0:05

Welcome to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview

0:10

various instructional designers to figure out what it is instructional

0:13

designers do. I'm Rebecca Hogue, your podcast host.

0:18

If you or someone you know would like to be

0:20

a guest on demystifying instructional design, please complete the Be

0:24

My guest form available on demystifying instructional design dot com.

0:30

I'm particularly looking for guests who do not work in

0:33

higher education. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe or leave a

0:38

comment in the show notes blog post. And consider helping to support this podcast with a donation

0:43

to my Patreon account. Welcome, Greg, to demystifying instructional design.

0:49

To begin with, can you start by introducing yourself?

0:52

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. So my name is Greg Dillon, and I've been in

0:56

the instructional design field for the past five years.

1:00

I'm currently working as a learning designer at Brown University

1:04

in Providence, Rhode Island, and I was your student at

1:08

UMass Boston, where I got my master's degree.

1:10

Learning designer is an interesting new term.

1:14

How is that different from what you've done previously as

1:18

an instructional designer?

1:20

I think essentially the role is the same.

1:23

I only started a month ago. My colleagues, they're all instructional designers before, and they changed

1:30

the term to learning designers because they specifically wanted to

1:33

have a focus on the student experience as opposed to

1:37

the instruction itself. So moving the focus from the teacher to the student.

1:42

What would you describe as your origin story? How did you find instructional design? Around 2014 2015?

1:50

I was working in Rhode Island School of Design Global

1:53

Department, and I worked on a really unique project.

1:57

The Princess of Abu Dhabi donated a substantial amount of

2:01

money to create an emerging Abu Dhabi artists program.

2:05

A few weeks of the year, the faculty would visit

2:08

the UAE or the artists would visit campus, and I

2:11

was responsible for organizing these trips.

2:13

However, the majority of the year the artists would work

2:16

with the faculty online and for this RISD, needed to

2:19

hire an instructional designer. And I had never heard of an instructional designer before,

2:23

and I was fascinated and I learned so much from

2:26

this person who was hired and decided that I was

2:29

interested in learning more. So I started taking classes at UMass Boston, and that's

2:33

where I met you, Rebecca, in my very first class.

2:36

And the rest is history.

2:38

How would you describe what your typical day is, and

2:42

I know you're into a new job at the moment. How you envision your typical day?

2:46

Yeah. As you mentioned, I've only been there. I haven't been there too long.

2:49

I've only been there a month, but my position is

2:52

very faculty facing and from what I've done so far

2:56

and what I anticipate that I'll do in the future, it's going to be meeting with faculty to discuss goals

3:01

for their courses, collaborating with them to build the courses,

3:04

collaborating with the media and technology departments to create content

3:09

and use tools that meet the faculty goals.

3:12

For the courses, I'll be doing quality control on courses

3:15

in the learning management system, which is Canvas and then

3:18

researching different pedagogical approaches that might be helpful for faculty

3:22

at Brown Research.

3:23

That's interesting.

3:24

That's been a really nice part of my job because

3:27

I really haven't had too much time for that in

3:30

previous positions. And as I'm a huge fan virtually connecting and you

3:34

and I have an item and I love just being

3:37

a part of the community of practice and learning about

3:40

what everybody's doing and how those kind of ideas that

3:43

are being discussed could be helpful to the faculty at

3:46

my institution.

3:47

How do you describe what you do if we're talking

3:50

about, how do I describe what instructional design is?

3:53

And this is a question that comes up literally every

3:56

single time I tell someone my job, no one knows

3:59

what instructional design is. I usually discuss the history in training of instructional design,

4:06

and I'll go to something that pretty much everyone is

4:09

familiar with. So just to start off, I'll say any job you've

4:12

ever had, you've probably taken some kind of module on

4:15

sexual harassment or on boarding and something along these lines.

4:19

And this is something that's very commonly developed by instructional

4:22

designers and that kind of serves as a base for

4:25

people who have no idea what the position is.

4:27

But I'll talk a little bit about instructional design in

4:30

the corporate world and health and developing modules for training.

4:34

And then I'll talk about instructional design in higher education,

4:37

which is I've only had positions in instructional design in

4:40

higher education, which tends to be more along the

4:43

lines, of course, development and faculty support.

4:46

And for me, for personally, for me, it's been very

4:50

different in all of my positions.

4:53

One position was faculty support for educational technology.

