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Running head: Evaluating Instructional Design

Evaluating Instructional Design Adrienne Santiago EDU336 Mitchell Doxsee October 21, 2013

Evaluating Instructional Design

Evaluating Instructional Design The main process of evaluating instructional design involves identifying instructional methods or features that have been shown to improve learning (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). Evaluating instructional design requires the applications of principles that have resulted in effective learning. While our educational system continues to evolve electronically, it is still critical we take into account the effectiveness of the learning environment and meeting the learning needs of all learners. Evaluating curriculum against these curriculum design principles we can promote learning in the virtual classroom setting. It is essential to first establish the learning goals for every course or training program. Learning goals determine the outcomes of the course, what we expect the student to know and demonstrate, in addition to the behavior change resulting from learning. Learning activities should focus on building and bringing students closer to reaching the learning goals. It is important to align these learning activities with the learning goals, as doing so will support the student attaining the learning goals of the course or training program. On line instruction requires the use of instructional technology. Today, we have an arsenal of instructional technologies that can be used, ranging from educational games played or mobile devices (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). The multimedia principle involves the use of text together with graphics throughout electronic lessons. Based on cognitive theory and research evidence (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011), presentations that include not only the written word, but together with graphics, result in effective learning. Examples of effective graphics include charts, diagrams, animation, and videos. The Contiguity Principle involves the integration of text and graphics. It is important for curriculum designer of electronic lessons to align the text and graphics in such a way as to limit

Evaluating Instructional Design

the amount of time learners spend searching for which part of the text correspond to which graphic. Limiting the search time allows the learner to focus their cognitive resources on understanding the instructional material and not searching for the relationship between text and graphics. Learners use all their senses when presented with new instructional material. It is important that when developing curriculum, we take into account how the learner absorb, process and retain information. The Modality Principle incorporates the importance of using narration whenever possible rather than just text alone. Using narration in addition to text and graphics has been shown to increase the cognitive processes of the learner. Although research has shown the importance of incorporating narration, we must be cognizant of incorporating noise into the eLearning that is distracting to the learner. Another concern is repeating what is written in text form using narration. Using narration to just read what is written in text violates the Redundancy principle. While we want to take into account the learning style needs of the learner, we need to be aware of sensory overload. Since all people have separate channels for processing verbal and pictorial materials (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011), we do not want cognitive overload to occur. When first designing an eLearning course or training program, we need to be careful not to add materials that does not support the learning goals and objectives. Many designers focus on making the presentation animated and exciting to the learner. Adding material including graphics, videos, audios, texts, charts, etc., which is not directly related to the learning goals, violates the Coherence Principle. materials from the presentation. The term weeding is used when removing such instructional

Evaluating Instructional Design

When using narrations and audios throughout the curriculum it is important to apply the Personalization Principle. Audios used should be used in a conversational style as opposed to formal narrations. Learners need to relate to the material and therefore learn best when the audio is done with a human voice as opposed to a computer voice. Text also needs to be personalized and informational to engage the learners. Creating long-term memory is a cognitive process that incorporates the building of information for the learner. As the learner experiences various learning activities, the new material is connecting with prior memory creating learning. Integrating refers to building appropriate connections between the verbal and pictorial representations in working memory as well as relevant prior knowledge activated from long-term memory (Mayer, R. E. (2008). Curriculum should reflect this process by applying the Segmenting and Pretraining Principles. Breaking information down into little chucks of information helps the learner process instructional material is smaller concepts. Instruction should start with identifying terminology, tools, and phrases. Segmenting the training or course prevents cognitive overload and promotes effective learning. So students want to be able to do things. They take courses because they like to be able to do things. They like to be able to do something they couldn't do before (Mdavidmerril. (2008). It is very important to incorporate worked examples throughout the curriculum. A worked example is a step-by-step demonstration of how to perform a task or solve a problem (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). Being able to mimic and imitate provides opportunities for the learner to create long-term memory. Creating practice exercised for the learner throughout the curriculum, also known as practice interactions, helps the learner to take the information

