Assignment 5 Reflection

Chloé Greene and Sarah Jett

July 3, 2019

Introduction

Designing an instructional course comes with many challenges. However, it is a great learning

opportunity not only for the students involved, but also for the instructors designing the material. When

looking to plan a course, lots of work goes into designing and executing the instruction so it is purposeful

and effective. Along the way, the instructors are facing challenges, but learning lessons as they go. Each

step of the way, they become stronger instructors and the lessons become more and more effective.

Three lessons learned

One lesson we learned about designing a course is the importance of backwards design. It is

important to begin with the end in mind. By that, we mean it is important to think about the end goal and

what it takes to get there. If you have the end in mind when designing a lesson, the instruction is planned

around what content and skills are needed in order to get students from where they are to where they

need to be. This helps students bridge their gap in understanding, and helps instructors insure that their

lesson provides students with enough scaffolding and direction for them to accomplish the goal.

Another important lesson we learned is to use our research more effectively prior to designing our

plan. As we began conducting our research, we learned that we needed to change several aspects of our

lesson. If we collected the information before diving into the designing, we would have more efficiently

planned a lesson. Instead, we conducted research after we put plans on paper. We had done it

backwards and had to redo steps we already took. Lesson learned. Always find the research first, then

use it to design, instead of redesign, and effective lesson.

The last lesson we learned was to make sure our goals and objectives were clear to both

instructors and students. We had to ensure that there was no room for misinterpretation or

misunderstanding. This is critical because the goals and objectives drive the entire lesson. We learned

how important it was to make these clear, concise, and easy to understand. That way, everything

following it, everything dealing with instruction, was perfectly aligned to the end learning goal of the

lesson.

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Three challenges

One challenge we faced was finding research on this specific topic to support our instruction at

every level of this design. We easily found information to support the content and delivery on this topic.

However, we struggled with finding enough information to support sections of our design like resources

and guided practice. These sections seemed for up to teachers’ discretion, so finding something in the

article that supports this was a challenge. We worked towards finding enough information to defend our

decisions, but there was little to help guide us to those decisions.

Another challenge we faced was assuming the hypothetical. Since this is a fictional situation

presented for us to simply practice this skill of designing instruction, we did not have a real sense of our

instruction. This allowed us, of course, to take risks and practice and polish our skills, but we struggled

with this being a fictional situation. We wish we had a better hold on the students who would be taking

this class, their prerequisite knowledge, and the resources and assessments used. This would have

helped us feel more grounded and focused in our planning.

The last struggle we were faced with was the lack of data involved. We both come from schools

that put high emphasis on data collection and analysis. Decisions are rarely made without looking at the

numbers and progress of the students involved. Here, we had to plan a lesson in different stages without

looking at any data. We had to assume student understanding and that progress was being met each

step along the way. This assumption helped with the intent of this assignment, but it was a definite

adjustment for the both of us.

Three pieces of advice

A piece of advice I would offer someone in this position is when designing a course, keep all

instruction, activities, collaboration opportunities, and assignments centered around the goals and

objectives of the lesson. It is easy to dive into a lesson with lots of ideas. However, it is critical to make

sure that those ideas support the goals and objectives clearly. If the activities you have in mind do not

support the goals of the lesson, they are not a great use of instructional time in the module. We advise

designing all instruction, activities, and assessment specifically around the goals and objectives for the

lesson. Everything must align.

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 Another piece of advice we have is coming up with a general concept first, then looking for

articles to support that instruction before designing the plan. As we were reading through our resources,

we learned a lot about or topic. This was great, but at the time did not align to our lesson. We adjusted

things we already had done so it would fit the research found in our readings. Next time, I would reverse

the order. Find the articles first, complete the reading and research, and then use that new information to

design our lesson.

The last piece of advice we would leave readers with is plan a lesson that you would also enjoy

being a part of as a student. It is important to keep the target audience in mind and plan a lesson that

would be engaging for that specific group of learners. If it is not an engaging lesson for them, the

instruction will be lost. We recommend putting yourself in their shoes and plan a lesson that you would

love to be a part of as a learner. This ensures that students are engaged, motivated, and set up for

success.

Conclusion

Designing a lesson for adult learner over this topic was a new experience for both of us. This was

a great opportunity for us to learn what it takes to design an effective lesson from scratch for adult

learners about digital photography. It is important to think about your students, begin with the end in mind,

and plan a lesson specifically around the end goals and objectives in mind. All of these components work

together to create one effective lesson. A lot of lessons were learned along the way, but it ultimately

made us stronger and more confident to tackle something similar in the future.