Assignment 4 - Evaluation
Introduction
"Evaluation is the means for determining the value, or worth, of an instructional product or program." (pg. 98, Naffziger, L. 2015) Web based instruction (WBI) is becoming the normal way to educate people around the world. Designing a course that achieves academic learning goals, keeps students motivated to stay on task and remain engaged, and accommodates different learning styles can be a daunting task. One of the keys to a great design for web based instruction is the evaluation process.
In this final assignment, I've evaluated one of my peer's WBI websites. I begin with a quick overview of the online course, then give feedback using the ADDIE Instructional Design, then I continue with a formative model of evaluation of the actual site, and close with some final thoughts.
I've also included the formative evaluation model to analyze the effectiveness, efficiency, and appeal of this WBI. Here are my results:
Conclusion
Designing a course is a difficult process and takes a considerable amount of time. However, when the design is effective, the course can be reused and revised over and over again. I believe that evaluation is one of the most important steps in the design process. A good evaluation can alert the designer to holes in their project. Many design flaws are easy to fix and don't take a lot of time to correct.
The course that I evaluated helped me see some of the design flaws in my own WBI design. My course is much more difficult to navigate and lacked the simplicity that made this website effective. Evaluating this WBI also allowed me to see the design process in a different light and gave me future ideas of how to improve my future projects.
(2017) Instructional Design (n.d.). Retrieved June 03, 2017, from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/models/addie.html
"Evaluation is the means for determining the value, or worth, of an instructional product or program." (pg. 98, Naffziger, L. 2015) Web based instruction (WBI) is becoming the normal way to educate people around the world. Designing a course that achieves academic learning goals, keeps students motivated to stay on task and remain engaged, and accommodates different learning styles can be a daunting task. One of the keys to a great design for web based instruction is the evaluation process.
In this final assignment, I've evaluated one of my peer's WBI websites. I begin with a quick overview of the online course, then give feedback using the ADDIE Instructional Design, then I continue with a formative model of evaluation of the actual site, and close with some final thoughts.
Overview
Peer Feedback using the ADDIE Instructional Design Plan
I’ll be using the five elements of the ADDIE Instructional Design Model to describe the design plan of my peer's WBI. ADDIE is an acronym meaning Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate.
Analyze: The audience for the instruction isn’t completely clear, but I assume it’s a high school course. The learning goals are stated on the top of each week’s page and are clear and specific. The delivery options within the website are unclear. While the information about content and academic goals are available, I’m not exactly sure how to submit my work. I can infer that the timeline of the course is four weeks because of the due dates of the various assignments, however, I don’t see the timeline of the course displayed anywhere on the website. This information might be included in the syllabus, but the syllabus is not available.
Design: The design and user interface is simplistic and easy to use. The menu is understandable and makes navigation throughout the site simple and effective. The visual design might be a bit too basic, but this adds to the ease of use within the site. The basic template of the website is good, but is missing some key elements. The main element missing is how to submit the work once it’s been completed. There are a few multimedia options on the site, but no discussion prompts and there is very little for the user to do except read text - the site is not very interactive at this stage. The design is a good basic framework that can be built into something better with a little bit of tweaking.
Develop: This website is still in the development stage, but has the elements of a good course. This evaluation might help in addressing some of the missing pieces and will become part of that development process, if this course is to be utilized in the future.
Implementation: The website isn’t exactly functional at this point because there’s a lot of missing pieces. There’s no place to submit work, there’s no discussion section, there are no rubrics, and there is no syllabus. These are all easy pieces that can be fixed, but until they are, it would be difficult to use this site as of today.
Evaluate: The website is currently being assessed in this assignment. There are multiple avenues of improvement, but the basic framework is sound. The WBI needs to be tested by multiple users so that the designer can receive feedback from a community of people to help improve the design of the course. Both formative and summative assessments can turn this WBI into a very effective online course.
I've also included the formative evaluation model to analyze the effectiveness, efficiency, and appeal of this WBI. Here are my results:
Effectiveness
Efficiency:
Appeal
Conclusion
Designing a course is a difficult process and takes a considerable amount of time. However, when the design is effective, the course can be reused and revised over and over again. I believe that evaluation is one of the most important steps in the design process. A good evaluation can alert the designer to holes in their project. Many design flaws are easy to fix and don't take a lot of time to correct.
The course that I evaluated helped me see some of the design flaws in my own WBI design. My course is much more difficult to navigate and lacked the simplicity that made this website effective. Evaluating this WBI also allowed me to see the design process in a different light and gave me future ideas of how to improve my future projects.
References
Naffziger, L. (2015). The professional use of instructional system design. Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.(2017) Instructional Design (n.d.). Retrieved June 03, 2017, from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/models/addie.html
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