Reflection

This post reflects my time and learning experience through the Learning Theories and Instruction course. Throughout the course, a span of eight weeks, I have learned a great deal about how people learn and a deeper understanding of my learning process. In addition, a deeper understanding of the connection between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation. This knowledge and the resources I have used can only help me further my future career in instructional design and my current career as a full-time instructor.

         One motivation for me to start earning a Master's in instructional design was to gain knowledge that would allow me to design and create an online co-requisite statistical course for the math department in the near future. Over the eight weeks, I have gained knowledge and resources on the various learning styles and theories. As a full-time instructor for over ten years, I have always realized that not all students learn the same and vary in how they learn. Throughout the course I have recently taken, I have learned how to integrate learning strategies that allow my students to regulate their learning of the techniques I teach. For instance, as an instructor, creating and integrating active learning activities, such as real-life data sets, can allow students who learn from hands-on activities to receive and remember the material better. I need to remember, not only as an instructor but as someone whose goal is to branch into the instructional design world, that different learning styles involve kinesthetic, auditory, visual learning, or a combination.

As an instructor and future instructional designer, I can use the resources about what motivates students to learn in my design. For instance, I found in this course that the ARCS Model (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) provides guidance on how to gain and maintain a student’s attention, the idea that the content and material should be relevant to the student, establish learning objectives that are realistic to the student to gain their confidence, and achieve student satisfaction through intrinsic and extrinsic outcomes.

Coming into this course and the instructional design program, I have learned that there is more to creating and designing content for an audience. To develop content, one mustxs consider who the audience (learners) is. Understanding how individuals learn and receive new information is just one crucial step for an instructional designer, and I can’t wait to learn more about how to design for individuals.