4:57

Another was specifically focused on developing interactive lectures using Camtasia

5:03

or Storyline. Then in my current position, I primarily advise faculty on

5:08

best practices for their online courses and work with them

5:11

closely to build those courses.

5:13

What kind of projects do you find fun?

5:16

Well, the projects that I find to be the most fun are really based on the people, the faculty that

5:21

I'm working with and the best ones are when faculty

5:24

are really passionate about effectively teaching their students.

5:29

And when I get to learn about their unique strategies

5:32

and unique assignments that they employ because this then becomes

5:36

a part of my pedagogy, it adds to me and

5:38

I really like how I can facilitate a certain culture

5:42

of the institution. The more I learn about what faculty are doing and

5:45

what they think is effective, the more I can recommend

5:49

those things to their colleagues. And if faculty know that their colleagues are doing certain

5:53

things that's helpful, then it's way more likely that they

5:56

will adopt those practices themselves.

5:58

And so I really like when I work with a

6:01

faculty member who has those kinds of ideas.

6:04

For instance, when I was at Gordon, there was one

6:07

professor who used 360 cameras to develop a virtual map

6:11

of Jerusalem. Gordon is a Christian college, and then in another instance,

6:17

for a critical thinking course, I created a simulation that

6:20

students would go through so that they could experience cultural

6:24

bias. And these are kinds of things that I would also

6:27

talk about with other faculty members who come to me

6:29

asking, What can I do with my course? And I'll say, Oh, your colleague had a lot of

6:33

success with this? And they'll say, Oh, really? He did or she did, and I really appreciate those

6:38

projects the most.

6:40

That's actually a really useful strategy for finding somebody who

6:43

would be a peer, in essence, another faculty member that's

6:46

doing it so that you can call upon.

6:48

Oh yeah, your peer is doing this.

6:50

And it's not just coming from random instructional designer.

6:55

Exactly. Because it's one thing. I'm sure they trust my expertize, but it's one thing

7:00

when I say this is a best practice and you

7:02

should use it. And it's another thing when I say, Oh, your colleague,

7:06

who is your friend and someone that you, you respect

7:08

and have known for many years is doing something that's

7:11

really effective with with her students.

7:13

That's going to be and that's going to work way

7:16

more.

7:17

You've been at this for a few years now. What area would you describe your niche to be?

7:22

That's a complicated question, I would say, because I have

7:26

certain things that I'm good at and instructional design and

7:29

then certain areas that I'm very interested in growing.

7:32

And so for me, the past three years, I've been

7:35

doing a lot of work with creating simulations and interactive

7:40

lectures with Storyline. So that's something that has been my niche the past

7:44

three years. I've always been the go to person for that.

7:47

I've also worked a lot with doing open educational resource

7:50

workshops with faculty, and that's actually I've really enjoyed that

7:53

and I would consider continuing to do that in the

7:56

future. But in my current position, I feel like we have

8:00

yet to create the kind of experiences in online courses

8:04

that replicate social presence, the social presence of in-person classes.

8:09

And I think this will be accomplished by focusing on

8:11

community building, and I hope to invest more of my

8:15

time in that in the current position.

8:18

So that's where I hope my niche to be.

8:21

That's pretty much what I do, right?

8:23

Yeah, I've always felt my experience in your classes.

8:26

I always felt that there was a great sense of

8:28

community and social presence. And so I definitely model my practices off of my

8:34

old teacher.

8:36

What are some of the biggest challenges you face as

8:38

an instructional designer?

8:40

The challenges I face are related to the challenges faculty

8:43

face. When faculty try something different in their courses that they

8:48

feel will benefit, their students can sometimes submit negative feedback

8:52

and evaluations because the pedagogical approach is different than what

8:56

they're used to. Students can rely on the comfort of a consistent format

9:00

across their curriculum that might include long lectures or limited

9:04

student input. And this is just something if they're used to it,

9:08

then it's a comfort for them to see. They know what to expect.

9:10

That makes sense. But then when the teacher receives those negative reviews, administration

9:17

tells them to stop introducing new methods so that they

9:20

can keep course evaluations up and then faculty are no

9:23

longer willing to try anything new or innovative in their

9:27

courses. When faculty are not supported by the administration, it also

9:31

makes my work more challenging. That's what I would say is a challenge for my

9:35

work.

9:36

That's the challenge with the way tenure works at universities

9:41

and colleges, because typically those that have that desire for

9:46

most innovative pedagogy are the newer instructors.

