What is an instructional designer? How can we help?
I was recently asked by an academic colleague, “what exactly is an instructional designer? What do you do?” I am sure a few academic and PSS staff wonder the same thing but have never asked. I love my job because I am constantly learning and exploring new learning technologies and love being able to enhance the student experience. I will give a brief background on how EDU (Educational Development Unit) can help you. It is our mission to support teaching activities and help support high-quality learning experiences for all students. That is what we are in a nutshell, but what do we actually do?
Develop and design student learning experiences.
We want to make sure learning objectives are measurable, and the students get to actively practice what they are learning. We collaborate with the academic who is the subject matter expert, and we add to the experience with ideas on how students will learn or engage. We explore and implement the technological tools to enhance the staff and students’ experience based on experience or current research. We even do video and animation media if it proves to support the learning process. We don’t just put content into a PowerPoint slide to read because anyone can do that and we all have had death by PowerPoint.
We work with the module leader/tutor to keep the flow of tone and content the same throughout all online modules because it speaks directly to the student. We systematically keep the graphics and presentation of learning material simple. We do not use over decorative images as they do not enhance any learning outcomes.
Builders and explorers
We are digital explores by nature and like to stay on top of the latest processes and communicate “best practices” in learning and teaching amongst our colleagues. We enjoy hearing all about innovative ways Durham Business School staff teach and in turn, think of how we can build guides for others to implement these new technologies. This is not to say old school technology doesn’t work, but it just depends on how repetitious those processes are to keep seeing and does it answer, “How does this help the student experience?”
In just a few words, we want to give the student the best possible experience and help module leaders deliver that experience. Come by and have a chat. Send us new technology you have seen anywhere that could help us with our mission.