Course Reflection

What technological knowledge have you learned in this course? What pedagogical knowledge (e.g., knowledge about adult learning theories, instructional design, online learning and teaching) have you learned in this course?

From a technological vantage point, the biggest takeaway that I can practically apply is best practices in presenting online lectures. Having instructor on screen is important to allow students to make social connection, as well as help with cognitive connection and inflection. And while theory would say that it’s best that the instructor present not in a window but in front of a green screen with the material chroma keyed in behind them. While this is not as likely or accessible for the vast majority of faculty, it is a good target to aim toward. At least having the instructor on screen is a step in the right direction for allowing students to make a better connection to the material. That’s something I can pass on to our faculty and use in any sort of rich media tutorials that I’ll be creating for faculty in the future as part of my instructional design role.

Pedagogically, the Community of Inquiry is an invaluable theory that I can use as an instructional designer. The majority of my workload is helping develop online courses with faculty members. In the past, we have focused simply on getting content together, building it in a differentiated fashion, and publishing it. We’ve neglected the focus on community and ensuring that the students feel connected to the instructor and each other. The Community of Inquiry model is a great framework that can be applied to this progress. It’s a great way of ensuring there is a stronger student connection to the course instead of just in an academic, content absorbing fashion like what has been in the past.

Explain how your learning in this course will make an impact on your current or future work. Will any artifacts you created be shared with your students or colleagues?

I’ve already mentioned some ways in which this course will affect my current work, but there are so many ways of using the material presented in this course. The articles, videos, and text books in the course were the most valuable resources I hav experienced in a course. Almost everything is immediately applicable, which is a credit to the instructor and those putting the course together. I have already mentioned the Community of Inquiry, but the other philosophies surrounding pedagogy and andragogy are truly invaluable. I found myself learning something new and applying it or discussing my team each module. I will be using the attitudes and preferences of adult learners while developing graduate courses in the future.

As far as using artifacts created in the course, I’ve already used the Rich Media tutorial as an example of a screen-captured lecture. It has been shared and viewed multiple times by faculty as they have been transitioning to remote learning and creating online lectures for their students. I also want to use the design checklist and framework when building courses. We already have one that I think is useful and adequate, but I’m considering adding some elements from the resources from that module to supplement some of the tools that we already use. I also want to use the rubrics for online courses in some capacity but again tailor it toward our own course expectations and requirements.

Overall, this course was a great experience. I have finished this course with a vast amount of resources and best practices that I will be using to enhance online courses and encourage faculty to improve their courses.