This section of my portfolio offers my reflections on the courses I’ve completed in  Instructional Design and Development track offered at George Mason University.

Spring 2010

EDIT 704: Instructional Technology Foundations and Theories of Learning

Description: Reviews practical and pedagogical issues related to design and development of technological instruction. Emphasizes investigating instructional design as a field and community of practice, and reviewing core learning theory constructs applicable to design of instructional technology.

Reflections: This course was my formal introduction to instructional theory and strategies. The focus of the class was examining three epistemologies: Objectivism, Pragmatism, and Interpretivism and the learning theories that stem from them such as behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism.

EDIT 526: Web Accessibility and Design

Description: Develops understanding of principles of universal web design. Students apply this understanding by designing and developing accessible web site using web authoring tools.

Reflections: This course was a great primer on developing websites with accessibility in mind and in accordance with Section 508 requirements. Having designed and developed websites before, this was the first time I was forced to make so many accessibility considerations. What I took away most from this course was the understanding of the challenges faced by the diverse types of users who have to navigate and access a complex internet.

Summer 2010

EDIT 705: Instructional Design

Description: Helps students analyze, apply, and evaluate principles of instructional design to develop education and training materials spanning a wide range of knowledge domains and instructional technologies. Focuses on variety of instructional design models, with emphasis on recent contributions from cognitive science and related fields.

Reflections: EDIT 705 allowed me the opportunity to apply the instructional strategies I learned in EDIT 704 to plan and prototype an instructional design project. Working in teams, we were able to tackle a training problem and develop a viable solution. To develop a solution we performed a learner, context and task analysis as well as a formative and summative evaluation. To complete the project we developed a working prototype of our solution.

EDIT 573: Project Management Tools

Description: Teaches students the principles of project management as it is applied to instructional design. Explores project management tools used to manage, plan, and track large-scale multimedia and hypermedia projects.

Reflections: This was a great class that gave me the skills to be able to manage an instructional design project. A crucial part of being an instructional designer is being able to plan, schedule and manage resources in order to successfully complete a project. In this course, working with a team, I worked on developing a project plan that defined the project’s purpose, scope, schedule and stakeholders. The project management skills I learned in this class have been invaluable to me in my career.

EDIT564: Teaching with Web 2.0

Description: Develops expertise with social, cognitive, and learning implications of film, video, and television. Engages students in process of planning, storyboarding, and filming with video.

Reflections: This class allowed me to actually use Web 2.0 tools practically to facilitate the teacher’s instruction and the student’s learning experience. Web 2.0 tools have already become a natural way for us to socialize with our friends and family, but practical learning applications for Web 2.0 tools require a lot of planning and facilitating. Drawing the connection between a tool and the desired outcome is difficult especially when the technology is so new and constantly changing, this class offered some great practical experience.

EDIT 575: Adobe Captivate

Description: Introduces specific authoring tools through hands-on lab instruction, interaction with software interface, construction of instructional sequences, importing video and audio clips, resource management, and animation.

Reflections: A popular tool used in creating web based instruction is Adobe Captivate. This course was a great primer to the basics of creating robust and interactive lessons utilizing the many features Captivate 5 has to offer.

Fall 2010

EDIT 730: Advanced Instructional Design

Description: Capstone course of three-course sequence on theory and practice of instructional design. Helps students apply ideas developed in prior courses to complete major instructional design project. Covers leading-edge ideas in evolution of instructional design.

Reflections: This class was the summation of what I have learned regarding instructional design theory and practice.  The project I developed for this course highlighted the aspects designing web-based constructivist learning environments as an effective way of addressing training needs.

EDIT 590: Educational Research in Technology

Description: Focuses on developing skills, insights, and understanding basics to performing research with emphasis on interpretation, application, critique, and use of findings in educational settings. Students develop expertise in action research methodology, design, and implementation.

Reflections: Research is an important and critical part of the instructional design process. This class helped me to understand what it takes to conduct or find sound research I need to be able to make effective design decisions.

EDIT 732: Analysis and Design of Technology-Based Learning Environments

Description: Enables design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-based education and training materials using advanced computer-based authoring tools.

Reflections: In this course I was able to fuse the instructional design principles and practices I’ve learned with cutting-edge technology (Augmented Reality) to create a meaningful learning tool. Working in a group we identified the need of making history relevant to middle school students. By using the augmented-reality based activity and tool we developed, students are able to experience and explore history as it happened in physical locations not just in a classroom or textbook.

EDIT 772: Web Based Instructional Tools

Description: Provides overview of web development tools. Using instructional design principles, students interact with variety of web publishing software programs to develop a project web site.

Reflections: Technologies are being developed at an incredibly-rapid pace. Understanding these technologies and their relevance to learning can be difficult because of the multitude of reasons or uses for some of these tools. In this course I  developed effective learning strategies for using the latest social media and Web 2.0 tools.

EDIT 601: IDD Portfolio

Description: Enables students to create and publish electronic portfolio that demonstrates effective and meaningful integration and syntheses of instructional design and development concepts, principles, and competencies learned across program courses at mid-degree program point.

Reflections: Going through the process of reflecting on my previous coursework helped me to establish my goals as a student of instructional design and assess how far I’ve come in meeting my goals.

Spring 2011

EDIT 752: Design and Implementation of Technology-based Learning Environments

Description: Students design and produce multimedia/hypermedia applications based on current theory and research in instructional design and cognitive science. Examines user needs, information models, structure, and media selection and uses to inform design and production of final project.

Reflections: This class was the second part of EDIT 732 where we fused cutting-edge technology with ID principles and practices. This course was a great way to understand how the research development process for instructional products meshes with formative evaluations.

EDIT 701: IDD Portfolio

Description: To be taken in the last semester of course work. Enables students to create and publish electronic portfolio that demonstrates effective and meaningful integration and syntheses of instructional design and development concepts, principles, and competencies learned across program courses at end degree program point.

Reflections: Creating the final portfolio for this program has been a interesting journey back over the past few semesters to see how my understanding of instructional design and its related topics has evolved. It also have me an opportunity to see how I met my goals and how they may have even changed as my understanding of ID changed.