Educator/Instructional Designer/Culturally Conscious Leader

The Instructional Design Mind

The Instructional Design Mind

Where creativity and curriculum collide

Greetings and welcome to the Instructional Design Mind!

This website is designed to let the audience take a glimpse inside my creative brain… it’s always popping with ideas! Both my education and instructional design philosophies will be present throughout the following project descriptions; two projects used authoring tools and the other an LMS. Enjoy the ride!

Introduction

Authoring Tool Projects

Web-based Digital Textbook

Background

I have been fortunate enough to teach everything from kindergarten to graduate school for the past 20+ years, learning, practicing, teaching, and observing many instructional techniques and methods. Over time I became proficient at selecting the proper method and pedagogical strategies to use during instruction in order to meet the lesson objectives for multimodal face-to-face, online, and HyFlex classes. Now, I can design a lesson to meet the needs of all my students “in my sleep” as well as model these skills in my classes with future and current teachers. As a struggling learner when I was young, I understand the importance of creating a safe learning environment that ensures everyone learns, no matter the delivery platform (face-to-face/eLearning).

Although I have used and taught numerous authoring tools, such as, Storyboard That, Infographics, NearPod, Creately, Survey Monkey, Doodly, Articulate 360, and Mursion’s human-powered avatars, I chose to display the web-based digital textbook that I created and published with Great River Learning. I selected this project for various reasons, not only because I am passionate about the topic, but because it will also let me explain the entire process, the changes I have made based on student feedback, and the changes I would still make if the authoring tool would allow for it. So, let’s jump on the roller coaster that I call The Instructional Design Mind…

*In order to view Woke: A Guide to Becoming Culturally Conscious please go to Great River Learning Content and enter woke.digitaltextbook@gmail.com as both the username and the password in the box on the right. Then, click login.

Role on the Project

This ride began when I received an email from Great River Learning inviting me to meet with their Acquisitions Manager to discuss the idea of writing, creating, and publishing a digital textbook for one of my teacher education classes. The feelings were just like those that you have while in line for an amusement park ride, a little reluctant, but super excited.

After our meeting, it was decided that my Multiculturalism in the American Classroom courses would be perfect and that my knowledge of authoring tools and my teaching style would not only allow me to be the subject matter expert (SME), but also allow me to help with the instructional design layout for the project that would become Woke: A Guide to Becoming Culturally Conscious, Education in the United States.

Problem Statement

As I stepped into the roller coaster cart and buckled my seatbelt I thought about all the challenges facing ‘culture’ in the United States (and the political climate at the time, 2020), let alone in the American classroom. Through my own interest, education, and research in this area I know that Culturally Responsive Teaching pedagogy must be taught in teacher education programs if every student is going to receive an equitable education in our country.

As my cart lurches forward and I realize the amount of information I must cover in a 15-week undergraduate and/or graduate level class. As I begin my slow assent up the largest hill in the ride my mind is racing… I am apprehensive, overwhelmed, and thrilled all at the same time.

Resources

Gay, G. (2018). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice, Third Edition

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Griner, A. (2011). Addressing the the Achievement Gap and Disproportionality Through the Use of Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices

Growing Need for Culturally Responsive Teaching (2021)

Lambeth, D. T. and Smith, A. M. (2016). Pre-service Teachers’ Perceptions of Culturally Responsive Teacher Preparation. Journal of Negro Education. Volume 85, Number 1, Winter 2016 (pp. 46-58).

Research

As we crest the initial incline and the cart comes to a stop I realize that I have been actively using various authoring tools for years, from Adobe Photoshop in the 90’s to the creation of Articulate 360 employee trainings for the state of Washington’s Department of Social and Health Service (2020). Continuing to put things in perspective, I know that I have taught this multiculturalism class both face-to-face and online (D2L) numerous times, collecting feedback from students every semester and modifying the class each time based on this research. I remember that I am a student in an excellent Multicultural and Ethnic Studies M.S. program, having been passionate about DEI and Culturally Responsive Teaching for years. I have been able to stay current in these fields by belonging to several organizations, attending several trainings, reading on the topics every chance I can, and presenting at conferences.

Finally, I thought about what learning theories would work best in a class such as this, I decided on experiential, social, and reflective. Yes, these are solid theories with excellent teaching techniques.

Deep breath… and raising my hands above my head I thought, “You ARE both the content expert and the course designer… You’ve got this!”

