Instructional Design and Research

by: Armando Delfino

Online education is now a more popular mode of instruction than ever because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the technological innovation which provided an excellent platform for instructional delivery. Since the instructional delivery is virtual it created a space between the instructor and the learners. The separation which is called Transactional Distance profoundly affects the teaching and learning process. Leaving the psychological and communication space unattended will lead to more disengage learners and ineffective teaching and learning process. Therefore, bridging the Transactional Distance is a critical factor to deliver engaging and effective online instructions. Moore (1997) proposed a dialogue to bridge it.  Dialogue is a series of interactions having positive qualities, purposeful, constructive, and respected by every learner. He added that the transactional distance could be reduced by the increased dialogue between the learners and their teachers. He suggested that learner-learner, learner-teacher, and learner-content interactions will help promote effective learning.

Learner-Learner Interaction

         Learner-learner interaction refers to an interaction, between one learner and other learners, with or without the presence of an instructor (Moore, 1989).  The learner-learner interaction among different learners is a valuable resource for learning since they contribute individual perspectives on the topic. The various ideas would lead to greater learning and could bring inspiration to the group. Social interaction promotes learning. Promoting this kind of interaction could be done through different collaborative online tools such as Blogs, Jamboard, Flipgrid, Zoom, Skype, Peergrade, IdeaBoardz, and many more.  The use of these tools requires careful planning and structuring of the lessons.  Group collaboration is one of the ways to engage learners with peers. The collaboration should be guided by the rules that define the responsibilities of all group members, clarifies task, objectives, and the impact of the activity on the academic standing of each member.  Second, create thought-provoking statements or questions for class discussion which can generate knowledge. A thought-provoking statement can be posted on the discussion board where the individual learner can contribute their opinion, and each can react to the opinion of the others. Third, create multiple channels of communication where the students can connect with one another outside the normal academic activities. Some of the useful applications are email, text messaging, Groupme, and messenger. These applications allow the students to exchange ideas, talk about academic activities, and others that can provoke their critical thinking outside of class over similar issues. Fourth is peer review. This activity facilitates the development of critical thinking and inspires others to share their ideas that can greatly contribute to the improvement of the works of others.  Group interactions lead to greater learning and high course satisfaction because students are motivated to learn when they are in a group (Moore, 1989). Similarly, Oyarzun, Stefaniak,  Bol, & Morrison (2017), found that interactions that have high levels of collaboration positively affect learner achievement and satisfaction. They added that the social presence of the instructor has positive effects on student achievement and learning satisfaction. 

Learner-Instructor Interaction

              The learner-instructor interaction is regarded as desirable because the learners are engaged with the expert who prepared the subject material or another expert acting as instructor. In this interaction, the instructors attempt to achieve the learning objectives by stimulating and maintaining interest in the topic, motivating the student to learn, and guiding them to be self-directed and self-motivated. The instructor assists and provides opportunities to showcase the knowledge and skills that the students have learned. Finally, instructors provide counsel, support, and encouragement to each learner based on the varying needs of each learner. The student–instructor directly affects students and has been considered the strongest factor affecting the online learning experience of the learners (Jiang et. al, 2019). Likewise, it has been found that spiritual communication and the exchange of ideas between teachers and students are needed to foster harmonious development for both parties to achieve better teaching results (Pennings et al., 2018). The key to achieving the purpose of improving students’ learning performance and maximizing students’ learning effects lies in the better psychological atmosphere that exists between the teacher and students (Sun, et al., 2022). They added that the design and implementation of effective learning activities will result in an active learning process and thereby create better learning. Enhancing the student-teacher interactions in online courses requires designing effective instructions by means of addressing the learning needs of the students and well-organized course materials. The interaction should be done through asynchronous and synchronous discussions and collaborative and individual student activities. The instructor should participate in the interactions on a frequent basis to motivate students, direct the discussions, and ensure that course objectives are being met (Krishnamurthi, 2000). The ongoing and regular interactions between the teacher and students using the synchronous systems improve attitudes, encourage earlier completion of coursework, improve performance in tests, allow deep and meaningful learning opportunities, increase retention rates, and build learning communities (Schullo et al., 2007).

