Integrative instructional design and pedagogy for online learning development

Soo Wai Man
SIM University
Singapore

The race to offer online learning by educational institutions has reached a new dimension in view of the proliferation of, for example, Web 2.0 tools. A survey of 2,500 colleges and universities in the United States by the Sloan Consortium (www.sloan-c.org) indicated that one in five students were taking at least one online course in 2007. Although no such surveys have been carried out for Asian universities, a similar situation may not be too far ahead.

To cope with the challenges involved in going online, there are new ideas and processes to reduce development time and enhance teaching and learning efficiency. Traditional models of instructional development are applicable to ensure a systematic approach to creating sound online learning materials, assessment and collaborative activities. However, the design and development tools and processes can lack integration across different courses within the same institution, partly because of the very wide range of approaches to instructional design and pedagogy applicable to online learning.

This paper proposes an institutional-wide instructional design model that integrates well- researched and accepted pedagogies for online learning. The model presents a nine-step process that focuses on the stages of design, development, delivery and evaluation; and for each stage there are document templates that help teams to achieve their intended goals. Integrated into the design and development stages are online learning pedagogies that guide content writers to the most appropriate instructional technique, and this is the basis of the instructional templates for writing learning objects. Currently, research and development is underway to develop a range of templates that will cut down design and development effort without sacrificing the quality of teaching and learning.