Part 1 of a series
by Steven Bishop
Michelle Jickling, who is currently working as an Instructional Designer and eLearning Developer with the Training Group at Douglas College, and I sat down for a conversation about the essentials of helping subject-matter experts and instructors with course development. We specifically addressed some of the initial concerns with translating the expert’s knowledge to an online environment, such as the Blackboard LMS currently used by the College.
Our discussion touched on:
- Starting from scratch: storyboarding, assessing learning needs, organizing existing content, reviewing the learning goals
- Meeting desired outcomes vs. delivery of information
- Scaffolding into advanced knowledge
- Iterative processes and updating content
- Discipline-specific priorities
- Synchronous and asynchronous modalities – how best to meet the student where they are
- Modern educational and life challenges for students
- Relevancy in course design and assessments
- Balancing an expert’s knowledge with time constraints (the 80:20 rule)
- Time expectations
We would like to acknowledge that we live, learn, work, and play on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples of the QayQayt and Kwikwetlem First Nations.