Edward Oneill joins me to talk about practical instructional design.

Podcast notes

Practical instructional design

Guest

Edward Oneill, Senior instructional designer at Yale.

Teach Better Podcast

I know a little bit about a lot of things. – Edward Oneill (and also Diana Krall, etc.)

What Edward’s clients often need

• intuitively-appealing ways of conceptualizing the learning process
• a survey of the relevant tools & which fit their needs & capacities

Edward’s special skill

…finding the points in the learning process where assessment and evaluation can be woven in seamlessly

Design approach of Edward’s early courses

Successes

• Made sure students had to do something every week
• Ensured consistent deadlines
• Weekly messages, creatively introducing them to that week

Failures

• Disconnected topics, no second chances

You don’t learn anything by doing it once. – Edward Oneill

• Not opportunities for practice

I wanted to see it as the students’ fault. It’s so hard to get out of that [mindset]. – Edward Oneill

Biggest challenges in our teaching

• We know our content, but we don’t realize how tightly packed our knowledge is…
• Edward’s blog post about the Five stages of teaching
• Peter Newbury – prior Teaching in Higher Ed guest on episode #053 shared about recall / connections

Rehearsal and elaboration

It’s about stepping away from the center and helping [students] communicate with each other. – Edward Oneill

Methods for incorporating assessment and evaluation into the design of courses

• Have shorter/smaller forms of assessment that aren’t necessarily graded 100% of the time
• Use their performance as your own assessment

Bonni shares about teaching with Ellen’s Heads Up iPad game

Jeopardy game as form of reinforcement

Recommendations

Bonni recommends:

Parker Palmer quote

I am a teacher at heart, and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy. When my students and I discover uncharted territory to explore, when the pathway out of a thicket opens up before us, when our experience is illumined by the lightning-life of the mind—then teaching is the finest work I know. – Parker Palmer

Edward comments:

There is a special privilege in people letting you help them grow and change. – Edward Oneill

Edward recommends:

On Becoming a Person, by Carl Rogers

As a teacher, I need to see you as a unique learner. If I really try to understand you and try to help you grow, it is not so much about information transfer; it is a more humane kind of relationship. – Edward Oneill

When you’re passionate about teaching and you focus on it and you try to improve – you do. – Edward Oneill

Closing notes

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