What do I currently know about instructional design, working on teams, and working with community partners that will help me succeed in this course?
As a new comer, I've spent a whole afternoon around the bookstores to buy a reading packet from COPYMAT for other classes. Yes, I just thought that COPYMAT is located close to other bookstores and started to search around from Stewart Hall to Cafe Royal in the afternoon on a rainy day. After my long journey, I could hear about COPYMAT from my senior. Oh my...! COPYMAT hides itself among the exotic restaurants in the Chauncey Mall.
What if I've learned a kind of knowledge about this area and planned the movement carefully and systematically before going out? Probably, I could save myself from exhaustion and have efficient time for studying more.
What I've learned and read about Instructional Design (ID) from the book Smith & Ragan (2005) is not far from what this situation means. ID is a process of planning implied with a high level of care based on the previous foundation of knowledge and principles for an effective and efficient goal.
Of course, this is so clear and basic meaning that we apply it to most of the IDs. At the same time, however, IDs may make diverse results and advantages influenced by the question "who is the designer". As for this reason, working on teams lead us to a better result because of our (students') diverse and creative ideas and complementary cooperation for a systematic plan.
Meanwhile, as we've seen from Smith & Ragan (2005), ID models have surely a kind of process but it's not linear. The basic three steps of analysis, strategy development, and evaluation affect each other continuously and organically. This relationship among steps also needs working with community partners. Probably we would talk with them, negotiate with them, and make a change of our draft. In this chain of reaction, we might go back to the second step to devise other or better strategies or even to the first step to examine some problems if there is any. Finally, and then, we would be able to make our ID more appealing. In addition, working with community could spur us to be designers who can see through the gap between paperwork and the reality. In this context, I truly agree with Rowland (1993): "A design process is a learning process." (Smith & Ragan pp. 8)
What will I need to learn as I work on the project?
A
First, I would like to be equipped with sufficient and essential knowledge of ID. Actually, I've been involved in many projects in relation to textbooks in Korea. At that time, I was a coordinator between the designers and the customers, not a designer itself. At this point, I hope to be able to design with sufficient and essential knowledge which could lessen the possibility of making an inappropriate result.
Second, I would like to get ready to conduct a team project with social skills. Working on teams goes more easily to the direction which can not satisfy all rather than the direction satisfies all. This will be the challenge for all of us not only as students but also as social beings. We could learn how to cooperate, how to make our party good and yield, and how to refine our process for the optimal goal.
Ironically, I suppose that I should be questioned with an opposite concept: what competency do I have to get before working on the project?
Creativity and passion for work, as well as knowledge and a positive mind for cooperation, will be needed. Our creativity could make an ID lively and appealing, and our passion could make us endeavor to our duty with pleasure.
What do I expect to get out of this course?
Above all things, I really need to know how to make an effective and efficient instructional design. It's because of my research interest including English education for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students in Korea. Korean language has a whole different system from English and the culture is also not the same. Different from other European or Latin students, Korean students need an ID devised systematically and carefully. Therefore my first aim is to have a foundation of knowledge of ID.
Moreover, the best merit of this course is that we can apply what we learn into the reality. I've been always wondering whether theories could be realized. I hope to clear this doubt through this course.
Although Smith & Ragan (1993) says they (designers) "do not necessarily translate their specifications into an actual product." (pp. 4) I don't think it means that it's ok to make such an impractical design. Even a great architect is always trying to discuss with a field overseer. If an ID is not practical, it's useless. I would like to know the know-how of making a more practical and serviceable ID because we're going to learn about "instructional" designs.
