Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 1

Running Head: COMPREHENSIVE INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN PLAN

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan

Frederick William Wright II

University of West Georgia

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 2

Defining the Problem

My client is Dr. Marye Smith, an 11th Grade English Literature teacher at Hampton High School.
Her challenge to me was a simple question: what activity can I have the students do that would
demonstrate their understanding of their summer reading assignment other than the standard
book report or content analysis? My answer was to have students develop book trailers about
their summer reading books and hold a Book Trailer Academy Awards Night for the winners.
Redesigning the Lesson
To begin this process, I met with the students from Dr. Smiths 1st period class who agreed to do
the activity and explained the concept of a book trailer and software needed to complete the task.
I also explained to them how the book trailer concept follows some of the same ideas of a
traditional book report, in which a student must use specific events and summarize characters in
order to create ones trailers. The difference, in this case, is that the student must create a movie
script that explains the story of the book without giving away the ending. I also reminded them
that their video would be evaluated based on a presentation rubric as well as how accurate the
facts of the book are used. In Artifact 1, I created a presentation using a Microsoft program
called Sway. The presentation defines a book trailer and outlines the basic steps that a student
would go through to create the book trailer. In addition, the Sway presentation also includes
three techniques for creating book trailers and an example of each technique created by previous
students. After the initial training session, I met routinely with small groups of students that
needed help recording the scripts or finding images for their audio. I also provided them with a
website that listed several themed music clips that were in compliance with copyright law for
background music. These music clips avoided the problem of students using their own music that
would constitute a copyright violation. In addition, I gave instruction on how students are able to

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 3

find images that have a Creative Commons license by using filtered searches through search
engines such as Google and Bing. Finally, followed up with an evaluation session in which I
showed Artifact 2, a second MS SWAY presentation that reviews how their presentation will be
graded as well as tips that they can use to improve their videos. I also created two sample book
trailers. The first is a trailer which has several common problems that many student presentations
contain and I facilitated a discussion on techniques to solve these common problems. I also used
the opportunity to talk briefly about visual elements and principles. After the discussion, I
showed them the revised, second book trailer that I created identifying where many of the
problems in the original have been improved.
Timeline for Comprehensive Design Plan:
Date
9-21-2105

Action
Audience
Present students with Artifact 1 explaining the assignment and
Dr.identifying
Smiths first
and
and identifying techniques used to create a book trailer.

period class.

Each technique modeled by a student created an example. Presented to the

class as a whole.
Small Groups

9-22-2015

Meet with small groups of students to provide advice and

0n going

technical support. Provide feedback on design questions

11-20-2015

and visual principles concepts.

Present students with Artifact 2 evaluating a book trailer.

Presented to Dr.

Students will see an example I created that needs to be

Smiths first

improved. Then students will see a revised version of the

period class as a

original. Students will also get advice and feedback on

whole.

the grading rubric that will be used to evaluate their

12-16-2015

presentations.
Students will have Book Trailer Night in the media center Presented to Dr.

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 4

where students will showcase their movies to their

Smiths first

parents and awards will be given.

period class and

their parents
and friends.

Methods to Evaluate and Access the Lesson

The rubric that I decided to use for the final presentation was a book trailer rubric that was
designed by Kathy Schrock. It lists five categories and gives a good description of proper use of
video and sound. The rubric was originally designed for iMovie, not MS Moviemaker, so I gave
students the background music website. In iMovie, students have the option of using Garage
Band to create their music. This is also a good way around the copyrighted music issue, but this
program involves more technology skill and understanding of the fundamentals of music creation
and theory. Due to time constraints, I avoided this problem by simply letting students choose
clips that worked for the emotional tone that they were trying to create. Here is a copy of the
rubric we used:

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 5

Explanation of Research and How it Applies to My Design

In analyzing the research for using multimedia verses simple plain text, in this case a book report
for summarizing information, I created two artifacts to help students understand what constitutes
a book trailer and the process to create a one. The first artifact is a MS Sway presentation that
explains what constitutes a book trailer and some helpful hints on techniques that lead to high

