A Reflection on Research and Future Practice

The textbook provided numerous resources and references that positively impacted my approach to instructional design. The sample questions provided in the chapters, along with the excellent descriptions helped to clarify the steps within the ADDIE model (Piskurich, 2015). The part that helped me a lot, because it was a very unfamiliar concept, was the section regarding the job aid. Explaining what the purpose of the job aid was helped tremendously during the writing phase of Project A and Project B.

Another resource that I came to refer to frequently was the website Edutopia. I had visited Edutopia in the past for assignments, but this was the first semester where I delved into their content for instructional material as well as the blog topics. I was very impressed with the variety of topics and the reliability of the writers. I really appreciated the video artifacts for the different instructional practices. These resources, via Edutopia, were helpful during Project A. I referred to them for guidance for planning activities and information pages in Project A. Especially the artifacts pertaining to online and blended learning. I have experience in both learning modals as an educator; however, my experiences were altered slightly due to my classes being small group resource classes.

As a school librarian, I am a leader on my campus. Part of being a leader on my campus is developing professional developments (PDs) for my teaching staff. Project B allowed me to really put together all my ideas, and get feedback from the SMEs. Referring to Knowledge Quest, a publication from the American Association of School Librarians, helped me to get ideas of what librarian PDs can look like (Long, 2018). Inspiration for what I can do in the future as I grow in my present role and take on new career roles.

Through this whole course, all the resources and articles I spent time pouring over benefitted me as an instructional designer, and as an educator. Additionally, the projects gave me the opportunity to try out being an instructional designer with a group of people who truly were ‘clients’ and then another opportunity closer to home where I served as my own client. I was able to get a feel for how I would work best in a professional instructional designer capacity. Furthermore, the research and practice opportunities have had a positive impact on my career. The PDs that I want to develop for my teaching staff will be more successful due to the practice from this course. I have a better understanding of how the data acquired from the analysis phase influences the other phases. I also appreciated one website I found that stated that the evaluation phase really occurs concurrently with the other phases of the ADDIE model (Kurt, 2018).

Kurt, S. (2018, December 16). ADDIE model: instructional design. Education Technology. https://educationaltechnology.net/the-addie-model-instructional-design/#:~:text=The%20main%20goal%20of%20the,ADDIE%20process%20involves%20formative%20evaluation.

Long, L. (2018, December 6). Drop-In Professional Development in the School Library. Knowledge Quest, American Association of School Librarians. https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/drop-in-professional-development-in-the-school-library/

Piskurich, G. M. (2015). What is This Instructional Design Stuff Anyway? Rapid

Instructional design: Learning ID fast and right. essay, John Wiley & Sons.