Evaluating Instructional Design

stored in long-term memory, and demonstrates the skills that will be required in a real world environment such as the work place. Creating a collaborating learning environment creates more learning opportunities in the learning environment. Collaboration as opposed to cooperation creates a learning environment where each learner is responsible for a piece of the learning activity. Learning together show advantages over learning alone (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). Collaboration activities done in eLearning environment use Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) technology such as blogs, twitter, and breakout rooms. E-Learning programs can be designed to allow students more choices as to what topic they would like to learn and at what pace. A program with many choices for learner is known as Learner Control. A concern with learner control is making sure the course is still focused on the learning goals and making sure the student has the opportunity to meet the objectives set in the course or training program. Providing a program with too much learner control may distract from the leaning goals and prevent learning from occurring. Metacognitive skills take the practice experience beyond just teaching skills. Teaching metacognitive skills teaches the student to understand the reasons behind just practice skills. The student is able to develop critical thinking skills by not only understanding the reasons behind certain task but also explore other options for completing certain task. Using metacognitive skills learners can evaluate themselves and have a deeper understand as to why they performed in a certain fashion and explore other options for solving problems. 21st century learners have grown up with automation, simulation, and electronic devices throughout all aspects of their lives. We can bring simulation and games into the classroom setting that will help students reach the learning goals. Designers need to be concerned with

Evaluating Instructional Design

incorporating games and simulations that are both affordable and effective for learning. We think motivation comes from animation and games and edutainment. When in fact, these are maybe attention-getting (Mdavidmerril. (2008). Using games in the curriculum effectively can help reach our 21st century learners. The delivery strategies area, involving issues associated with the ways in which the course is delivered to the learners: the learning material should be accessible and available to all learners, including people with special needs, such as people with physical disabilities, or geographically isolated learners (Lanzilotti, R., Ardito, C., Costabile, M. F., & De Angeli, A. (2006). The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) model incorporates a learning environment that provides opportunity to all learners to actively engage and participate in all areas of the curriculum regardless of their learning and environmental disadvantages. Incorporating this principle requires training of instructional staff as well as resources. The Merrill on Instructional Design video takes into account three essential design principles for quality design of instruction. We need to show people what were trying to teach them. Instead of just tell them. (Mdavidmerril. (2008). Going back to the principles of worked examples, the author stresses the principle of examples throughout the curriculum. He adds to this principle by stating, we need to give students an opportunity to practice what they've learned and that doesn't mean just to answer multiple-choice questions (Mdavidmerril. (2008). This concept incorporates learning activities that engage the learning through activities such as predictions, trouble shooting and classifying. Finally, the speaker stresses the importance of motivation and the value in instructors understanding how to motivate a learner through curriculum that contains substance.

Evaluating Instructional Design

I have chosen the Aleks Mathematics website to evaluate and apply these learning principles. The program is an on-line e-Learning environment that can be used alone or together with a text that is supported through the website. When I first visited the Aleks facility, I was very impressed with the concepts of what the on-line learning program was trying to accomplish. After evaluating the web site using these learning principles, I found learning principle violations that could affect the learning outcomes. I first looked for clear learning goals and objectives on the website to direct the student to the purpose of the program. I did not find any learning goals. Once I signed into the program, I was immediately sent into the pre-assessment testing. Without learning goals, as a student, I did not see the purpose of the learning activities. Violating the principle of aligning the leaning activities with learning goals, resulted in nothing more than to practice solving problems. I would recommend an introductory page that provides the student with learning goals and objectives. The introductory page would provide visual demonstrations on what the student would be able to do after taking the course. While the learning environment provides an initial assessment, a pre-test, it does not support the Pretraining Principle. Immediately after the assessment test, I was lead into choosing from a variety of topics, but there were no definitions as to what the topics are. I also feel that after purposely scoring low on the assessment, I was being force to choose from topics from a pie that gave me no direction as to where to begin. With no clear direction I could pick from a more advance topic after clearly failing the first assessment. The Segmenting Principle clearly is not applied in this program. I can see how the designer created choices for the student but without clear learning goals, I could easily choose the wrong area to begin my learning. I would

