A video-mediated observation

Teaching in the evening, it's often difficult to find a colleague to observe my teaching. Here I have video recorded a typical lesson in IT 521. This served a few different purposes. (1) A few learners were missing from the lesson and needed to watch it, and (2) I need a colleague to watch it …

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Deficit Model versus the Bolster Perspective

There is this perspective in education called the deficit model, deficit view, deficit perspective, or some other combination of deficit and some visually oriented term. What learners cannot yet do, or where they fail. It appears in practitioner publications like Edutiopia as well as in scholarly journals. Essentially, the notion frames learners in terms of …

The Prospectus, Proposal, and the Dissertation

There is a lot of misinformation surrounding the prospectus, the proposal, and the dissertation. This may be so because this task is one left to advisement and mentorship rather than formal instruction. An open and critical discussion on the purposes of these documents rarely happens among scholars for good reason. The interpretation of these documents …

An Interview Protocol for Instructional Design Cases

We need more instructional design cases written by those who did not actually do the design, but where to start? I suggest interviewing the designer. Elizabeth Boling did the same in her case about the Alcatraz cell-house audio walking tour. I have done interviews twice now to begin design cases about designs I did not …

Professional Dispositions in Instructional Design and Technology

Instructional design and technology is a professional field with common values and professional ethics that influence the way professionals interact. Clients, peers, and mentors depend on a candidate's professional disposition. During a learner’s time in the Instructional Technology, (IT Online) Learning, Design and Technology (LDT) or the Online Teaching and Learning Graduate Certificate (OTL) Programs, …

Designing Instruction for Identity

Identity is the learning outcome that changes everything. There is process to attain identity everywhere. Even the simplest experiences can turn children into functioning adults. "Are you a big boy or a baby?" (Notice parents have no ethical qualms about shaping identity with or without the learner's conscious will to do so.) We teach identity …

The rhetoric of citations in Learning, Design and Technology

Citations are rhetoric, plain and simple. Each time you cite something, you are employing a rhetorical device. When you employ the device erroneously, you make the case to your reader that you don’t understand what you are trying to say. The most common rhetorical citation device I see is the consensus citation. A consensus citation …

Scaffolding the five finger filet

There is a game called the Five Finger Filet. One holds a knife and stabs between thine outstretched fingers, risking a dangerous errant stab. Personally, I never had any attraction to games like this. I would surely chop off a finger and regret my own stupidity in a matter of moments. This however doesn't dissuade …

The Nutshell Studies: An audio instructional design case

Frances Glessner Lee, Parlor (detail), about 1946-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, MD. Photograph by Susan Marks, Courtesy of Murder in a Nutshell documentary. I believe this is how my students feel during the academic crunch time in November, but …

Misconceptions about how research works

This post is an opportunity to work out my thought on a couple issues. It is inspired by a dialogue that came about organically from a posted comment by a reader. The misconceptions I address here are loaded with feelings about what is right and what is wrong. These cannot be avoided because scholars and …