9:50

But they are also the instructors that can't afford to

9:52

not have great ratings.

9:55

They have that pressure to appeal to the administration and

9:58

to because they have that tenure lingering over.

10:00

Yeah, they need the performance numbers in order to make

10:03

their tenure. And so. That also drives a lack of innovation.

10:09

What skills would you find most useful in the work

10:13

that you do?

10:14

The most valuable skills are empathy and patience.

10:17

One concept I really appreciated learning about during the pandemic

10:21

is the pedagogy of care, and it's generally applied or

10:25

was applied to students. But as an instructional designer, I also find it helpful

10:30

to apply it to my relationship with faculty.

10:32

And there's no telling what experiences they've had in the

10:35

classroom that directs their teaching approach or what they might

10:38

be dealing with otherwise. So I'd say empathy and patience in my interactions with

10:43

them really benefits my work.

10:45

I really like that. You called on the pedagogy of care.

10:48

I think that's something that really came out with the

10:51

pandemic. It was something we were playing with a little bit

10:54

earlier, but really got highlighted at the beginning of the

10:58

pandemic.

10:59

Absolutely. And I think like a lot of things in the

11:01

pandemic, it's bringing certain concepts to light or pushing forward

11:05

certain things like online learning. There's a lot more online learning now, and it's creating

11:10

a new normal. And so it's bringing these ideas to light like pedagogy

11:14

of care, but knock on wood things slowing down or

11:18

however, things will proceed. I think pedagogy of care is something that we should

11:21

continue to keep in mind in the future, because it's

11:24

a really helpful concept and something that just keeps us

11:27

conscious of our students and their experience.

11:29

And then, like I mentioned, the experience of faculty members

11:32

as well.

11:34

Yeah, I think that's also very critical in the work

11:36

that we do is, you know, not just the student

11:38

remembering the teacher.

11:39

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

11:42

What do you wish you knew sooner?

11:45

I would say the thing that I wish I knew

11:47

sooner in instructional design is giving faculty the benefit of

11:51

the doubt. And I think in instructional design, it's a career that's

11:55

focused on best practices and hypothetical ideals in the classroom.

12:00

And that's great. I think we should always shoot for the ideal and

12:03

be critical, but sometimes we can forget that teachers are

12:06

the ones with the applied experience.

12:09

They know what works and what doesn't, and the barriers

12:11

to success because they deal with them every day.

12:15

So it's important to keep their opinions in mind and

12:17

trust that they have their students best interests at heart.

12:21

It goes along with the empathy, actually.

12:24

I think so.

12:25

That type of remembering that instructors are human.

12:30

Yeah, I think with critical pedagogy and we're always shooting

12:34

for the ideal, we often shoot for the ideal in

12:38

instructional design based on research, but we need to remember

12:41

that it's not always going to go perfectly in every

12:44

situation in the classroom is not always going to be

12:46

the same. The students are dealing with stuff going on outside the

12:50

classroom and they have their own issues that they're dealing

12:52

with. The faculty member has things that they're dealing with, and

12:55

even if we have these strategies that we introduce as

12:59

best practices, that might even be a subjective term like

13:01

best practice, it's really it's not going to be best

13:04

practice across the board. We need to leave it up to the teachers and

13:07

trust that they have their students best interests and they

13:09

are going to choose the best path forward in their

13:13

teaching and their students Learning

13:14

A term that I've used or that I've learned

13:18

and I'm working on using is better practices that, yeah,

13:21

it's better, not best because there isn't a best practice.

13:24

Yeah. And but some practices are better than others.

13:27

It's like how we describe design, right?

13:30

There isn't one solution, but some solutions are better than

13:33

others.

13:33

Absolutely.

13:35

What advice would you give to new instructional designers?

13:38

The advice I would give new instructional designers is actually

13:42

something I learned on day one with you at UMass

13:45

Boston, which is to find a community of practice. Even

13:48

at times in my career where I felt there were

13:51

few opportunities to grow in my job.

13:53

I always felt inspired by the many brilliant, talented people

13:57

in my community of practice, which in this case is

14:00

people I met in Virtually Connecting. People I met

14:03

on Twitter through those Virtually Connecting channels in different conferences

14:06

that I participated in. And I think this may be even more important than

14:10

the degree itself after my colleagues have continued to teach

14:12

me long after I graduated with my degree.

