (2015) purpose instructional design starts with analyzing human performance problems systematically and responding in a way to find and apply solutions. The increasing use of distance education in healthcare has created a need to blend online learning i.e. open learning or distance online learning, with practical skills instruction. Competencies need to be both understood and displayed, meaning the instructional method needs to be able to satisfy both online and in person environments. The method for selecting an overall instructional design to fit the needs of a healthcare program is a complex ask. My own experience in the use of instructional design in healthcare uses the MPI (Merrill’s principles of instruction) model. Merrill’s design theory centers around a problem or task and integrating the following principles in relation to that task: activation, demonstration, application, and integration. This design strategy applies the simple to complex learning model; students face a problem with their existing knowledge, demonstrate their knowledge, apply it to a scenario, and learn how to integrate that knowledge into a more complex situation. The flexibility of this model allows it to apply to practical scenarios or skills instruction, as well as case studies and academic lessons. I have had success with instruction that follows this method, however there is a reflection principle missing from this model that may be valuable in designing curriculum.

 

Dron, J. (2014). Chapter 9: Innovation and Change: Changing how we Change. In Zawacki-Richter, O. & T. Anderson (Eds.), Online distance education: Towards a research agenda. Athabasca, AB: AU Press

Rothwell, W. J., Benscoter, B., King, M., & King, S. B. (2015). Chapter One – An Overview of Instructional Design. In Mastering the Instructional Design Process: A Systematic Approach. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Alternate link