#tsle Designs - After Action Review

What was expected?

Had this not been a core course for the MET program, I still, without a doubt would have enrolled in ETEC510: Design of Technology Supported Learning Enviroments. I knew that the emphasis on design would align well with my goals and give me a strong foundation for further developing my instructional design skills. Principles of design thinking, designing for play, designing for the future and designing for the online environment would undoubtedly result in new skills that I could immediately apply to my work.

What was the reality?

This course did not disappoint; if I were to summarize my experience in this course it would be growth. Growth in knowledge, technical skills and online collaboration abilities. While I was intrigued at the concept of design thinking early in the course, it was new to me and had typically worked with the ADDIE and SAM models for instructional design. It wasn't until the MET Hub community project and the close collaboation with my peers, who were more experienced with design thinking, that I came to truly appreciate the human-centered approach, with a focus on the learner first and foremost, as opposed to organizational process.

This course also exposed me to many new technologies, including building courses in the Canvas LMS, connecting virtually in real-time with the Rumii VR application, as well as collaborating with my peers effectively with the use of Slack; a tool I continued to use for groupwork throughout the MET, and that I now use daily in the workplace.

What went well and why? How did it support my goals?

This course gave me some early insights into design thinking and connectivist learning theories, and the value of people, their communities and networks as part of their learning process. This learning has come to shape my educational philosophy, critically analyzing content in the instructional design process. I now ask myself; am I putting this content in because I think they need to know it, or because it will give the learning actionable insights and support a meaningful learning experience. This knowledge development strongly supports my first goal of developing meaningful understanding of applied learning theories.

The use of new tools highlighted above, as well as the opportunity to work with a fellow instructional designer were equally well aligned with my other two goals of developing practical skills in emerging technologies, and gaining expertise in the importance of culture and community in learning through our extensive research in this field.

I also had my first experience designing with a 2D animation app called Powtoon for the Stop Motion project; a tool which I have since used for creating micro-learning videos. This also carried my work around organizational knowledge sharing and knowledge management in the workplace.

What can be improved, and how?

The relationships developed with my peers in this course were more collaborative than in some of my other MET projects. Perhaps it was the emphasis on building a sense of community that prompted us to estabilish our own mini-community. At the same time, I think that this added to the overall challenges of our group work with longer and more frequent meetings which meant more time was likely spent than the original project timeline. This makes me reflect on the value of a learners' time, and the importance of creating content that is not going to interfere with their learning, and instead support it at the time they need it most.

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Reading List

• Sense of Community in Online Graduate Education

• The difference between Instructivism, Constructivism and Connectivism