In my life as a musician, there’s a phrase you’ll often encounter in discussions of music-making gear: “The sound is in your fingers.” I have to admit, I find this refrain annoying. It’s a conversation stopper, and it denies the obvious influence that the instrument, the amplifier, the effects, and the recording technique all have on the sound. But there’s a kernel of truth to it as well. No matter what gear you use, you end up sounding like yourself. You are what’s common to the the various iterations of your sound. Time spent experimenting with gear is important, but so is time playing your instrument, learning songs, learning music theory, practicing, and–above all else–listening to what you’re playing.
In instructional design, there is a similar obsession with gear, in the form of software, and the technical skills necessary to make it sing and dance. As with music, gear and the ability to use it is important. But it’s not the only important thing, and it’s surely not the most important thing. When I first started out as an instructional designer, I had an obsession with the technical side of things. I was good at figuring that stuff out. I was good at taking technologies from the domain of web design and development and using them for educational purposes. I had been doing that from the very beginning. That was part of the value I brought to the table, and I tended to double down on it.
Technical skills are valuable, of course. But the soft skills are the ones that really matter. Being able to talk with instructors, build rapport, and build trust is the foundational part which allows you to use those technical skills. Instructors have to trust you before they’ll take your advice, especially when it goes against their deeply held intuitions. Before they get to you, they’ve often been teaching for a long time. They may even have been teaching online for a long time. Some of them will have been doing a very good job of it, even though they lack formal training in instructional design. And some of these will have been doing a horrible job of it. The lack of willingness to change–even for this latter group–might surprise you.
I often say that instructional design is enlightened common sense. A lot of what makes for a good online, academic course is obvious, or should be. It’s not controversial. But a lot of the small decisions that go into designing good courses are things instructors–and even other instructional designers–might not have thought about. An example of this came up recently in an online discussion. The question was, basically, “when should we make assignments due?”
The answer to that, for the vast majority of classes, is “Sunday evening at 11:59 PM.” This isn’t a technical question. And this isn’t the sort of question for which you must expend much of the good will and trust you’ve built up with the instructor. That’s because the answer comes down to demographics and common sense. Many students taking online classes are working professionals with full-time jobs and family responsibilities. The’ll check into their courses during the week, but they don’t sit down to do any real coursework until the weekend. That’s the only time they can fit it in. Thus, giving them the weekend to catch up is the humane thing to do, if you want them to succeed.
Sticking with a regular due date helps students find the rhythm of your course. You might not have an assignment due every week. But, for those weeks when you do, keeping it at the same day and at the same time helps. It reduces the cognitive load. It makes your course predictable. Creating this sort of predictability is a profoundly good thing. It’s a very simple thing that makes courses better.
Even for “traditional students,” those straight out of high school without full-time jobs, families to support, or other adult preoccupations, having the weekend to catch up on classes and having regular, predictable assignment due dates is a benefit. Quite a lot of these traditional students are balancing face-to-face classes (let’s call those “traditional classes”) with asynchronous online classes. So they, too, are playing catch-up on the weekends. As with most things in higher education, what’s good for adult learners is good for all learners. The distinction between “pedagogy” and “andragogy” is, in the vast majority of instances, a distinction without a difference. It’s a fancy term, but not a very helpful one.
Thus, practicing instructional design well, in the broadest strokes, involves a combination of three things: technical skills, soft skills, and enlightened common sense. In future posts, I’ll have more to say about ways in which instructional designers can improve each.
Credits
The featured image for this post is by Pasquale de Rossi (1641-1722). It’s titled “School Teaching, a Teacher with Four Pupils.” Thanks to WordPress for providing it, through their built-in integration with Openverse, and Google Lens for helping me find the details about it.
