[MUSIC] Hello, my name is Norma Scagnoli and I work at the University of Illinois. I am an instructional designer by training and passion. I love the profession, although I started my career as a teacher of English as a second language in Argentina, where I was born and raised. I came to the US to learn more about educational technologies in the late 90s, when a university like this was starting the first online programs ever. I had exposure to that experience firsthand here at Illinois. And this is when I discovered two areas that I devoted my research and work to. Instructional design and learning. I have developed new programs and explored new instructional design models here at Illinois, and I am thrilled to be able to share some of my knowledge and experience with you. I work in the field of eLearning. So I am 100% practitioner. And I am going to share with you my experience on need assessment, and how it can be approached in academic settings. I call it assessment from within. When you are a instructional designer within an educational institution, the instructional designed approach that you select to follow will match the need and goals of the discipline of your clients. Your clients will be faculty, instructors from school or colleges covered in their broad range of disciplines. Especially, if you work in a campus right unit. There are multiple of opportunities for creativity in the design and development stages of our course. However, the new assessment has been started by administrators or instructors who have identified the gaps, the problems of the desired goals. And the IT sometimes complains. I was brought too late into the project. Most of the innovations we see in higher education today. Such as the flipped classroom, blended learning, or MOOCs, are responses to need assessment that indicate that these new delivery modes could help solving a problem, reaching new goals, or meeting new standards. Innovations that result from assessment. In many cases, the IDs are asked to help after decisions or needs have been made. So someone else has decided changes, and the instructional designer, or the ID, as I like to call him, seems to be there just to execute. We have heard instructional designers say, the instructor says he will put the course online, or I am here to help, or the department wants to use a flipped classroom model because other schools are doing the same, or the instructor wants to have a MOOC. Can you help him put that online? Learning assessment is important, even when you feel that you have been called too late to the table. There are still things that yet have not been identified by others, and this is what you show your instructional designer training and expertise. The need for assessment is definitely part of your toolbox, because that is the process that will help you achieve an efficient design and later development. The need assessment in some cases, as I mentioned, maybe more informal and to the point, but cannot be skipped by a real instructional designer. The needs assessment is where you find what your client, the faculty or the school in this case, really wants. Let's look at three very common scenarios that are usually presented to the instructional designer, or the instructional design team in a high education institution. Here, I will focus on the analysis of the context and environment in a flipped classroom, the analysis of learner for a MOOC course, the analysis of context environment for a MOOC based program or certificate, and the analysis of the learning tasks. One common example is when the instructor approaches the instructional designer because the college is encouraging the instructors to use more technology in their teaching, so they have a few instructors that they want to flip their classroom. You have seen situations like this, the instructor is approaching the instructional designer to help execute something. The decision to use a flipped classroom model was made by the department to encourage innovation in teaching. So what is the instructional designer going to do? It seems the need assessment has been made, however, exploring more about the courses, the context, and the environment where these changes will take place, will be important to make some early decisions for design. There are questions in this case that will help you assess. And in this particular one, in the flipped model, it would follow what Smith and Reagan called the innovation model. So there are some items that you need to take into consideration in both the learning context and the learning environment. For example, what are the instructor's expectations? Are there new learning goals that the instructor expects to achieve with a new model? Are the instructors prepared to carry on the change even when they are intrinsically motivated? What do they need to know? Also, resources available, what are the resources available to achieve the new goal of flipping the classroom? How will the new model affect the activities in these courses? Will the changes in the delivery mode make an impact in other courses that are not following this model? And also, to what extent would the innovation affect students' performance in these courses? Could it affect student satisfaction? So to answer those questions, we have to proceed to data grafted data collection, to understand the course before we design it. And so, the next stage for the instructional designer will be collecting data that will help assess the situation, and propose a flawless design for this proposed change. The data collection sources, in this case, may come from an interview with the instructor, or any decision-making officers in the college, an inventory of resources available to create educational materials for flipping the classroom, observing the instructor, observing the instructor to teach to learn their own styles. And also, and very especially from Research, to understand how students react to flip classrooms and what are the tips for success. Regarding the learning environment, you will have to explore the characteristic of the teachers, their teaching style, and their digital media skills. An observation of the teaching, and a close look to the teaching materials will give the instructional designer a clear idea of the teaching approach. And then, you can identify what will be a successful approach that meets the teaching style? Considering other elements in the environment is very important to a clear assessment. The theory of the flipped classroom puts a lot of emphasis in recording video lectures and doing activities in the class time. In my experience, there is no prescription on how the class should be flipped. Flipping means moving some activities that the students do on their own outside the class, so that they have more time to do other activities in class. Usually, it has been moving the lectures out of the class, but it is not always necessary. For example, in a marketing class, that I had to flip, the instructor was actively engaging with students during his lecturing time. And some activities that happen in the face-to-face meeting time, destructed the pace of the class, and the dynamic, instead of interaction that happened during the lecture. The instructor was not happy with the disruptions to the flow of his classes, as he was having these conversations with the students in his lectures. But he said that he also wanted to have students work in multiple choice questions that could be discussed in class. And also, in doing some reflections on their learning. He said that doing this during class time was the only way he could get the students to complete the work. So I observed the class, after I listened to what the instructor had to say, and I realized that after a few class observations, and a study of the course material in comparison with other classes in a similar topic, he could use the capabilities of a learning management system to track and assist student's work outside the classroom. So the instructor could make sure that they could come to class better prepared to interact in the class. On the conversations that were generated during the instructor presentation were not interrupted, and the flow of conversation and students' interaction with peers, and the instructor could continue. Furthermore, applying early submission rules and rewards with extra points or badges, gave the instructor the chance to preview and review students' responses in a timely fashion before class. He could select the questions and comments, and then shape and guide his presentation. And he could also reward students who have demonstrated dedication or extra participation. So by working on assignments online, the tracking system of the learning management system allowed for clear accountability of students' work. They came to class better prepared to have discussion and participants of the lecture, while the instructor incorporated quotes from students and reflections in his presentation. His reaction to students' work, and the direct feedback to students in the original assignments were part of the lecture. If he had followed the prescribed video lectures-out and activities-in model, without the intervention of the need assessment by the instructor or designer, his idea of incorporating technology by flipping the classroom, would not have worked in this case. And the instructor could have been disappointed by using technology in his teaching. This is how important it is to have an instructional designer that will identify the needs, understand the context, and understand the environment where the changes will be made. [MUSIC]
