I made major changes in my project from the first class to this one. I completely changed the direction of my project and I’m glad that I did. I changed the focus from the Airplane Simulation, which was one small piece of a greater class. Changing the focus of my project was the right decision. It gave me the ability to truly delve into the process and really see the building of the assignments in the class.

Using the “Absorb, Do, Connect” model from E-Learning by Design by William Horton, I was able to progress and make changes to my project. It actually gave me a different way of thinking about Instructional Design. I’ve been applying these principles already in my job. Today, I was working through an agenda with SME’s and I suggested that we change our Learning objectives to include action verbs. I also suggested that we rewrite some of the learning objectives entirely because they were too vague.

Since taking this class, I have such a better idea of what it means to be an Instructional Designer. I’m already thinking about ways in which we can engage learner with different learning styles based on UDL guidelines. It is very probable that even though JWA teaches classes to “high achievers” and many people that have post-secondary degrees that doesn’t change the fact that, “the way people learn is as unique as their finger prints” (http://www.udlcenter.org/resource_library/videos/udlcenter/udl#video0/) Often the SME’s that I work with want to focus too much on “what” we are teaching. I am the voice for the students in the process. I need to focus on the “how” and the “why.” One of our consultants is always worried that our clients will suffer “death by PowerPoint” instating UDL principles insures that this will not occur.

As an Instructional Designer, applying the “Absorb, Do, Connect” model was somewhat of a challenge for me. Putting activities in the boxes and trying to makes sure that there were metrics was something that I knew we/I needed to do better. Now having a reasoning and theory behind my design choices makes me feel like I have a better process for designing the next course and making sure that we are including all learners.

JWA has never given a quiz or pre-test in a class before, it is something that we are now instating because of this class. My boss gets metrics to show the learning that occurs and thus we can show the clients the ROI on paying for a JWA class.