Instructional Design Projects

Every single person should have a chance to survive, thrive and contribute their talents and skills to their family and community and receive an education that is a good fit for them. As fellow human beings in everyday work and life, we together create reality with our daily choices and actions. As Instructional Designers, and educators we can both facilitate learning for diverse individuals on their own terms, and we can build accessibility and inclusion of diverse individuals into our processes and products from the start in the earliest planning phases in collaboration with community stakeholders.

Here are some transformative projects, including instructional design products that I've created while taking a 100% online, asynchronous Instructional Design class as part of an Advanced Certificate in Instructional Design at SUNY Brockport (here). 

Make the most of your life. When you feel like you're getting stale, think about all the things you might like to learn. Go online and find a way to learn what you need to grow and develop as a person! Develop new competencies and apply them in your life and work. Let's work together!

Why? Health and well-being are important to everyone. Those in the cancer community deserve access to high-quality series of year-long oncology yoga lessons that can be modified for any body, any level, anywhere, and any stage of cancer. This service-learning project promotes inclusive yoga access.

What? The client wanted to increase the well-being of the cancer community by offering free, online, oncology yoga classes inclusive and accessible for individuals in all stages of cancer. After extensive literature search and client content I designed a framework within which Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga would find a new life within the framework of the five seasons and body systems of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). 

How? A series of 30-sessions in 60 classes of oncology yoga emerged. You can move at your own pace, relax, enjoy learning yoga! Please access the website I designed for the client at yogawithsteph.com. The free oncology yoga YouTube series of classes are being uploaded now! Start with class "1a postures and breathing" and "1b mindfulness and breathing" For free online YouTube classes, click here.

Who? The client is a subject matter expert with 25 years of yoga practice, 200-hour RYT Yoga Alliance certified yoga instructor and Christina Phipps Foundation (CPF)-certified oncological yoga instructor. 

Please take our survey (click here) so we can design the most effective online yoga environment!

Using Articulate 360, YouTube, Canva (for video design, graphics, and hosting), and online resources I created a short, 5-minute multi-media educational presentation about the benefits of technology-based assessments. Embedded in the presentation were short technology-based assessments. All images are intended for educational use only and references in the educational training. Find the training here at this link. The goal of the presentation was to inform instructors about research behind the many technology-based assessments they can use to motivate learners.

Define and measure instructional goals equitably with rubrics. Rubrics provide diverse learners with a clearly defined grading framework; instructors can use single measure holistic rubrics (a sentence or paragraph for each level) or analytic rubrics with multiple measures and a criteria for each category in table form. Using rubrics can empower learners with knowledge that links an assignment to transparent, clearly-defined grading criteria so each learner has key information they need to succeed (or ask for guidance). Diverse learners can grow using equity rubrics promotes critical thinking and scaffolding for the highest levels of achievement. Knowledge = power! Check out both the AACU's VALUE rubrics and CAST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidance version 2.2. See both pages of my final draft of my Equity Rubric brochure at Canva.com and presentation of both my brochure and an unrelated infographic and paper on needed training for PB 21-03 also created using Canva.com.

What is your experience with online technology for learning? What cultural competency skills are needed by everyone to function in an increasingly virtual, online world? During the COVID-19 pandemic we were forced online, those of us who had access to internet. Many in the United States and throughout the world still do not have access to reliable wireless service such that children can take online classes from home. Although cell phones are useful tools, those forced to use cell phones for schoolwork would seem to me to be at a great disadvantage as compared to those children with tablets. If we are culturally competent nations, states, and localities, we will ensure that every child, indeed every person, has access and training in digital citizenship. Check out what the state of Maine, USA, did for their students in creating the National Digital Equity Center!

What is your experience with diversity and inclusion? What cultural competency skills are needed to function in this diverse world we share? If we are culturally competent nations, states, and localities, we will ensure that every person has access and training in embracing diversity, being open and aware, and being kind.

During the SHINEQuest project for EDI 620.61 Learning Theories for Instructional Designers with Dr. Papia Bawa, I reflected, collected data, documented, evaluated, and summarized my perspectives on diversity and inclusion. Then I synthesized what I had learned from reading posts of peers in the SHINE Quest forum, wrote my ideas then created my SHINEQuest final project (infographic created using graphics and design by canva.com). The 3-page infographic illustrated both my own perspectives, per the assignment, and one real-life example to increase awareness about "Diversity in our National Parks."

