From Design to Art

Key aspects of instructional design for educators

Taylor Fayle

tmfayle@mdanderson.org

What is the
most memorable course you've taken?

What is Design?

Instructional Design and Cognitive Load

Elements of Instructional Design

Resources

Roadmap

What is design?

When you and I are talking, I don’t pay attention to the noises you are making; your language is a transparency through which I encounter you. Design, at least when it is optimal, is transparent in just this way; it disappears from view and gets absorbed in application. You study the digital image of the shirt on the website, you don’t contemplate its image.

 

Art, in contrast, makes things strange. Art disrupts plain looking and it does so on purpose. By doing so it discloses just what plain looking conceals.

Art unveils us ourselves. It is an alien implement that affords us the opportunity to bring into view everything that was hidden in the background.

- Alva Noë

"What Art Unveils"

New York Times, October 5, 2015

Design v. Art

Design             Art

Instructional Design             Teaching

What is Design?

Instructional Design and Cognitive Load

Roadmap

One of the main functions of learning design is the ruthless management of cognitive load.

- Julie Dirksen

Design for How People Learn

Cognitive Load

 

the effort being used in working memory

Intrinsic Cognitive Load

Germane Cognitive Load

Extraneous Cognitive Load

Design and Cognitive Load

Friction

Design ("Plain looking")

Teaching ("Art")

What is Design?

Instructional Design and Cognitive Load

Elements of Instructional Design

Roadmap

Instructional Design

Essential Elements

Alignment

Empathy

Engagement

Technology

Usability

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

critical course components work together to ensure that learners achieve the desired learning outcomes

Alignment

Course Learning Outcomes

Module / Unit Learning Outcomes

Instructional Materials

Technology

Course Activities

Assessment

Measurable, Precise, and Salient

Applying Backward Design

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

The extent to which a product can be used to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction

Usability

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Instructions make clear how to get started and where to find various course components

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Start Here!

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Start Here!

Navigation throughout the course is consistent, logical, and efficient.

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Course Navigation

Course Navigation

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Activities encourage learners' engagement through different types of interaction as appropriate to the course. . .  

Active learning involves learners engaging by "doing" something, such as discovering, processing, or applying concepts and information.

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Engagement

Taxonomy of Student Engagement

  • learner-instructor
  • learner-content
  • learner-learner

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Engagement

HIGH

MEDIUM

LOW

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Engagement

Instructor

Peers

Content

Didactic instruction, facilitation/scaffolding, feedback (formative and summative), informal encouragement, etc.

Group projects, peer feedback, seminar style discussion, simulations, role play, peer instruction, etc.

Books, case studies, online video, journal articles, popular articles, music, movies, art, interviews, etc.

Tools used in the course help learners actively engage in the learning process rather than passively absorb information by facilitating interactions with the instructor, course materials, and other students.

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Digital Tools for Learning

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Digital Tools for Learning

Acculturation

Digital natives, yes.

 

Online learning experts, maybe not.

What can I assume our learners know about the tools and platforms used in the course with respect to learning?

Alignment

Engagement

Usability

Technology

Empathy

Wrapping Up

  • Instructional design is the attempt to focus the user's mind on essentials by managing cognitive load
  • Design begins and ends with empathy

  • Alignment, Usability, Engagement and Technology are the key areas of intervention for instructional design
  • Design is an invisible, changing bridge on the way to art

Further Reading

The Shape of Design

Frank Chimero

Design for How People Learn

Julie Dirksen

Make It Stick

Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

The Blended Course Design Workbook

Katie Linder

Thank you!

tmfayle@mdanderson.org

 The times that design delights us are memorable because we sense the empathy of the work’s creator. We feel understood, almost as if by using the work, we are stepping into a space designed precisely for us.

Frank Chimero

The Shape of Design

Good design makes the product understandable. 

 

It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.
 

Good design is as little design as possible. 

 

Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.

From Design to Art

By Taylor Fayle

From Design to Art

Fundamentals of instructional design for educators.

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