Best practices regarding instructional design were used through the development of this e-Learning project.

 

Important instructional design decisions were made to follow Mayer's 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning. These multimedia principles are used to help learners manage their processing to maximize learning outcomes. When designing the course, I tried to keep the style simple and consistent. This follows Mayer's coherence principle which involves making sure that graphics, text, and narratives closely align to the concepts and doing away with irrelevant information that may distract the learner. The use of images throughout the module were all aligned to specific examples within the chapter and the included text was written to be clear, concise and consistent to help with focus. Segmenting was also used throughout the course to divide and break up different parts of the learning through each lesson, along with thinking about varying multimedia, redundancy, and personalizing content. I tried to include many real life examples so that the learner could better connect to the content and how they could apply it going forward. All of these strategies supported managing the learner's cognitive load throughout the course and leads to the learner having greater gains and mastery of the skills being taught.

 

In addition to thinking about Mayer's principles, thinking about psychological and behavioral engagement also helped in shaping the structure of the course. I wanted to be sure to provide experiences throughout to keep the learners engaged. Throughout the course and at the end of each section, learners are required to answer formative assessment questions related to the content in that section. This helps to hold the learner accountable throughout the course but also keeps them physically interacting with the material. As shown in the artifacts tab, sorting and scenarios were used to help support psychological and behavioral engagement.

 

At the end of the development of the course, accessibility was checked to be sure to include those who may have specific needs to access the content throughout the module. Images that were included in the design have alt text to describe the pictures if needed. Font was reviewed to ensure the size was appropriate and headings, text, and background were reviewed to ensure that they met ratio requirements.

 

There were many steps in the process of the design and development of this e-Learning module, but they are critical to create effective learning experiences that promote increased overall learning.