This first infographic and statement for the SHINEQuest project was a narrative story about when I was arrested for protesting my university's investments in racist South African Apartheid during my undergraduate degree. See this link for my SHINEQuest Infographic (created using graphics and design by canva.com) about personal to global efforts that resulted in the end of South African Apartheid. 

Also included is a second page explaining what I learned and how being arrested reinforced that I seek to serve kindly, act in collaboration with others, make meaningful connections, and enrich the world by trying to optimize and actualize the potential in every person, situation, and environment in sustainable, healthy, equitable ways that promote resilience (personal, local, global).

Every one of us has a role to play in dismantling racism and promoting equity every day.

Do you know about open educational resources (OERs)? They are free online ways to learn new things! In this project our entire class created one beautiful document that reflected the (free) open educational resource that we wanted to share with our classmates. We all used the same template with headings and fonts built in. I created a mini-lesson to ease transition to 4th grade optics & symmetry. The final 100+ page Google Doc was a work of beauty-- and useful to children, families, and teachers!

What I learned was that free online OERs can be so useful! And that PhET simulations are really quite amazing in regard to empowering students to learn more physics, math, chemistry, earth science, and a bit of biology! Check out PhET for yourself! 

In this project I reflected, collected data, documented, evaluated, and summarized my progress throughout EDI 581.61 Technology for Learning with Dr. Papia Bawa. I reflected on what I've learned; the project contained a written statement, a timeline using images, and an infographic to illustrate "Then and Now" in regard to a specific aspect of technology for learning.

What I learned was in four areas: content of technology for learning; collaboration with individuals, small groups, and the whole class; new perspectives on inclusion; and priorities because there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done so I had to learn to more effectively prioritize. 

I learned that without access to reliable wireless internet, currently viable software and hardware there is no digital equity. The people who do not have access to internet are often the same people who are traditionally underserved and facing embedded institutional bias. After this class I believe that some of the most important advocacy I can do is to advocate that states and nations collaborate with non-profit and private sectors to provide access, ongoing software and hardware upgrades to everyone, globally so that the entire world will have the opportunity to learn together, provide equitable access to education, resources, and opportunities for women and those traditionally underserved in our own localities, states, and countries.

Because everyone matters! In the world today are ~7.9 billion humans (here). Each of us has something unique to offer. During EDI 581.61, Technology for Learning with Dr. Papia  Bawa, students were given a chance to create a visual product explaining and summarizing Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This presentation was one of three student presentations showcased by Dr. Papia Bawa in her timely and research-based webinar. Watch this pre-recorded PowerPoint YouTube video containing Jen's brief 10 minute Universal Design for Learning project presentation. The webinar was part of SUNY Brockport's Mornings with the Professors "I, You, We" webinar by Dr. Papia Bawa on March 16, 2021. Here is the hyperlink.

In brainstorming phase of programs, courses, lessons, activities, and engagements, consider including everyone. As Instructional Designers and educators we can build accessibility and inclusion of diverse individuals into our processes and products beginning in the earliest planning phases. Rather than retrofitting when you hire a new employee build it in from the start.

During EDI 581.61, Technology for Learning with Dr. Papia Bawa, students were given a chance to read articles, view videos, and then create a visual product explaining and summarizing Universal Design for Learning (UDL). See this web site devoted to UDL by the people near Boston, MA, USA, who started UDL. In the early 2000's a group called Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) began putting out research in the area of accessibility and inclusion for diverse individuals. See CAST's web site to learn  more.

Technology for learning embraces a plethora of practices, processes, products. The internet is both broad and deep plus involuted. Within the field of education there are many possible open educational resources (OERs) that are freely available for use. The benefits of online learning were highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, just as were the problems with learning online. Instructional designers and users of online sites need to carefully examine and vett sites for content, bias, and manipulative information. Just as one would carefully examine a journal's author and source, so too must we carefully examine online sources of information for bias and also for lack of evidence or no facts to support claims, for potential criminal behavior, abusive terms of service, overexposure of personal information, and so much more. Being a responsible digital citizen is important.

The negative aspects of technology for learning are clear in regard also to many factors, including limited access for traditionally underserved individuals. The COVID-19 pandemic clearly illustrated the digital divide and highlighted the cost of leaving people without internet access. Other negative aspects include online versions of bullying, discrimination, maltreatment, trolls, malware, crooks, identity theft, fraud, discriminatory web sites that perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce dangerous hatreds like racism, antisemitism, homophobia and sadly so much more. Ableism emerged as a topic that deserves more attention. Ableism is the belief that there is some normative human state of being that is better than any other. Examine this popular source web site based in Chicago, Illinois, USA. for more information.