When instructional designers or subject matter experts (SMEs) design a course, students’ mental health often unintentionally gets overlooked. Courses that overlook students’ mental health, even unintentionally, show a lack of empathy and understanding on our part.
Continue reading “Instructional Design for Mental Health”Category: Reflection
Unwrapping 2022: Supporting Learners
It’s that time of the year again. If you’ve been following Model eLearning for some time, you know we use our last post of the year to reflect on the past year. We enjoy the opportunity to look back at the themes of the year (and we hope you do too!).
Continue reading “Unwrapping 2022: Supporting Learners”eLearning Past, Present, and Future (2011-2021): A Conversation about Trends in eLearning, Instructional Design, and Online Learning
In May 2011, I graduated from high school. In June, before I started college, I walked into my first group interview. While I had never heard of eLearning or instructional design, I was still intrigued. Dave Goodrich, one of my high school science teachers, now worked at Spring Arbor University (SAU) as an instructional designer. He believed in my potential and said this student worker job could last throughout my undergraduate career if I wanted.
I met Dave, Tara McCoy , and a couple others from what was formerly the Office of Academic Technology (OAT) outside a coffee shop. When I was hired on the spot, I had no idea what I was getting into or how this field and career would help me as a student and as a professor.
Continue reading “eLearning Past, Present, and Future (2011-2021): A Conversation about Trends in eLearning, Instructional Design, and Online Learning”2020: A Year Redefined
It’s hard to believe we’re wrapping up our fourth year of blogging on Model eLearning. Most years, we take time to reflect on what we’ve written, review our discoveries and research, and celebrate our accomplishments for the year. These reflections resonate even deeper as we look at a year shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Continue reading “2020: A Year Redefined”Self-Care for Essential Designers
I don’t know about you, but these past few months have been crazy for me. The week before the coronavirus (COVID-19) started picking up in my hometown, I was out of the office focusing on my first residency for my doctoral program. When I returned, my inbox was full of emails about projects that were already in progress before I left as well as emails from instructors asking me to help them transfer their face-to-face courses to online using web conferencing and our university’s LMS, Blackboard. So, March 2020 was pretty much a blur.
Once I began working from home, I discovered it was more difficult to maintain a balance between my work and personal life. My daily schedule and routine remained the same, but it was all within the comfort of my home. Throughout March when people asked me how I was doing, the analogy that I liked to use was I felt like a steam engine or a bullet train and I wasn’t slowing down. Herein lies my problem:
I wasn’t slowing down.
Continue reading “Self-Care for Essential Designers”Why (and How) I Guard my Instructional Design Time
In Ann’s recent post, she outlined some of her workflow processes and how she gets through the variety of tasks she has in any given day. As I was reading through and editing it, I really only had one thought cross my brain.
“I could never work like this…”
Continue reading “Why (and How) I Guard my Instructional Design Time”Three Things to Consider when Designing your next Learning Experience
When you’re developing an eLearning course, there is always an overload of “practical” stuff that you have to keep in mind. Development timelines, coordinating with subject matter experts, and making sure all the nuts and bolts are ready for the launch day of your course.
In the midst of all the details, I like to stop and consider how I can make each course I develop more effective than the last. There’s always a new angle or strategy out there to consider. I’m sharing 3 ideas here and I hope you’ll try them out.
Continue reading “Three Things to Consider when Designing your next Learning Experience”A Traditional Student’s Reflection on Online Classes
Last spring was a pivotal semester for me academically. I was challenged in my classes and experienced significant growth as a writer. I attribute this growth mainly to the six classes I was enrolled in, two of which were online courses.
Continue reading “A Traditional Student’s Reflection on Online Classes”Surprised by Inspiration from IKEA
Inspiration can strike in the most unexpected places—even a Swedish furniture store. As my coworker and fellow blogger Gwen would tell you, IKEA is one of the best places for instructional designers (ID) to find inspiration. I’ll admit that I didn’t believe her at first. However, when we visited IKEA last year as a team-building exercise, I was surprised by the inspiration that sparked my creativity and motivated me to be a better ID. Many of the ideas I found that day have stayed with me and helped me improve the ways I work with programs, subject matter experts (SME), and stakeholders to design online, blended, and face-to-face courses.
Continue reading “Surprised by Inspiration from IKEA”Acknowledging the Transition
Life is full of transitions. Usually they involve an alteration in the people around you, the environment, or both. Looking at this phenomenon through an instructional design lens, we can observe two things:
Continue reading “Acknowledging the Transition”
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