Syllabus

EDTEC 596 & EDTEC 700: Beyond ADDIE: Designing Dynamic Instruction for eLearning and Distance Education

San Diego State University: Educational Technology: Distance Education

Course Description

Learning is a dynamic process in which a learner communicates with an instructor interactively. In this process, the learner acquires new skills by reaching and mastering the pre-determined objectives of a course or an instructional session as intended by the instructor and the course learning materials. However, learning has emergent properties that go beyond pre-determined objectives. Learners are creative and innovative. They generate new thoughts, ideas, suggestions and plans that go beyond pre-determined objectives of a course. They, very often, come up with generative ideas when they speak with other learners.

While the ADDIE model is excellent for the design of instruction for pre-determined learning objectives and creation of static instructional products, it does not provide strategies and tools for designing learning processes that lead to innovative ideas through social learning, group interaction, and collaborative communication.

This course is designed to take instructional design beyond the ADDIE model by including emergent properties of learning through the use of dynamic tools. These tools include web conferencing, discussion forums, chat sessions, social software, and emerging media. If designed properly, learning in these environments becomes an integrated activity of reaching pre-determined objectives in combination with achieving personal and professional growth through a dynamic social learning processes.

Learning is also a personal activity that is based on prior knowledge of a subject by the learner, and learning preferences of the learner. While the ADDIE model is excellent for assessing the learning needs of groups of learners, it falls short of providing for front-end-analyses in which individual learner needs are taken into consideration. This course provides methods of assessment in which individual learning needs are considered for designing personalized instruction. The "one-size-fits" all design methods are appropriate for courses in which all learners must learn the same objectives using the same methods of learning. However, to meet the needs of individual learners new methods of assessment and course design are discussed in this course.

Goals

This course will enable you to gain a broad understanding of the different design methodologies used when creating online and distance courses. It will enable you to produce effective online and distance courses using specific tools, skills, and knowledge required for such practice. You will design a distance course using these methodologies and tools.

Objectives

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Integrate basic learning theory into the design of online, eLearning, & distance courses
• Differentiate between static models of instructional design and dynamic models of instructional design based on dialog and building communities.
• Utilize different tools within the design & delivery of online, eLearning and distance courses
• Incorporate different instructional methodologies (lecture/presentations, group work, interaction with technology, visual aids, case studies, research, projects, simulations) and explain how they should be used within online, eLearning, and distance courses
• Create different learning activities focused on different learning styles
• Create different assessments used in online, eLearning and distance courses
• Organize content to be used within a learning and/or content management systems or other distance learning platforms

Technology Requirements

Some students will take this course at a distance through the College of Extended Studies. These students must have access to the following technologies for the successful completion of this course at a distance:

• A personal computer with at least 1.0 GHz speed, 250 Mb RAM, 80 GB hard drive, an audio board, and Ethernet enabled.
• A Microphone.
• A video camera compatible to the computer used for the course.
• Firefox or Internet Explorer web browser (latest version).
• Flash Player.
• Access to high speed Internet without the interference of an enterprise firewall.

Wimba Requirements (for students at a distance)

All course lectures will be held in Wimba. To access Wimba go to the SDSU Blackboard website and type in your username and password. If you have never accessed the Blackboard system, please follow the instructions on the Logging onto Blackboard Help Site.

Once you have logged into the Blackboard site, click on the appropriate link for EDTEC 700: Ins and Outs of Learning Management Systems.

Description of Major Deliverables

Distance Course Design

Note: You must have at least 5 class sessions in your course.

Mini-Analysis - Due Day 2

• Pick a topic for your course
• Determine your audience for this course
• Do a mini-analysis using a simple survey to determine the need for the course
• Write a brief description of your mini-analysis and post it to the discussion forum.
• Answer the following questions in your discussion forum post:
  • What types of questions did you include in your survey?
  • How many people took your survey?
  • What did you find out from your mini-analysis?
  • How can you use this information to help design your course?

Syllabus – Due Day 3

• Create a syllabus for your course using the template provided.
• Include the following in your syllabus:
  • Course description
  • Course goals & objectives
  • Course learning materials
  • Course communication
  • Major Assessments
  • Grading
  • Course outline

Course Design Document – Due Day 5

• Use the provided template to create a course design document
• Include the following in your design document:
  • Course description
  • Course instructional/learning strategies
  • Course media platforms
  • Course provision for learner autonomy
  • Course provision for structure
  • Course communication
  • Major and minor assessments

Session Description – Due Day 5

• Choose one session within your course to describe in detail using the provided template.
• Include the following in your session description:
  • Session objectives
  • Session structure or procedures
  • Learning activities
  • Deliverables
  • Assessments

Summary of Grading - Total points 100

Participation in class discussions - 10 points
Discussion forum posts about articles - 10 points
Distance Course Mini-Analysis - 15 points
Distance Course Syllabus - 15 points
Distance Course Design Document - 30 points
Distance Course Session Description - 20 points

Schedule of Topics

Day 1 - Topics

• General overview of course – objectives, goals, etc.
• Differences between distance learning and face-to-face learning
• Overview of design theory for distance courses
• Analysis - purpose, types, ways to conduct analysis

Day 1 - Assignments

• Read Distance Education and eLearning: A Brief Introduction article and post to discussion forum about 3 interesting facts you did not already know about distance education. – Due Day 2
• Choose topic for distance course and conduct a mini-analysis using a brief survey. - Due Day 2

Day 2 - Topics

• Detailed description of design theories for distance courses.
• Transactional distance - what is it, how does it affect design of courses

Day 2 - Assignments

• Review Rubric for Online Instruction at Chico State University and post to the discussion forum about ways you can implement these ideas into a distance course design. - Due Day 3
• Review the Principles of Online Design at Florida Gulf Coast University. Choose 2 principles under any topic (choose from the topics on the left side menu) and post on the discussion forum the importance of these principles when designing an online, eLearning, or distance course. – Due Day 3
• Work on Distance Course Syllabus. – Due Day 3

Day 3 - Topics

• Compare different distance courses and how they are designed
• Learning styles presented by online, distance, or eLearning participants
• Assessment design for online, distance, or eLearning courses

Day 3 - Assignments

• Subscribe to Distance-Educator.com. Select one article relating to distance education design in the Weekly News from Distance-Educator.com. Read the article and write a brief summary about the article and any thoughts you have on the article in the discussion forum. – Due Day 4
• Work on Distance Course Design Document & Session Description. – Due Day 5

Day 4 - Topics

• Types of tools used to design and develop online, distance, or eLearning courses
• Benefits and drawbacks of synchronous and asynchronous tools
• Benefits and challenges in working with technology to present content

Day 4 - Assignments

• Complete Distance Course Design Document & Session Description. – Due Day 5

Day 5 - Topics

• Discuss design of Distance Courses.
  • Brief overview of course
  • Rationale for your design
  • What you learned about designing a distance course