Instructional Design for Online Course Development

Abstract

There is a big difference between preparing to teach in the classroom and preparing to teach online. The classroom environment is typically marked by a level of spontaneity in instruction; beyond the preparation—the course syllabus and the PowerPoint slides, for example—the delivery of the course is largely altered by both the dynamics of the class and the impromptu decisions of the professor. Mediating this dynamic is the nature of the subject matter itself—teaching a course in computer programming varies dramatically from a course in sociology. The goal of this article is to explain the uses and misuses of instructional design, its foundational frameworks, and its implications for online education.