What I’ve learned from this project development, is that time marches on swiftly! I am running a bit behind schedule on the completion of my course development. This week, we were scheduled to have 3/4 of our course completed, and I’ve developed 5 out of 8 of my learning modules so far, which puts me closer to 63%, rather than 75%. From what I can assess, a large component to my timeline barriers appears to be the fact that I’ve included large swaths of written instruction and content on each of the learning modules. I wanted this course to have a personalized presentation, and not just a regurgitation of information that they could have otherwise found themselves online. My goal was to present information in a way that would help learners build and develop skills for metacognitive development, as well as techniques to apply these skills within their academic domain, and beyond. I worked hard to present a scaffolding of knowledge that built from one module to the next, and then circled back to prior modules for review and refresh, in order to deepen that knowledge even further. I wanted learners to have specific exercises that they experienced and tracked over a period of time, so that they would have time to self-assess whether there was benefit and value added to their life. The researching, writing, organizing, developing, and refining process that I’ve incorporated throughout the development of this course will help ensure that there are fewer edits and changes needed from my peer reviews, but in turn, it’s taking me longer to create each module. As stated in my prior blog posts, I feel confident that the most time consuming modules were the first 4, which I’ve now completed, except for a few minor edits. I have all of my research completed on the final 3 modules, and will commit to spending evenings and weekends between now and November 22nd, to complete the development of my course before the holiday break. This puts me, at most, one week behind schedule.
From the standpoint of challenges, I haven’t faced too many challenges with this project, once I determined how to get started with Canvas. Since that time, I have thoroughly enjoyed this process. It has become a passion project, and one that has been rewarding to me from the standpoint of my peer review feedback, and my own personal gratification in how it’s coming together. When I first started researching this topic, I wasn’t fully convinced that it would be a valuable topic. However, the deeper that I dove into the facets of metacognition, I can now see that this is a critical topic for today’s learners. While I don’t have a background in teaching, I feel that I’ve successfully pulled together the necessary components needed to effectively teach on this topic. I have worked very hard to put myself into the role of the teacher, the SME, and the student, to seek out any “holes” in knowledge that I needed to address in order for learners to make connections with the content. While I’m running marginally behind schedule at this time, I will work hard this week to add to the final learning modules. I will continue to self-assess my time management skills in order to continue to improve and work efficiently and effectively.
My Journey Through Instructional Design 