Project Goals

Screaming as we descend I am exhilarated. Thinking about what I can accomplish with a digital textbook is more than exciting. Using Understanding By Design (UBD/backwards design) I determine my goals for the textbook.

Meet the objectives of the course
Create a safe learning environment
Use Culturally Responsive Teaching as the foundation for the textbook
Model, scaffold, and meet each student’s Zone of Proximal Development by choosing appropriate instructional methods based on experiential, social, and reflective learning theories
Provide foundational and contemporary research, school policies, relevant lesson plans from respected organizations, current events, and ethnographic and authoring experiences
Make the textbook thoughtful, meaningful, engaging, and fun!

Oh no! Here comes the first roller coaster loop!

Design Process

Designing multimodal face-to-face and eLearning classes is exactly like riding a roller coaster… you keep coming around the loop to revisit, reassess, and revise… The Instructional Design Mind is moving fast and furious… and you keep asking if you’re still on track.

As an educator, I believe it is critical to know your audience and to design your lessons, classes, trainings, and presentations to meet their needs, so I always use Understanding By Design (UBD/backwards design) as my approach to educational planning. UBD begins planning with the end goal (course objectives) in mind and helps the creator remember every piece required for a best-practice lesson plan (standards, objectives, assessments, assessment modifications, materials needed, anticipatory set, procedures and content, closure, if-time activities, homework, procedure modifications, and reflection). I decided that I would layout every chapter in a similar format.

Keeping in mind that this textbook will be used in face-to-face, online, and HyFlex classes I also need to make sure I am also using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines for online teaching and learning (provide multiple means of representation, provide multiple means of action and expression, provide multiple means of engagement).

Now that I have established my learning theories (experiential, social, and reflective), my approach to educational planning (UBD) and online learning (UDL), I need to select my chapter topics and align them with sociological topics that will be taught to future and current teachers.

Creating a storyboard would be perfect to present this information to a team, but I am the team and I have been given a code to use to provide the text to the publisher. Both UBD and UDL are second nature for me, so I merely create an outline to link the chapter topics to the sociological concepts that support the course objectives (please see the image to the left).

Whoa! My creative Instructional Design Mind is popping with ideas and excitement. This roller coaster ride certainly has plenty of loops… what a blast!

Learning Techniques

Ahh! My hands are no longer in the air, they are firmly grasping the bar that holds me in the roller coaster cart, but I’m still smiling… and here comes the next loop!

Knowing my audience and the project goals I chose to use the experiential, social, and reflective learning theories for the pedagogical side of the textbook. I need to make sure that the chapter information and activities are relevant, relatable, engaging, interactive, thought provoking, and allow for student discussion, so students can share their own voices through autonomy. The students must also have sources that provide the perspectives of others they may not normally interact with.

Yep! The textbook must have historical documents, interviews, videos, music, podcasts, lesson plans, school policies, experiences with various cultures, ethnographic studies, and assignment feedback that reinforces the point of the assignment and causes the student to reflect on their answer as it relates to that point. The types of instruction that will be used within the textbook and/or class will be Indirect instruction, Independent study, Interactive instruction, Experiential and Reflective Learning. These methods, resources, activities, assignments, and feedback will support the learning theories and objectives chosen for this course.

Okay, that was more like three loops, but everything is coming together and the Instructional Design Mind roller coaster is slowing down and coming to a stop.

The Process

As I wait for my turn to exit the ride I consider my next steps.

I will collaborate with my publisher, providing them with the graphics, layout, information, and activities for the textbook. We will work together for a few months putting everything together into the form of a web-based digital textbook. I decide to pilot the textbook in one of my short classes, seeking feedback and identifying glitches.

“Yes! This will work,” I say to myself as I walk away from that wild ride.

Outcomes and Next Steps

If only there was a perfect authoring tool, one that could do everything my Instructional Design Mind came up with…

The student feedback from the pilot study was outstanding! They loved the layout, interactivity, and pacing of the textbook. There were a few website glitches and suggestions for the textbook’s gradebook, the changes that could be made were made. Almost two years later and the feedback remains primarily positive and the textbook is updated after/during every semester.

BUT, website and video glitches continue and I would love to redesign the gradebook portion of the textbook so that it would be both more student and instructor friendly.

