The Importance of Instructional Design in Open Pedagogy

Currell, A. (2011). Open [Photograph]. Retrieved from Flickr.com 17-Feb-2019, (CC BY-NC 2.0)

At my institution, we have really embraced using Open Resources. A few years ago we received a grant through Achieving The Dream and have worked closely with Lumen Learning to implement courses with open resources, saving our students literally millions of dollars on course materials. What I have learned from this experience is that our faculty were largely unprepared for this shift, and had no idea how much work it would be. Adopting a textbook or courseware is significantly easier than identifying open resources. Our institution offers almost all courses in 8-week sessions, so it seems as though they are always prepping/starting courses and finishing courses. They really need guidance in implementing their open resources so that their learners have the tools and resources they need to help lead them to their learning outcomes.

This is where the importance of instructional design has really become apparent to me. We saw instructors adding links to online resources into their courses, but not in any modular way. I like seeing courses that are set up in a modular format, presenting the learning outcomes, all the resources needed to achieve those outcomes, and a variety of assessments to help gage the learner progress. But most of our instructors just dropped a link to the overall open reading material without really breaking it down for the learners. To me, this was not the best way to do this, because it seemed to confuse our learners. I think that as we are moving forward, away from simply a culture of open education resources and more toward a culture of open pedagogy, our faculty will need a lot more guidance built around effective design strategies. I see a need for our faculty to have a firmer understanding of instructional design, and will be creating professional development activities to help them in this area. The faculty will need to understand how to identify and use Creative Commons sources, and will need to be cognizant of ensuring that all of their materials used are appropriately cited. The resources that the faculty

Using research based instructional design strategies our faculty will be better able to link quality resources into their courses to help their learners move more effectively toward their learning outcomes. Breaking up the resources in a modular format will ensure that the learners do not become confused or overwhelmed trying to figure out where to find the needed resources.

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Resources

Currell, A. (2011). Open [Photograph]. Retrieved from Flickr.com 17-Feb-2019, (CC BY-NC 2.0)

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