Happy new year to all of our fellow instructional designers and teachers! For some of us, next...
Happy new year to all of our fellow instructional designers and teachers!
For some of us, next week is the first week of the Winter semester, in which case, good luck next week! And for others, maybe this past week was your first week back, in which case, congratulations on your first week back!
As I have been lesson planning over the holidays and talking with other teachers, instructors, or faculty leading up to the start of the new year, this is a great time to reflect on what teaching and instructional design strategies went well last year and which didn’t.
The Good
When working with other instructional designers or teachers, I always recommend using intelligent agents in spite of how time consuming they can be to setup because they are so beneficial to learners. Intelligent Agents can be used to increase your presence as an instructor (by sending update emails to students), congratulate students who achieved a certain grade on an assignment or quiz, reach out to at risk students who haven’t visited the course or who have failed an assignment or quiz, remind students of an upcoming due date if they haven’t yet submitted, or provide custom messaging based on any type of release condition. The best part is that it’s all automatic!
I have been using these in my own teaching as well, and I have noticed an increase in at-risk students reaching out to me (or simply replying to my email). I also have received lots of emails from students thanking me for reminding them by email of an upcoming assignment (even though the reminder was automatically sent by an intelligent agent). This ultimately helps to build rapport with my learners.
The Bad
When I was a student in post-secondary school, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than an early morning class on campus. In present day, I’ve quickly realized that there are definitely worse things than an early morning class on campus, such as an early morning class over Zoom. Over the course of the semester, attendance drops much quicker than when I used to teach in person. As a teacher, I can’t help but wonder if this has to do with me, my material, my delivery, or other factors beyond my control, like student burnout. Upon further reflection, I realize that I never asked my students. So, perhaps a new year’s resolution (after having reflected on Shayne's post from last week) is to incorporate more opportunities for students to give quick feedback to me to help me understand how I can help them learn better.
Reflection as a teacher is so important to capitalize on not only constantly improving the learning experience for my students (or the students of teachers, instructors, faculty who I work with) but to continue learning myself as a teacher and an instructional designer.
I’d love to hear from others about what has worked and what hasn’t worked in your classrooms over the past year. Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Comments
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Intelligent Agent (IA)
The AI tool is really help for the facts that you mentioned, just a small thing that I would add is that within the message as a reminder you can also provide a link to the specific content that the student hasn't completed. Thus, making navigation easy for the students.
Feedback
As a undergrad and even master's student I always wanted professors to ask for feedback and during my teaching days I tried to create those opportunities by using a Brightspace quiz (unlimited attempts) that is pinned on the announcement board during the semester where the students can provide any feedback they would like to give during the semester. I kept it anonymous just so that the students don't hesitate to provide any feedback to improve their learning experience!
Thanks for sharing Dillion!