With that, I would say I had a great ride…

Backgound

Bonus ride! I created this self-led and/or facilitator-led diversity training, using Doodly, for my ETHN 600: Cross-Cultural Training & Diversity Management class (2021), as part of the requirements for my Master’s degree in Multiculturalism and Ethnic studies… earning an A+ and extremely positive feedback from my professor. Now, that’s a bonus ride!

Extra Authoring Tool Projects

As the Social Media Manager for the Global Learning & Design Community I design their weekly advertisements using Canva. Creating is always a fun ride… I love using my Instructional Design Mind!

Learning Management System (LMS) Project

Desire 2 Learn and Canvas

Background

Next ride… different coaster!

As an education professor for 12+ years I have always taught face-to-face and online classes, and more recently HyFlex classes. For most of those years I taught Content Literacy and Instructional Techniques for our English, math, science, and social studies middle level and secondary education students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. After designing, writing, and creating Edinboro University’s (now part of PennWest University) English as a Second Language (ESL) graduate programs, including an M.ED. program, I also began teaching those classes (language and culture, L2 methodologies, assessment, and field experience).

Later I became the Graduate Program Head for our department’s 32+ programs, 150-200 students, and teaching action research for several years. I went on to inherit the multiculturalism classes roughly 5 years ago. All of these classes and almost all of the others that I have taught, including supervising field experiences and student teaching, have been designed for both face-to-face and online (multimodal), using D2L as our LMS platform. *Having taken and taught classes at other institutions, I am also familiar with Blackboard and Canvas.

For this roller coaster ride I will describe the creation of my multimodal Instructional Techniques classes. Let’s get started…

Role on the Project

The line for this roller coaster is very short and there’s no time to think before I jump in the cart and buckle up. And, we’re off…

If you are a dedicated teacher, education is a high-paced position where you serve in every role. Although there is little recognition, the rewards are high and are what keep you wanting to go back to the classroom. My audience, my students and the community, are always my main focus, their education is my priority, this is the same in every I am in, as an instructional designer or as an eLearning developer. Teaching is serious business and one’s overall life happiness often depends on the quality of the education he/she receives.

Luckily, I had 9 years teaching experience before joining the ranks of higher education… I’m used to not knowing if I have the job, or later in my career, what or to whom I will be teaching until a couple days/weeks before classes start. Through these experiences, I found that I have a natural Instructional Design Mind… curriculum, pedagogy, and technology just make common sense to me and combining them is very exciting.

For most of my career I have been both the subject matter expert, the instructional designer, and the eLearning developer, except when I was a Literacy Coach, an ESL push-in teacher, and when I began my career as an Assistant Professor of education… then I was only the instructional designer. I enjoyed meeting new people, working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), and learning from them. I have had little to no difficulty collaborating with others and working on, or leading, team projects. Actually, I thrive in this type of environment!

For this roller coaster ride, I will describe the evolution of my Content Literacy and Instructional Techniques classes, going from Instruction Designer and partial Subject Matter Expert, to solidly serving in both capacities.

By the way I am already over the roller coaster’s initial incline and in full-throttle decent… Hang on! This is a wild ride!

Problem Statement

As we rapidly descend, I begin to panic, even though I had already learned about, used, and had a handle on research-based and best practices in my own classroom, I had never taught others how to implement them into their own classrooms, let alone teach pedagogy online. This is the task at hand, to teach future teachers how to teach.

Ah! My cart is rocketing toward to first loop in the roller coaster…

Research

Deep breath! Then my Instructional Design Mind started popping with ideas! Although I was told I was going to teach two pedagogical classes (content literacy and instructional techniques) online a week before classes started, I knew I wanted my online students to receive the same instruction and interactive assignments as those students in my face-to-face classes. As always, I will model and scaffold (through the gradual release of responsibility) the expectations and assignments. I will also allow for group work, think-pair-share, and discussion using scenario and project based-learning.

Hey, that wasn’t so bad! I had already done my research. I have an excellent understanding of pedagogy and teaching methods from my own education, experiences, and personal readings. Now, I just need to be creative about how to implement these traditionally face-to-face strategies into my online classes using D2L as the LMS. YIKES! Here comes another loop!

Project Goals

As I rocket towards and through the next roller coaster loop I think more about how to take sound face-to-face instructional strategies and implement them into online classes. Then, using Understanding By Design (UBD/backwards design) I determine my goals for the two teacher education classes I need to teach.

