Instructional Design Consulting Process for Blended/Hybrid or Fully Online Courses

The Division of IT/AS Learning Technology group’s instructional design consulting process consists of four primary phases:

Planning [1] your course,

Designing [2] your course,

Developing [3] your course, and

Evaluating [4] your course.

During this process, the instructional designer will provide relevant examples and other resources (such as articles, templates, and checklists) to assist you. For more information or to schedule a consultation, please email learningtools@umd.edu.

The four phases of the process are described, below.

Planning your course

At our first meeting, we will gather information that is unique to your situation. Answers to questions like those that follow, will significantly influence the design of your course:

• Who is your target audience (undergraduates, graduates, international, and/or professional; local or in different time zones, etc.)?
• What is the maximum number of students you expect to enroll?
• How do you currently teach your course?
• Do you want this to be a blended/hybrid course or a fully online course?
• Will this course run for a full term or be compressed like a summer or winter term course?
• What is the goal of the course and the learning objectives?
• How is teaching face-to-face different from teaching at a distance (content delivery, communication, and assessment)?

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Designing your course

Based on the information gathered from the planning phase, we will discuss basic components and several strategies that will be designed to address major areas of your course:

• Basic blended or online course components [Basic Blended Course Components Guidelines, [6] Basic Online Course Components Guidelines [7]]
• Course materials/content delivery
• Activities and assignments
• Communication
• Assessment

In addition, we will begin taking a closer look at several tools you can use to accomplish the strategies we have discussed; examples of Division of IT supported tools include: ELMS (powered by Blackboard) tools, Wimba Live Classroom, digital media, blogs, wikis, and others.

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Developing your course

As you transition from design to development, we can assist you in the following areas:

• Appropriate tool and media selection and how to begin using them.
• Organization and layout of your online course space.
• Setting up a production schedule to meet your course start date.
• Preparing to teach your course. [Instructor's Ready-Set-Go! ELMS Course Checklist [8]]

Throughout the design and development process, you will take a step back and look at how all of the pieces of your course are coming together:

• Do materials, activities, and assessments support your goal and objectives?
• Is the organization clear, consistent, and is the site easy to navigate?

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Evaluating your course

For evaluation during and after the course, we will discuss the usefulness of a midterm and final course evaluations. A midterm evaluation is a way to get anonymous feedback from your students so that you can make adjustments for the remaining weeks of the course.

When your course is over, we can meet for a debriefing and discuss ways to improve your course based on both your experience and the evaluation.

For more information or to schedule a consultation, please email learningtools@umd.edu

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