Instructional designers are the keepers of multiple pedagogies. They apply the theories and methods of teaching and learning according to the needs of students and the subjects those students are meant to master.
Pedagogy shapes every kind of learning from early childhood education to college-level classes. User guides, text books, courses, programs and curriculums are all created through an understanding of pedagogies. Choices made about structures, assessments and assignments are made according to what will support learning best in each context. In online learning especially, pedagogical choices make all the difference between an experience that truly engages learners and one that fails to support even basic information retention.
According to online learning experts, instructional designers are most successful when they focus on the student experience.
“Designing for the learner experience is fundamental to student success and course satisfaction,” says Sheila Fry, Chief Operating Officer of the Babb Group. “It encompasses designing not only for content relevancy, but also creating engaging learning experiences relevant to the student. It transcends the content from ordinary to extraordinary,”
The evolution of online learning has been inspired by student demand and the established need for lifelong learning. The evolution has been seen in colleges and universities, in workplaces and in societies as a whole. That does not mean that the evolution has been without barriers. The COVID-19 pandemic did play a role in pushing reluctant adopters past those barriers.
“A high quality course is done with the collaboration of an instructional designer who understands the pedagogy of online learning,” says Sharon Sabol, Dean of Online Education and Learning Science at New England College. “Before the pandemic some faculty were not interested in the institutions learning management system. After ramping up training by the Office of Online Education and Learning Science, faculty began to open up to learning new concepts in a safe learning environment. Faculty worked extremely hard to adapt, learn, and keep the student learning a priority. More full time residential faculty have come forward and asked to build online courses with our team supporting them.”
Sabol and her team often bring in external specialists from the Babb Group to help their faculty apply the pedagogies of online learning and to support the delivery of material with evidence of student success throughout each stage of the teaching and learning cycle.
“Instructional designers help us craft measurable learning outcomes and align assessments to them so the design is intentional and you’re not wasting student learning time,” Sabol says. “Scaffold all assessments so that students receive feedback throughout the course. It’s critical to build in robust opportunities for interaction, instructor to student and student to student. A good rapport with the subject matter expert (SME) is important so that trust is developed and the course is effective for optimal student learning.”
From a technical point of view, tools that support online learning have to become almost invisible to the practice of pedagogy.
“Portability, flexibility and immersion are all about giving students more control about where and how they learn,” says Edusity Co-Founder Vishal Shah. “When students are taking a history or archeology course online, for example, learners must be able to bring that material with them to the museum or archives to add context to their experience.”
The experiences Shah describes are not an accidental matter of access to technology, but of learning by design. Instructional designers use their full complement of pedagogical methods and theories to make it all happen.
To celebrate their merger, Edusity and the Babb Group created this series of blog entries to discuss current issues in online education to be featured on both companies’ blogs. Check back every week to read the latest installment!
Sheila Fry