Lesson Plans

I created my first lesson plan today!  The final task for my Issues in Instructional Design course is to create a presentation that covers different learning theories.  In this presentation I am supposed to illustrate ways to use different learning theories to achieve the objectives from a sample lesson plan.  I had the option to use an existing lesson plan or create my own.  I thought that if I created my own plan I could learn the process and potentially use the plan as an example in the unit of instruction I need to create for my capstone project.  I used the lesson plan template that is provided in my final course of this semester, Instructional Design Production.  It was an interesting process.  I had to think about pre-requisite skills and ways to scaffold information that would make sense to students.  If you want to check it out you can find it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw-CIbD8caj8OHkxanNCSWg1LW8/edit?usp=sharing

If you do check it out I would appreciate any feedback you would be willing to provide!

Defining a Problem

My first task in Foundations of Instructional Design is to develop a problem statement.  I knew this was coming up before I enrolled in the course so I had been thinking about this for a while.  I know that I would like to be able to tie this problem statement to the capstone project (creating a unit of instruction) so I can work through the issue throughout my program.  

For the capstone I will need to identify a group of learners, about 15-20, and I immediately thought of faculty at my institution.  Over the past thirteen years I have worked with a lot of great faculty and thought it would be fun to work with a group of them on this project, if they were willing. 

The next step was to think about a problem that our faculty have been facing that would be interesting to tackle.  One of the first ideas centered around BYOD, Bring Your Own Devices.  With the high demand we have for our hands on computer labs it can be difficult for faculty to engage students in instructional activities that have a technological component.  I feel that if I can create an instructional unit that helps faculty leverage student-owned devices they will be able to offer these activities even if a lab is unavailable.  An added benefit is that students will get to use a piece of technology they are comfortable with instead of having to learn a new device (Windows-based PC, laptop, iPad, etc...).  So I immediately started working on the following problem statement:  

Faculty in higher education are increasingly in need of computer labs for instructional activities.  These labs are in high demand and are not always available.  Faculty do have access to cutting-edge computing technology for these tasks as more and more students are bringing devices (smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc…) to class.  If faculty learn how to leverage this BYOD environment then they will be less dependent on computer labs and more successful in their instructional activities.

If my course mentor approves the statement I will start working on my needs analysis! 

Enrolling in the Program

I met with my mentor on Wednesday to enroll in my program.  I learned a lot about how the classes are structured and I love the way they scaffold the courses.  We talked about assessments (Objective and Performance) and pacing for the semester.  Once we covered everything she enrolled me in my four courses for the first semester:

• Foundations of Instructional Design
• Instructional Design Analysis
• Issues in Instructional Design
• Instructional Design Production

I decided to take the pre-assessment for my first course without doing any reading just to see how much I have learned about instructional design at work.   If I would have scored just one more percentage point I would have passed on the first try.  So I feel great about the foundation I will be building upon.  I have set a schedule for myself and I am very excited to get started on my journey! 

Back to School

On October 1st I will be a student again!  I decided to get my M.Ed. in Learning and Technology from Western Governors University.   I have been a fan of WGU's competency-based structure for quite some time now so I decided to "walk the walk" and register.  

At this point I have only gone through the admissions process and the Education Without Boundaries orientation, but I have to say I am pretty impressed.  My enrollment counselor was great to work with and was very helpful.  Now that I am officially a WGU student I have been assigned a student mentor and will meet with this person once a week for at least the first semester.  Then as I start individual courses I will be assigned course mentors, who are subject matter experts, who will help guide me through the courses.

I am very excited about the program and this new educational experience!