Instructional Design Live

This week, Mary Engstrom, senior instructional designer at the University of Montana, discusses a framework for implementing authentic tasks and assessments in online courses. The discussion turns to a number of practical suggestions for implementing tasks that provide learners with opportunities to develop skills applicable in real life as well as the ability to monitor their own learning. And ultimately, escape from the experience of high-stakes multiple choics exams→

The capacity of working memory is limited, Miller (1956) would say to 7 items +/- 2 and the ability to process between 2-4 tasks simultaneously. Long-tern memroy is essentially unlimited. If we follow cognitive load theory, the task is to devise learning so that it falls into an area where it can be processed into the long term memory in the form of schemata. The discussion this week focusses on the findings of cognitive load theory in terms of designing effective materials and online courses for students. Questions abound, so we may revisit this at a later date.

WebQuests have been around since 1995 and came about, in part, to address the need for critical thinking skills in the active investigation of web resources for learning. In this episode, we consider how WebQuests can be used to promote critical thinking and engaged learning.

This week is the final part in a series exploring the Community of Inquiry Framework. Jennifer Maddrell leads us in an exploration of the practical dimensions of establishing teaching presence in online courses.

We address issues in the design and administration of the course, how to facilitate critical discourse with groups and among individuals.