Week 5

Module 5 Reflective Blog

Module 5's Moodle lesson assignment was great. Through the completion of the lesson I was able to apply what I know and understand of androgogy, online lesson development, and design to create a well-designed, coherent instructional product. To be honest, I am not a huge believer in the science of adult learning. I instead adhere to the idea that best practices in instruction are beneficial across all age groups and that while learners vary and their needs vary, I do not think that those variations are enough to validate an entire science of teaching. This project actually helped to further cement this belief. While the target audience of my lesson was adults, high school students could easily have worked through the lesson (although the topic of the lesson may have seemed irrelevant to them). I feel that in this regard what is most important is the design of the lesson. While it is a best practice to create lessons and courses in such a way as to connect with the learner, it is not mandatory. Instead a well-designed course trumps audience analysis (or at least in my perspective).

The strategies I used to create cognitive, instructor, and social presence are simple. The cognitive presence was created through the use of relevant/pertinent content. Keeping the content relevant and meaningful creates learner buy-in which helps to build a cognitive connection with the content. The instructor presence was created by ensuring methods for contacting me, the instructor, were easily gathered and I used language, when communicating with the learner, designed to build/foster the instructor-learner relationship. Lastly, social presence was created through the use of forms and discussion activities. The forums are important instructional tools as they provide a loosely-structured social communication tool wherein learners feel free to openly communicate within the confines or the course, whereas discussion activities are important as they interweave the cognitive and social aspects of the content into one.

My biggest problem in regard to this assignment centered around my lack of experience in using Moodle. For instance, I did not understand how to create a quiz or a survey, nor did I understand if Moodle allowed for LMS-embedded/created rubrics. My method for addressing these problems was simply to find a different solution to the issue. Rather than having a quiz, I created a different form of assessment. Rather than including an instructor-developed survey, I used one of the surveys included in Moodle. Rather than using a Moodle-created rubric (if that is even possible), I thought I could simply create a link or page to the rubric documentation for learners. I am sure I could have worked through the issues I experienced had I had more time to research topics and explore the Moodle environment.

The most rewarding aspect of this assignment, besides the feeling of pride and accomplishment when having completed the lesson creation process, was being introduced to the Moodle Online Lesson Design Framework and corresponding checklist. The framework, in particular, is an invaluable document that helps to get the lesson-creator on the right track. I can see a definite use for this within our organization when we (Instructional Designers) work with SMEs (Subject Matter Experts). In our organization, on most occasions the SME has a lot of ideas about the content and assessments to be included in professional development products, but he/she lacks direction. I see the framework as a valuable resource for helping SMEs find the direction of their professional development products.

~Rachel