Evaluating Instructional Design

recommend a page that explains a sequence of levels for the learner with a clear explanation and demonstration on how they would be able to use the math in a real world environment. Multimedia was very limited throughout this program. Begin a math program, there were numbers and charts. The program was very limited in graphic other than numbers, charts and graphs. The program could benefit from video demonstrations. Have the learner clicking around for the help button and worked examples was very distracting. The learners should not count on the reliability of the technology: the e-learning system should allow learners to navigate and download materials within a reasonable period of time, and learners should be able to use various technologies to communicate and collaborate with each other and their teachers, and so on (Lanzilotti, R., Ardito, C., Costabile, M. F., & De Angeli, A. (2006). The learner is lead to buttons that really are more focused on how to work the website and not on the learning goals, a violation of the Contiguity Principle. The learner is lead to search around the website for assignments and explanations. I would recommend the segmenting concepts, providing a video of how to solve the problems and more demonstrations. The Modality Principle is not applied in this program as there is no narration. Narration would benefit this program as not only would a narration be able to direct the student through the program, but a narration would also help the student through solving the problems. When words are narrated, they can be dealt within the auditory processor, thereby leaving the visual processor to deal with the pictures only (Reinwein, J. (2012). There is not collaboration in this program as the learner is left alone to navigate through the website and navigate through the problem solving process. I would recommend creating an area in the program where students can submit questions and work on problems together. This

Evaluating Instructional Design

would give the student an opportunity to collaborate with other students possible using Computer Supported Collaborating Learning (CSCL). This program would benefit from teaching metacognitive skills. Mathematics is difficult for many learners and being able to critically think through problems after teaching the learner why they need to know what is being presented, and understand trigonometry, may result in better learning. I feel the program is simply teaching students how to solve problems systematically, without reasons. Without narration and limited Multimedia, this program could benefit from the use of games. Simple mathematic games throughout the program would engage the learners and meet the learning style of many of our 21st century learners. While the program does demonstrate the Learner Control Principle, Specifically, research suggests that the success of e-learning programs with greater learner control is highly dependent on the trainee reactions to the training environment. When the trainee is not satisfied with and engaged in the training environment, training performance is hampered (Orvis, K. A., Brusso, R. C., Wasserman, M. E., & Fisher, S. L. (2011). Prior to understanding how to apply the instructional design principles, I would have not been able to identify these obstacles in this course that may prevent learning from occurring. Knowing and understanding how learners learn places value on how we delivery instruction to learners in an eLearning environment. The Aleks program has the content and can reflect the goals of the textbook associated with the course evaluated. However, the delivery of the material without the applications of the instructional principles can create a learning environment that is ineffective.

Evaluating Instructional Design

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Reference Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). e-Learning and science of instruction: proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Lanzilotti, R., Ardito, C., Costabile, M. F., & De Angeli, A. (2006). eLSE Methodology: a Systematic Approach to the e-Learning Systems Evaluation. Journal Of Educational Technology & Society, 9(4), 42-53. Mayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction. American Psychologist, 63(8), 760-769. doi:10.1037/0003066X.63.8.760 Mdavidmerril. (2008). Merrill on instructional design [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_TKaO2-jXA Orvis, K. A., Brusso, R. C., Wasserman, M. E., & Fisher, S. L. (2011). E-nabled for E-Learning? The Moderating Role of Personality in Determining the Optimal Degree of Learner Control in an E-Learning Environment. Human Performance, 24(1), 60-78. doi:10.1080/08959285.2010.530633 Reinwein, J. (2012). Does the Modality Effect Exist? and if So, Which Modality Effect?. Journal Of Psycholinguistic Research, 41(1), 1-32. doi:10.1007/s10936-011-9180-4

Program Evaluation: Aleks Mathematics http://www.aleks.com/login Login Name: ASANTIGO342 Password: CCNNpharmacy1

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