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 6

quality book trailers. Also included in this presentation are actual book trailers created by former
students that provide a specific example of three different techniques. The second artifact is a
second MS Sway presentation in which I included two book trailers which I created on the book
The Count of Monte Cristo. The first book trailer is one that represents poor design and includes
many of the problems that are found in many student videos. The idea is to let the student see an
average presentation and evaluate it then have the student suggest modifications. After a short
discussion, I showed the revised book trailer that has the revisions needed in order to produce a
quality video presentation. Two main research theories identify scientific evidence to support the
premise that using multimedia in the forms of audio and visual as well text produces more
effective retention of knowledge than just basic text. The first of the theories is the Dual Coding
Theory first discovered by Piavio in 1971. This theory explains that the mind has two coding
areas for storing information, a verbal coding area and a visual/image coding area. When
information is presented using both verbal and image cues to a learner, one is able to use both
codes of memory. As result of accessing both of these codes, the learner is more likely to encode
the information into their long tern memory (Thomas 2014). Using the Duel Coding Theory, my
book trailer design incorporates both image and verbal cues in the assignment. By having
students first write a script and then narrate the script through their own voice, they are enabled
to code the information in their verbal areas of their memory. The assignment also requires the
learner to find and select pictures that match the script that the learner created. This allows the
learner to encode information into the visual or image memory of the learner. The second theory
that applies to this activity is Mayers Theory of Multimedia Learning. In this theory, Mayer
explains the more complex details of how information is encoded into memory. From this
theory, Mayer points out, Meaningful multimedia learning occurs when the learner engages in

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 7

appropriate cognitive processing during learning, including attending to relevant words and
pictures, organizing words and pictures into coherent representations, and integrating the
representations with each other and with knowledge activated from long-term memory (Media
Instruction, p. 385). By redesigning the lesson from a basic text report to a multimedia book
trailer, students are given the opportunity to verbally and visually develop their own personal
understanding of the story. This personalization of content challenges the learner to use
information that they have developed through reading the novel and adds new information as
they rethink the meaning of the information the learner has already stored in their background
knowledge. Any multimedia activity that does this is deemed by Mayer as meaningful
multimedia learning. However, Mayer cautions us on the overuse of media information as to
overwhelm the memory capacity of the learner; today we call this information overload. Here,
small group sessions were critical in the multimedia project. By allowing students to get
immediate help, I was able to help frustrated students write their scripts and find correct useful
images. This small group support reduced the overload factor and led to greater student success.
In evaluating the book trailer activity as it applies to the ACRL Visual Literacy Standards, many
of the standards are incorporated in the project. Instead of teaching these standards one at time, I
decided to incorporate them into the small group sessions I had with students. In these small
group sessions I would determine whether I needed to reteach some these concepts and offer
suggestions for improvement. For example, in Standard 2, Part 1, Subset C: Recognizing how
the image search process is affected by image rights and use restrictions, I can easily assess the
images that have been selected observing the copyright or watermarks on them. Students who
had these items were given a short lesson how search Creative Commons sources and how to use

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 8

image filters on search engines. By having weekly small group sessions, I was able to
implement lessons or explanations that reinforced the visual literacy standards.
Reflection
From the project, I learned that more projects such as this need to be implemented in our school.
I am also reminded of the need to continue to challenge faculty to try new ideas and attend
technology professional training. I have developed a technology training program at my school;
unfortunately, it has not been as successful as I hoped. I hope by the success of this book trailer
project I will get more teachers involved with learning and implementing better multimedia
design in their classrooms. I also liked the Dual Coding Theory as a resource for validating and
explaining to teachers the need for more staff development as well as a need to differentiate
instructional design and vary student projects.

Comprehensive Instructional Design Plan 9

References
ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. (n.d.). Retrieved
November 6, 2015.
Assessment and Rubrics. (n.d.). Retrieved November 12, 2015, from
http://www.schrockguide.net/assessment-and-rubrics.html
Mayer, R. (2013). Multimedia Instruction. Handbook of Research on Educational
Communications and Technology, 385-399.
Thomas, Nigel J.T., "Mental Imagery", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/mental-imagery/>.