DEU | Instructional Design

At times it is really difficult to imagine how your face-to-face course will translate to online delivery, especially if the class is really interactive or experiential in nature.  However, the instructional designers provide wonderfully detailed templates and accompanying guidance that take the subject matter experts through the design process in a manageable way.  Trusting in the process allowed us to design modules that will not only facilitate rich student learning in the online environment, but will also provide lots of resources and tools for teaching in person as well.  No matter how you look at it, our course has become better!

The ID team played a key role in transforming our vision into reality by helping us rethink and restructure the way we provide our pre-departure orientation. Their expertise ensured that key learning objectives, effectiveness and flexibility were taken into account at every step of the design process. With the help of this team, we now have a new set of engaging and relevant learning activities and a 24/7 accessible orientation that focuses more on the application of information than merely pouring it on students. As a subject matter expert I felt extremely supported by everyone.  A daunting project turned out to be very manageable through their easy to follow step-by-step process.

Working with Jordan and Jeanette on translating a face-to-face course to its online version was invaluable. I went into the process thinking that writing up our course would be pretty straightforward, and that while the instructional designers may be able to answer a question or two about the online format, we’d be able to whip it up pretty quickly.  After the first couple of meetings with the IDs, I think we all realized that translating a course to its online version is no easy matter if you haven’t done it before. Jeanette and Jordan have worked so hard with us, have been very patient with us, and have given us good guidance. The quality of the course is much better than it would have been, and it’s safe to say that the deeper thinking about the course — spurred on by the IDs — is going to make the face-to-face version of the course much better, too.

My first experience developing a course with (this team) has been very rewarding. The people are incredibly helpful, respectful and knowledgeable. The respect everyone on the team demonstrates towards each others’ areas of expertise and the ease of communication between members and with the course creator greatly facilitated course development. Everyone I have worked with has been helpful and timely in responses to queries. Overall, the team made the process educational, easy and enjoyable. My thanks to the team.

My primary concern of translating the BMSC 200 course into an online format was to ensure that the quality of the course did not suffer for convenience of delivery. My concerns were completely unfounded. Thanks to the efforts of the Instructional Design team the course now has much better organization, presentation and student participation. Jordan and the team were a tremendous help at each step of generating the online course as well as ongoing support once the online class was up and running. Their experience and patience with the development and implementation of the online format was an incredible resource.

I had never developed an online course before and thought the process would be difficult and intimidating. The curriculum team, however, made it a very easy and enjoyable experience. They were accessible, efficient and friendly as well as having numerous helpful suggestions for what would work with an online environment. The finished product ended being a much better one thanks to their involvement.

I found that the curriculum team provided me with a helpful framework for the online course I developed. This addressed the key differences between teaching in-class and designing a course for online-only participation. They helped me to determine the full range of what the students needed in the online environment, especially in terms of anticipating many possible questions they may have, phrasing assignments in a clear way, ensuring that supplementary materials were properly provided, and integrating the variety of digital formats that go into an online course.

Having been involved in distance education for many years (correspondence courses dating back to 1982), and working with online courses since 2001, I have had the opportunity to experience the development process from many perspectives.  With each course development and redevelopment I have seen improvements in design methods and new opportunities for presenting the material to the students.  My most recent experience (GEOG 381 redevelopment) was one of my favourites.  I felt that (the instructional design team) were very supportive of my ideas, but also very helpful in making suggestions and creating a product that I felt reflected what I wanted to see.   The positive feedback from students further confirmed this.  For me, it was another great learning experience.

It was consistently a pleasure working with the curriculum development team. Staff helped me envision my course in a much more vital and interactive fashion; they set up a template that was exactly what was needed, and were always there to troubleshoot. The team has a great positive can-do attitude. Together we made this course more fun, better suited to a full range of students, easier to manage, more modern, and of course, more current. And enrollment is up.