Meet the objectives of the course
Create a safe learning environment
Scaffold, model instructional strategies, and meet each student’s Zone of Proximal Development by using my Instructional Design Mind. Being able to think out side of the box is critical in this situation!
Create small working groups of students, including students from each content area (English, math, science, and social studies), to simulate a team of eighth-grade teachers from the same fictitious school who are required to teach a commonly themed grade-level unit plan, utilizing the pedagogical strategies and techniques we cover in class.

Yeah, that was fun! Let’s do it again!

Design Process

Here we go again, another roller coaster loop! This is great, I’ve got the feel for the ride now. Let’s keep going!

What instructional designers call Storyboards, teachers call Graphic Organizers, Storyboards are e-Graphic Organizers. They are often both a teacher and an instructional designer’s dream come true… they help organize and visualize ideas and plans, often making abstract or confusing thoughts a bit more concrete and clear.

The overall scenario-based assignment (an eighth grade interdisciplinary unit plan) created by the pretend teachers (my students)) for these classes will be comprised of several project-based assignments (lesson plans, bulletin boards, etc.), all of which will need to be broken down and modeled to my classes… online. To the right, you will find the Graphic Organizer I provide to students to help them better conceive the class expectations.

Learning Techniques

Smooth sailing from here… I’m used to this ride now.

I was listening to an instructional design podcast the other day when the host said, “Covid-19 changed the way we work and learn.” Although I understood the point of the statement, I believe it would have been more clear if it had been stated, “Covid-19 changed the way we work and teach,” as how one is taught is often much different than how he/she learns. That’s why knowing what “best practices” actually have research to support them.

I always tell my teacher education students that if they haven’t already taken a cognitive psychology class, they need to. An understanding of the brain and the way it processes information is the foundation for solid pedagogical skills. Covid-19 changed how we teach, not how we learn. Now, we need to follow the research and continue researching how the brain best retains information when learning from an online platform. Thus, “if you haven’t taken a cognitive psychology class, you need to!”

For my online (LMS) teaching techniques classes, I always use scenario/project-based as my overarching teaching model. The students serve as fictitious eighth-grade content area teachers assigned to work as a team creating a content specific, week-long unit plans, and integrating a common theme. In the Content Literacy class the students choose a theme from the book Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. Those in the Teaching Techniques class use strategies from their content specific textbooks, for example, The Math Teacher’s Toolbox by Bobson Wong, Larisa Bukalov, and Katie Hull Sypnieski, to create unit plans using their teaching team’s common theme.

Within the D2L class shell for both classes I model and have the students use other strategies, such as threaded discussions, Teams meetings, writing/literature circles, imagery for vocabulary, the use of several authoring tools, teaching mini-lessons and analyzing their own video, etc. All of my classes are hands-on and engaging.

Yep, this is second nature. I am a roller coaster pro now.

The Process

It’s been a whirlwind ride… not much time to prepare, but once I survived a few loops I knew I was going to be okay. I’ve done this before…

I had always used sound teaching practices in my face-to-face classes, now I needed to turn on my Instructional Design Mind and get the creative juices flowing. I needed to take what I was doing in the classroom and put it into a learning management system. I got this!

Using D2L as my LMS, I utilized all of the tools provided there and integrate many others, such as PowerPoint, Teams, NearPod, StoryboardThat, Kahoot!, etc. I believe it is important that my students also know how to use authoring tools in their own classrooms. That’s the future of education!

As the coaster slows and comes to a stop, I begin to reflect on the ride…

Outcomes and Next Steps

I did alright, but I can always improve my techniques to better meet the ever changing times and personal experiences…

Needs analyses are crucial for provided your learning audience with the information they need, so every semester I ask students for feedback. This allows me to better meet their needs and adjust the classes accordingly. I am always moving forward and constantly improving my craft.

I step out of my cart with a smile on my face.

Evaluation: ADDIE

Background

As an educator for 20+ years I naturally turn to Understanding by Design (UBD/“backwards design”) when planning instruction. However, I am also a proponent of both Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the ADDIE Model.

Next Adventures

Background

On my next wild ride I will be creating culturally responsive teaching, On Demand, content for classes provided through the National Education Group located in the United Kingdom.

Time to start up that Instructional Design Mind again!

Pop! Pop! Pop! The creative juices are flowing…