The Learner-Centered Instructional Designer: Purpose, Process, and Practicalities of Creating Online Courses in Higher Education

“What does a new instructional designer need to know to find her or his feet when working with faculty to create online classes?”

This is a practical handbook for established and aspiring instructional designers in higher education, readers who may also be identified by such professional titles as educational developer, instructional technologist, or online learning specialist.

Jerod Quinn, together with a team of experienced instructional designers who have worked extensively with a wide range of faculty on a multiplicity of online courses across all types of institutions, offer key guiding principles, insights and advice on how to develop productive and collegial partnerships with faculty to deliver courses that engage students and promote enduring learning.

Designing and developing online classes for higher education takes a combination of pedagogical knowledge, the ability to build trust with faculty, familiarity with frameworks on how people learn, understanding of accessibility and inclusion, and technical skills to leverage a learning management system into an educational experience. Coming from diverse backgrounds, few instructional designers enter academia well versed in all of these aspects of creating online classes. This book provides the foundation on which instructional designers can build their careers.

The guiding principle that animates this book is that the student experience and successful learning outcomes are paramount, and governs discussion of course design, pedagogy, the use of multimedia and technological advances, as well as the use of different forms of interactive exercises and group assignments. The succinct, informally written chapters offer ideas and means to apply theory to the daily work of instructional design and cover the four key components that drive this work in higher education:

• Defining the scope and main design approaches of our work
• Building trust with the faculty we work with
• Applying frameworks of how people learn
• Mastering common online instructional practices.

Jerod Quinn, M.Ed, is an Instructional Designer for the Course Design and Technology department at the University of Missouri, where he works with faculty designing and creating online classes. He has been working as an instructional designer for almost a decade and in higher education for even longer. He has taught online classes in instructional design and face-to-face classes in educational technology. Leaning on his education, online teaching experience, and professional network,he works with faculty to create significant learning experiences online, face-to-face, and blended across disciplines. He’s been a POD Network member for several years and is currently in pursuit of a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in quantitative research from the University of Missouri.