14:16

And so that's something that I learned very early on

14:19

with you. I know you brought in Autumn and Michael Berman, right?

14:24

I think lots of different people you brought into your

14:26

classes. And this is the first time that really happened to

14:28

me in my education that the teacher introduced experts in

14:32

the field. And that was really encouraging for me.

14:35

And then I would immediately after that, meeting those people

14:38

and talking with them, I would immediately connect with them.

14:40

And all of a sudden I was part of this greater conversation that wouldn't even end with my higher education

14:46

that is at the university. I really find a community of practice so valuable.

14:50

I found it valuable when I was in school, and

14:52

I continue to find it valuable until now. So that is absolutely the advice that I would give.

14:58

Is there anything I haven't asked you about?

15:01

One thing I always found really valuable in your classes

15:04

is that you each week you presented a number of

15:08

resources where you could do research. That was something I always found valuable is just like

15:12

always looking for new resources that might help you

15:17

om instructional design.

15:17

That was probably not my class.

15:20

No, it was. Yeah, it was. You included like the hour of Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

15:25

yeah, like stuff like that where it was like a

15:27

page where the students had to choose, like maybe a

15:30

four or five resources or skills you had till you

15:33

would have to like, essentially learn like different skills.

15:36

So one of them?

15:37

Oh yes. Yeah, OK, I did that that choose your own adventure.

15:40

I can't even remember which class I did that in.

15:43

We now do technology. I call it this week in Ed Tech, but I

15:48

introduce ed tech that is directly related to the topic

15:51

of the week. For example, when we're talking about doing task analysis, I

15:56

might introduce mind mapping at the same time or a

16:01

flow charting or something like that. So introducing tools that might support that given lesson.

16:07

And for me, I believe it was in the introduction

16:10

class, and I thought that was really great pedagogically because

16:14

in that first class, you're getting a general understanding of

16:17

instructional design and how it can go in many different

16:21

directions. You can be many different kinds of instructional designers, and

16:26

based on those skills, they might be skills for subset,

16:29

like a certain niche of instructional design.

16:32

And I find that I found that to be really

16:34

helpful in guiding me down my instructional design path, like

16:38

learning the skills that I felt would be most helpful

16:40

for me, put me in the right direction that learning

16:43

how to learn. Yeah, yeah, that's a big part of 601.

16:47

Actually, that's a big part of the first course in the program, especially because a lot of students come to

16:51

it, not having been in the classroom for a long

16:53

time and never having learned online.

16:58

This might have been my first online class. I'm trying to remember. I think it was.

17:01

Yeah. So there's a big learning curve there.

17:03

I actually have a note to self every semester that

17:06

says, do not underestimate the amount of learning how to

17:10

learn that happens so I don't overload the course.

17:14

Remember that there's a whole lot of that going on.

17:17

I think about that quite a bit like how you

17:19

might not even understand how much learning your student is

17:23

going through. For me, I like you probably didn't know it was

17:26

like a really impactful time for me. And so, yeah, I completely agree.

17:31

There's a lot going on there.

17:33

We'll get to the last question, which I like to leave everyone off with.

17:36

I love this question as a last question, and that's

17:38

what's your prediction for the future of instructional design.

17:43

I had mentioned before there's been a huge pickup in

17:46

online education during the pandemic, and I think it's likely

17:50

that it will continue to be a popular option that

17:52

is online education. And I feel that the future of instructional design

17:56

will focus on creating the same level or better of

18:00

social presence and community in online courses that is created

18:05

in-person classes. I think that's something that we really need if we

18:09

want online learning to be on the same level as

18:12

in-person learning. We really need to figure out community building and creating

18:19

that sense of social presence that sometimes just organically happens

18:23

in-person classes. We need to be conscious about creating that in online

18:28

classes. So I think that's going to be really important for

18:30

the future.

18:32

Thank you, Greg, for joining us on demystifying instructional design

18:36

and helping to enlighten us on what it is instructional

18:39

designers do.

18:40

Thanks so much. It's been such a pleasure to be here.

18:44

You've been listening to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where

18:48

I interview instructional designers about what they do.

18:51

I'm Rebecca Hogue, your podcast host. If you or someone you know might like to be

18:56

a guest on demystifying instructional design, please complete the Be

19:00

My guest form available on demystifying instructional design

19:03

Dot com. Show notes are posted as a blog post

19:06

on demystifying instructional design dot com.

19:09

If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe or leave a

19:11

comment in the show notes blog post.