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How to Design Your Course

Designing and developing an online course may be overwhelming at times. This is why usually it is a team-work process involving programmers, graphic artists, instructional designers, and subject matter experts. In cases where you do not have the funds to work with these people it is a good idea to try to develop some of these skills yourself.

Instructional design (ID) is the backbone of a course conversion process. In addition to following the principles of instructional design, universal design and interface design principles are important issues to address during the course conversion and development.

What is Instructional Design?
Instructional Systems Design (ISD) is a process to ensure learning does not occur in a haphazard manner, but is developed using a process with specific measurable outcomes. This approach provides a step-by-step system for the evaluation of students’ needs, the design and development of training materials, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the training intervention.
The responsibility of the instructional designer is to create an instructional experience, which ensures that the learners will achieve the goals of instruction.

Instructional designers are sometimes referred to as "the engineers of the field of education" because they apply the principles of the field of education and outcome of educational research to create effective learning environments.

Instructional Design Models

There are over 100 different ISD models, but almost all are based on the concept of the ADDIEmodel, which is a generic, systematic approach to the instructional design process. It provides instructional designers with a framework in order to make sure that their instructional products are effective and that their creative processes are as efficient as they can possibly be. This model provides a systematic approach to course development efforts and it is a basic model that holds true for any type of learning, including web-based.

ADDIE stands for the steps of the model:

Analyze: define the needs and constraints
Design: specify learning activities, assessment and choose methods and media
Develop: begin production, formative evaluation, and revise
Implement: put the plan into action
Evaluate: evaluate the plan from all levels for next implementation

Each step has an outcome that feeds the subsequent step. Evaluation is essential after each step.

ADDIE MODEL - Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation

Why Use ADDIE Model?

Aims a learner-centered rather than the traditional teacher-centered approach
Progression from f2f learning to distance or self-paced learning: a big leap in attention to design detail
Every component governed by the learning outcomes - determined after an analysis of the learners’ needs
More carefully designed material to nurture online learning style

Analysis Phase

This is a crucial step in the course design and development process. At this stage, you set the scope of the content to be covered in terms of time required, number of lessons and topic areas thorugh answering these types of questions:

Who are your learners?
What they already know; what are their learning characteristics; what they need or want to learn; why they need it; and in what environment will they apply the learning?
What are you trying to achieve with your instruction?
Define the need for, and the general aim or purpose of, the course/subject/lecture. This is the overall goal or rationale for the course.
What knowledge, skills and attitudes need to be taught?
How much content do you need in your instruction?

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Design Phase

The design step tries to answer these questions:

What are your objectives?-> General learning areas found through analysis phase defined in terms of specific measurable objectives or learning outcomes.
What skills, knowledge and attitudes are you trying to develop? -> Higher level skills and knowledge identified to develop understanding and problem-solving abilities in learners.
What resources and strategies will you use in your instruction? -> Teaching resources and activities chosen to complement the learning outcomes.
How will you structure the content of your learning material? -> Grouping of related objectives and activities; sequencing, presentation, and reinforcement of the content.
How will you assess the learners’ understanding and whether or not they have met the objectives of the instruction? -> Agreement between what the intended outcomes are and what is being measured by the assessment.

In the design phase, storyboards are created. Every screen of the course is designed using these storyboards. These storyboards are handed on to the development team for the actual production.

Development Phase

This phase is for the preparation of participant, instructor and support materials (audio, video, and other media), as well as the programming of any computer-based materials. These development effrots are based on the production specifications created in the design phase.

Implementation Phase

This stage is where the product is put on the test by actual users. There are two stages of the implementation:

Alpha-testing is the in-house testing of the product; for example you select a group of former students and/or co-workers and ask them to review the course for you.
Beta-testing is the first real implementation of the course with real users. The feedback from these users is essential for the improvement of the course.

Evaluation Phase

This is the quality management component for the program.The effectiveness of the instructional process and materials is evaluated at this stage. The input from the alpha- and beta-evaluation is collected and the course is revised based on this feedback.

This feedback is collected by two means: formative and summative evaluation.

Formative evaluation occurs throughout the entire ID process, particularly at the completion of each phase of ADDIE.
Summative evaluations occur at the end of alpha/beta testing and at the completion of each offering of the course. Summative evaluations provide feedback on needed improvements in the program.