Necessity is the mother of invention – especially if that “necessity” is a global pandemic. The COVID-19 era has forced the world to stop and rethink everything from the economy to entertainment. One of the biggest issues we face centers on how schools will resume this fall. How does design fit into solving problems of such a massive scale?
The fall semester of 2020 has seen the largest-ever rollout of structural change in the American educational system. Most universities have determined that back-to-school “as usual” is impossible given the current situation. Instead, schools are going virtual, and students across the country will have to adjust to what could be the new normal. Despite the general consensus that this is the safest way for students to continue their education this fall, the prospect of long-term online instruction introduces many valid concerns. Students wonder if they will receive a quality education, if they can and should be paying full tuition, and whether their schools will accommodate personal circumstances that are out of their control. Faculty and administration also face daunting obstacles that are often overlooked.
Although it may be considered optimistic, I believe that the pandemic – from an educational perspective – can be an opportunity to reconsider the structure of the current system and identify areas of improvement. Which aspects of higher education helped students in the past, and which ones hurt them? How have our values shifted since the pandemic began? What does the “new normal” even look like? If we are asking ourselves these questions, we could use their answers to improve schools for the long-term. This is where instructional design comes in.
A Background on Instructional Design
Design used to be viewed as a discipline. It was a process limited to creating tangible products and spaces, and designers were the “artists” of the real world. However, people have recently seen design for what it can truly be: a human-centered paradigm for solving all kinds of problems (Luka).
Instructional design (ID) or educational design is a process that consists of planning, creating, implementing, and evaluating methods of teaching and learning. The actual act of learning in school is a synthesis of many moving parts: curriculum, tasks, spatial layout, technology, lecture style, and more. All of these elements are designed to work together and help students absorb the concepts of the course.
It is easy to oversimplify the meaning of instructional design to just “designing an education.” Something as broad, dynamic, and personal as education could never be designed, manufactured, and used the way a tangible product could (Culatta). Classroom environments are “complex, dynamic, and somewhat unpredictable” and consist of epistemic, physical, and social interactions (Dimitriadis and Goodyear). Instructional designers are constantly building on existing infrastructure, realigning priorities as student needs change, and finding ways to address those needs.
How are our goals and priorities for education shifting?
Professor Clint Tuttle is a lecturer in the McCombs School of Business and has been part of the team that is guiding faculty through the transition to online/hybrid models at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). He echoes the sentiments of many policy makers and educators globally, stating that the pandemic highlights the inequities students face and the degree to which personal circumstances affect their learning.
After students were sent back to their hometowns in March, many shared their situations with their professors. Some had limited access to technology or lacked an internet connection, some were facing financial troubles, and others were unable to take exams without distractions due to a lack of space. The list goes on and on. Professors were also juggling challenges as many had to work while caring for their young children or elderly family members full time. Professor Tuttle says this semester is going to be about empathy for everyone – students, instructors, and administration.
Design Questions
Once we have established the core values of this “redefined” education system, we can begin to ask questions and propose measures regarding how these values will be acted on. Since the pandemic, many universities have hired instructional designers to collaborate with faculty on this task. At UT Austin, for example, the Faculty Innovation Center (FIC) worked with experienced online lecturers and instructional designers to create resources for professors on virtual instruction.
Here are some of the questions that have been raised:
Do we assess students for the participation and effort they put into their classes, and how does it weigh into their overall success in the course?
How do we monitor academic honesty and fairness when students aren’t in the classroom?
How can we foster a positive student-teacher dynamic online?
How can we accommodate for various learning styles and challenges that students face?
How do we adjust for the fact that students’ attention spans often decrease when they are not in the classroom physically?
Proposed Measures
In response to some of these questions and more – and keeping a focus on empathy – we can propose some strategies that could be implemented to varying degrees depending on the size of the class, the resources available, etc. Here are some common ones related to online instruction.
Divide the course into parts so that students are responsible for less material at a time and are assessed on it more frequently (this also gives students more opportunities to do well in the course because they get more feedback on their assigned coursework)
Modify course schedules and guidelines so that students can work at their own pace when unforeseen situations arise
Make lectures and outlines available after the class session so that students can revisit areas of confusion
Use a “flipped” model to use class time for student-teacher interaction, discussion, and practice
Make an effort to connect with students on a personal level; “humanize” professors so that they seem less intimidating and more approachable
Set clear and achievable expectations so that students develop resiliency for the course load and difficulty
Make exams open note (this can also help students focus on grasping concepts and applications rather than memorization) (Seidel)
Use web conferencing features to create small discussion groups
Have students teach each other concepts in the unit
Use online tools to give automatic feedback and personalize practice questions
Design vs. Implementation
When it comes to any kind of product-service system or experience, a good design proposition alone is not enough. Design has an indirect effect on learning. Even if a curriculum is perfect in theory, its success largely depends on its execution. Students are just as much architects of their own education as teachers, and although a student’s motivation and personal circumstances are outside the scope of what can be “designed,” their buy-in is crucial to their experience (Morelli). Especially in the realm of instruction, “attention has to shift to the necessary conditions that must be satisfied if there is to be any significant chance of enacting designs in ways that really integrate good pedagogy and innovative technology” (Dimitriadis and Goodyear). When a school sets out to use this time of online transition to not just maintain but to improve its quality of education, it can create an environment where virtual resources serve as an asset rather than a fallback.
Concluding Thoughts
Design theory values iterative ideation and constant feedback. It is uniquely suited to view complex problems through a human-centered lens. These qualities make design a powerful method in approaching the challenges we face in education today, particularly with the transition to online instruction.
The COVID-19 pandemic forces us to challenge the status quo in every aspect of our lives. We are now rethinking everything we do and have been given the chance to evaluate what needs change. Empathy, accessibility, and accommodation are going to be at the forefront of the next wave of pedagogical theory, and design research is perfect for this approach. By combining instructional design, human-centered policy, and support for faculty and students, this online semester can serve as a model for better education for all going forward.
A special thanks to Professor Clint Tuttle for taking the time to share his experiences and knowledge with me on this subject.
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