Instructional Design

This week’s term is brought to you in the form of a rant, and maybe I’m ill-informed. Maybe I’ll spark a heated debate. Who knows? I was having a conversation this week that reminded me of something increasingly prevalent in the education system today: helicoptering.

What’s helicoptering?

I’m not referring to someone flying a helicopter; I’m referring to the fact that parents are becoming increasingly involved in their children’s education…but negatively. Instead of simply being a supportive presence, available to answer homework queries and/or help with assignments, parents are injecting themselves into the school system and pointing out the flaws that are affecting their children. Not all parents do this, but a lot of them do.

When I was in grade school, my parents were very hands-on with my education outside of school (and so they should have been). However, in school, it was my responsibility to navigate the complexities of receiving an education…on my own. Sure, my parents and other parents would intervene if they saw that I was struggling with something, perhaps inquiring about what methods were in place for extra help, etc. However, what I see happening in our grade school system now (and maybe it’s just a regional thing), is that parents are becoming obstructions to their children’s education…unintentionally I’m sure, but becoming over-protective and hyper vigilant.

Now. As I said before, there’s a certain level of vigilance that is expected from parents. We all want our children to be treated fairly and to be provided with the appropriate resources needed to succeed. It’s when this vigilance oversteps normal that things become problematic.

How so?

Here’s one example I can think of. A former co-worker of mine was a teacher at an elementary school, and the school had recently implemented a no homework policy – I’m not entirely sure of the reasoning behind this; although, it was probably rooted some helicopter parenting traits (e.g. not wanting to negatively affect a child’s self-esteem, etc.). Anyhow, my friend had sent her class home with a task of noting three historical events. It could have been something as simple as “I had toast for breakfast this morning.”, and she was reprimanded later that week because a parent had complained that their child had been sent home with ‘homework’.

Another example: Within the last few years, our schoolboard has changed assignment requirements so that all graded work can be handed in on the last day of the semester. This is unrealistic. In the real world, there are real deadlines. You can’t just take 3-4 months to finish working on something. Additionally, it creates more of a burden on the teachers, who are already working overcapacity.

THIS is when helicoptering gets out of hand.

If we’re not teaching our children that there are rules and assignments and deadlines, etc., then how are we bettering our children for the role they’ll inevitably encounter when entering university, college, or the workforce? The places our children will go in the future tend to all be governed by rules, regulations, impending deadlines, or at least timeliness. What may have originally been parents wanting the best for their children will end up backfiring years down the road.

This week’s edition of Terminology Tuesday was inspired by a term I hadn’t heard of much in recent months (or maybe I was selectively reading…who knows). I figured I’d dive back into the world of MOOCs and get to the terminal bottom of them just for you!

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

MOOCs are just what their un-acronymed name indicate: Massive Open Online Courses – course materials for some of the world’s leading post-secondary institution are available online, for free! Bananas! These courses provide individuals all over the world (well…online, that’s the hitch) with access to course materials (e.g. lectures, readings, assignments, forums), emphasizing open access of content and encouraging the lifelong learning movement.

I remember being so excited when MIT Open CourseWare came out; the idea of learning information that I would only otherwise have been privy to as an MIT student was mind-boggling. Then came the onslaught of other open course content, such as edX, Coursera, and Udacity.

As MOOCs evolved, the free stays free, but the rich can still get rich…I say that jokingly; I don’t know if anyone is getting rich off MOOCs…someone likely is, but I’ll never know. Many MOOCs still offer their courses for free in the open access world, but some also offer upgraded certifications for a fee. The fees typically aren’t that crazy, so it really is a great opportunity to take if it’s presented to you.

For the self-motivated learner, MOOCs can be wonderful, but for the over-zealous learner, MOOCs can be particularly time-consuming and overwhelming on your inbox if you haven’t prepared yourself adequately for the number of courses you’ve eagerly enrolled in – be cautious, my friend!

Today I’m inspired by things that make life easier: templates!

Templates?!

Templates are magical! They can save you so much time, allowing you to streamline your development and make your process a lot more efficient. Templates will contain design elements, often times with placeholders for content and/or multimedia. These templates can be used as is, or they can be customized based on your particular needs, using the template elements as a baseline, reducing your time spent in customization.

When I first began my development journey, I would manually develop templates and design elements, paying no mind to any resources available to me. However, when I began customizing existing templates, I realized how much time I was saving, and now as a small business owner, I can appreciate the importance of any and every resource saving I can get my grubby little hands on! You should make it a point to realize the importance of these time/cost savings too.

Examples of Templates

• Articulate has a fantastic library of templates, some developed by Articulate and some developed by members of the E-learning Heroes Community.
  • I’ve also developed several free templates for various E-Learning Heroes Challenges. You can download those templates here.
• Microsoft has an enormous wealth of templates for all of their Office products.
• Even blogging platforms such as WordPress have libraries of available themes.