December 11th, 2020 marked our final #teslONchat of the year. We gathered on Twitter to discuss Instructional Design with Anna Bartosik (@ambartosik). Anna is a doctoral candidate, an instructional designer, a teacher, and a teacher trainer. Anna develops online and blended courses and works on curriculum development. Her interest in self-directed professional development informs her work as a teacher and instructional designer, but also inspired her research of teacher professional development on social media platforms, like Twitter.
These questions guided our 1-hour long chat:
- What do you think are some common misconceptions about instructional design?
- What has been a memorable experience for you in working with or working as an instructional designer?
- What does instructional design have in common with accessibility and UDL (universal design for learning)?
- What types of organizational tools can help an instructional designer do their job?
- Does it matter which learning design theory or theories an instructional designer has?
#teslONchat’s Evening Highlights
- There was a lot of talk about technology and instructional design during the chat.
- Collaboration and opportunities for it were discussed.
- Anna’s reflection: I see teachers vested in their students’ success who think they have to do everything. Teachers are good at teaching and they may have also picked up some design strategies as they became more experienced educators. However, sisyphean tasks are not the teacher’s burden. An instructional designer, if one is available at your school or institution, is a valuable resource. We don’t focus on technology (although we can recommend digital tools); we focus on how best to deliver the subject matter expert’s (the teacher’s) content in the time, format, and evaluation scheme that is outlined for the course. At this point in time, the format we teach in is overwhelmingly online, but the ID’s work also involves reviewing courses that are delivered in hybrid and face-to-face environments. I hope that teachers can see collaboration with an ID as an asset. And after the ID has completed their work, there can be a team of production editors, educational development consultants, and accessibility specialists ready to review content to meet the needs of learners and course outcomes. This makes the job of teaching less taxing and more rewarding for the learner and the teacher.
For further details, you can read the evening’s tweets on Twitter.
Resources shared throughout the chat
- What’s your job, anyway? A peek into language teaching, instructional design, and a module at the micro-planning level by Anna Bartosik
- Anna Bartosik’s LiveBinder – various resources collected by Anna
- Teaching and Learning Theories – from Stanford University
- Optimizing Instructional Designer–Subject Matter Expert Communication in the Design and Development of Multimedia Projects by Mike Keppell
- CAST: Until learning has no limits® – to learn more about Universal Design for Learning
- EdTech resources Padlet collected by @JenArtan
- Learn HTML – resource recommended by @BonnieJNicholas
Join Us
#teslONchat will be hosted on our Twitter page once a month. If you’re interested in sharing your passion or expertise in a specific topic please reach out to us on Twitter – @TESLOntario.
Join us on January 29, 2021 at 7pm EST to discuss engagement in the online classroom with @JenArtan.
This summary post was written by Anna Bartosik and Vanessa Nino.
Vanessa is the manager of TESL Ontario’s Twitter. Find Vanessa tweeting over @vnino23