Learner-Content Interaction          

The learner-content interaction is branded as a defining characteristic of education for without it there cannot be education, since it is the process of intellectually interacting with content that results in changes in the learner’s understanding of the cognitive structure of the learner’s mind (Moore, 1989). Making effective learning content needs a lot of consideration because it should be created for the consumption of the learners. It is for this reason that knowledge of the nature of the learners which includes the learning styles, prior knowledge, cultural background, and others must be taken into consideration by the content creators. To understand better the nature of the students, the content creator must be well burst on the different learning theories which can be used as the basis for the development of the course content.  Learning theories are abstract frameworks that describe how knowledge is received and processed during the learning experience. It informs the application of instructional design through models (Instructional Design Central, n.d.).  Effective content both online and face-to-face requires alignment of the important components of instruction such as goals, objectives, tasks, and assessment. Alignment is the interconnectedness of the learning goals, learning objectives, learning tasks, and assessments. The interconnectedness will ensure that everyone involves in the learning process is aware of the expectation and understand what is going to be taught and how it will be evaluated (Kurt, 2020). Further, the alignment will guide the learners throughout the course to the expected outcome. It means that all the learning tasks to be taken by the learners will lead them to the successful attainment of the desired learning outcomes. The content should also be organized chronologically to enable the learners to locate their learning within the bigger picture and could easily build connections to their prior knowledge. Cognitive overload is another important learning issue that needs to be given attention in creating a learning plan. It has something to do with how the human mind process new information. It says that human minds cannot process bulks of information at the same time (Sweller, 1988). To avoid information overload preexisting knowledge should be determined, breakdown complex processes into simple steps, create user-friendly course design, using text with visuals and audio, provide the learning resources needed in the course, and avoid unnecessary online activities which are not directly associated with the topic (Pappas, 2021). The common learner-content interactions are instructor-made learning materials, course readings (textbooks, literature, primary and secondary sources, peer-reviewed articles, and others), audio-visual presentations (PowerPoint presentations), graphs, and charts, linked multimedia content (documentaries, YouTube videos, and others), blogs, pictures, and others. Online content presentation is also crucial to the success of this specific interaction. Thus, an online course should be organized with a course tour video that lets the students know how to get started and find course components.  The learning materials and assignments should be arranged chronologically, because it minimizes the amount of searching, scrolling, and clicking needed to work through the course. It clarifies where the students should click. It means that the course pages have links, files, and icons that are labeled with easy-to-understand, self-describing, and meaningful names. It is needed because consistency between modules in a course will help students become familiar with the course design. It should have shortcut links for access to important parts of the course. The video should be playable within the course. Embedding the video within the course design will lead to an external source (Lake, 2019).

References

Instructional Design Central. (n.d.). Learning theory overview. home. Retrieved from https://www.instructionaldesigncentral.com/learning-theory 

Jiang, Y. J., Bai, X. M., Wu, W. C., and Luo, X. J. (2019). Analysis of the structural relationship of influencing factors of the online learning experience. Mod. Distance Educ. 1, 27–36. doi: 10.13927/j.cnki.yuan.2019.0004

Krishnamurthi, Murali. (2000). Enhancing Student Teacher Interaction In Internet Based Courses. 5.279.1-5.279.10. 10.18260/1-2–8359.

Kurt, S. (2020, November 11). How can we align learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessments? Educational Technology. Retrieved from https://educationaltechnology.net/how-can-we-align-learning-objectives-instructional-strategies-and-assessments/ 

Lake, B. (2019, December 2). 9 ways to make your course easier to navigate. Teach Online. 

Retrieved from https://teachonline.asu.edu/2016/04/online-course-navigation/  

Moore, M. G. (1989). Three types of interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2), 1-7. 

Oyarzun, B., Stefaniak, J., Bol, L., & Morrison, G. R. (2017). Effects of learner-to-learner interactions on social presence, achievement and satisfaction. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 30(1), 154–175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-017-9157-x 

Pappas, C. (2021, May 12). 7 tips to reduce cognitive overload in Elearning. eLearning Industry. Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/7-tips-reduce-cognitive-overload-elearning 

Pennings, H. J. M., Brekelmans, M., Sadler, P., Claessens, L. C. A., van der Want, A. C., & van Tartwijk, J. (2018). Interpersonal adaptation in teacher-student interaction. Learning and Instruction, 55, 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2017.09.005

Schullo, S., Hilbelink, A., Venable, M., & Barron, A. (2007). Selecting a virtual classroom system: Elluminate Live vs Macromedia Breeze (Adobe Connect Professional). Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. 3. Retrieved from: https://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no4/hilbelink.htm

Sun, H.-L., Sun, T., Sha, F.-Y., Gu, X.-Y., Hou, X.-R., Zhu, F.-Y., & Fang, P.-T. (2022). The influence of teacher–student interaction on the effects of online learning: Based on a serial mediating model. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.779217 

Swan, K. (2001). Virtual interaction: Design factors affecting student satisfaction and perceived learning in asynchronous online courses. Distance Education, 22(2), 306–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158791010220208 

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4