STO Chapter 3

I recently attended a professional development event for my 9-to-5, and a majority of the attendees were faculty or hold faculty-adjacent roles. Several times over the course of the event, the book Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James Lang was praised. I put the book on my TBR list, but I couldn’t find it in the library. But all was not lost: its companion book, Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby with James Lang was available. I checked out the book to get some tips on improving my online courses, but I also thought it might have some applicability to designing eLearning experiences. I am learning a good bit about linking learning theory to practice in online environments, so I thought I would share. For the next several weeks, I’ll go over a chapter of the book each Wednesday and how it relates to instructional design. 

In Chapter 3: “Using Media & Technology Tools” Darby presents the following:

📖 Theory: Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching by Derek Buff

💡Models

• Create short lecture videos

• Spur engagement with online content

• Leverage video for spontaneous updates

• Source existing media

• Find the right technology tool for the job

📌 Principles: 

• Identify the objective

• First, do No Harm

• Provide alternative means of access

🎯 Quick Tips:

• Create short, three to five minutes, mini-lecture videos

• Include assessments to ensure students are attentively watching your video content

• Build depth and nuance with existing video content and your own informal video announcements and updates

• Select technology tools that solve a problem you have identified and that align to the intended outcomes of a given activity or of the course as a whole

How do we use some of these Models, Principles, and Tips in eLearning projects? 

🚀 Application to Instructional Design

The advice Darby gives in this chapter is great for semester long courses or longer learning projects, and I plan to incorporate those I’m not already using into my online courses. That being said, there’s also some nuggets of wisdom for shorter learning projects and eLearning projects. Darby emphasises Miller’s research (2014, Minds online: Teaching effectively with technology. Harvard University Press.) when discussing narration of slides, and this advice applies to all narration– don’t read exactly off of the slide, but also don’t vear too far from the test, try to find the “Goldilocks zone.” I will admit to sometimes breaking this rule for the sake of accessibility, but too much redundancy can turn learners off. Miller also reminds instructors to keep the language conversational (p. 154). 

Another aspect to use in eLearning is a point made by Guo* about the length and production value of videos: even before the age of TikTok, students preferred shorter videos, and they engage less with formal, professionally edited videos. How much more must this be now, when all learners are taking in Reels, TikToks, and podcasts all the time?! I’ve mentioned at work before that “official” styles and branding are too formal for students (and we can stop pretending that “adults” have a better attention span or more refined tastes than college students). The balance is found in building credibility while also being engaging. 

Darby also mentions aligning technological tools to Bloom’s Taxonomy, and I love this advice! Use scenario-based eLearning for application, but use job aids for memorization or recognition. And there’s no need to fall for the latest technology if it doesn’t work. There might be some situations where incorporating an AI-bot into an eLearning project makes sense, but sometimes it doesn’t. “You might well find that the latest fancy teaching tool or program that you have heard about from a colleague just doesn’t fit well with your course, and that some simple alternative will get the job done more efficiently” (p. 51). 

The final aspect I would like to mention is how to ensure students are engaging with the content. It’s a common practice in eLearning to have quizzes or other assessments after material or to unlock the next lesson, and this works great. I am also excited about ways to make those assessments more fun, such as gamification or AI-integration. It doesn’t have to be multiple choice, adn can be a drag-and-drop articulate game that’s on-theme and beautiful! 

*Guo, P.J. (2013, November 13). Optimal video length for student engagement. Retrieved from https://blog.edx.org/optial-video-length-student-engagement. And Guo, P.J., Kim, J., and Rubin, R. How video production affects student engagement: An empirical study of MOOC vide0s. (2014). Proceedings from ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, (L@S 2014). Atlanta, GA. 

✨ Next week, I’ll look at how chapter 4, “Building Community” relates to Instructional Design.