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Office of Teaching and Learning

Instructional Design

One of the main purposes of the Office of Teaching and Learning is to support MTECH Faculty in developing quality learning experiences. Our designers have years of experience and enjoy the opportunity to work with faculty to improve their course materials. OTL has several resources that can be utilized to develop all kinds of content for in class or online hybrid activities.

Obviously not every project is the same, and often we can complete many requests without too much trouble. However, it is important that you understand the approach an instructional designer or videographer typically takes for a new project. The steps below outline a general process and our expectations going into a project.

Carefully consider these steps as you prepare to work with OTL. We aren’t trying to add unnecessary work, but we do want to take steps to ensure a higher level of quality to the course content we produce.

Request

Faculty, Program Leads/Coordinators, or Directors can reach out to the OTL Manager or an Instructional Designer to request help with curriculum and Canvas development.

  1. Plan on gathering necessary materials and information.
    1. Related learning objectives and skill performance standards
    2. Who will work with OTL
    3. When is the project planned to be available to students?
    4. Are you looking for help solving an ongoing problem
  2. OTL will expect you or someone from your department to be available on a regular basis to meet and discuss the project and answer questions.
    1. Prepare a regular meeting schedule with who needs to be included
    2. Will on person be in charge of all approvals or will things be presented to your whole department?
    3. Commit to regular communication

Depending on the scope and complexity of your project, your Instructional Designer may request one or more planning meetings. Having some or all of the information mentioned in the previous step will help these simplify these meetings. Additionally, you should expect to also:

  1. Discuss the project in more detail,
  2. Discuss who all will be involved in development and approval of the project,
  3. Establish a specific timeline with clearly defined deliverables, and
  4. Define a clear end to the project, and specifically discuss how soon this is expected to be available for students (This allows your designer and OTL to plan/schedule other projects from other departments).

Not all projects require this much discussion up front. It’s important to clearly communicate your needs and expectations to your instructional designer.

Once you have a decent plan in place development can begin. The full plan does not have to be complete or perfect. You may realize your needs change along the way. Just make sure you maintain contact and regular communication with everyone involved.

During this phase your instructional designer will work on the deliverables you previously discussed. These can include items like; lesson plans, presentations, videos, quizzes, Canvas pages, and more. The tabs in the “Sample” section can provide you with some concrete examples of what OTL can help you design and develop for your course.

Expect during this phase to continue meeting with the instructional designer to provide regular input and feedback on all content/deliverables being produced. Anyone who might be involved in the final approval should regularly be asked to review drafts and attend meetings. This helps to keep the project on track and avoids extensive, last minute revisions.

Each project is different and requires input and collaboration from everyone involved. While this step does indicate there should be a Final Review, it is important for the Faculty members involved – our Subject Matter Experts – provide regular insight and feedback to the content being produced. 

The final review and ultimate approval of each deliverable should not be left til the very end. It is more helpful to hold regular reviews and provide approval of content along the way. This means that when you reach the end of the project everyone should already be familiar with most of what has been developed. The final review serves as one last check to make sure the project is in fact complete and to help understand what comes next.

The launch of a project refers to when you expect the deliverables to be ready to be added to live courses and made available to students. This may mean that development happens in a sandbox course in Canvas and content is later added to your master course. However, there are multiple ways to handle this and you should discuss which option best suits your program.

It should also be clearly communicated prior to launch what your expectations are with the instructional designer. In order for OTL to better serve all of our programs, it is helpful for there to be concrete “ends” to projects. If you are expecting or hoping the instructional designer or OTL can dedicate additional time to support the initial launch, please make that a specific request. For new features or content types that you are unfamiliar with, it can be helpful to know OTL can provide some extra support or training for the first class using the new content.

The Office of Teaching and Learning and its team members are always available to help support our faculty. However, if you discover or decide you want to make significant changes/edits to a previously approved project, you may have to wait in line again while your instructional designer works on other projects.

Here are a few examples of interactive content OTL has produced recently.

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