Setting your aims and ambitions

When looking to explore a new way of teaching and learning, or develop a new set of skills, it can be very useful for us to have in mind some particular aims and ambitions.

We need to ask ourselves, what are we looking to achieve? What would we like to make possible? What problems would we like to solve or overcome?

This particular module focuses on instructional design for online teaching and learning so our goals right now will address this area of interest. If we are hoping to teach in an online or hybrid environment, or already do so and would like to improve that experience, we should try and generate some specific key aims and ambitions.

Activity: Aims and Ambitions

Take a moment to imagine yourself teaching in an online or hybrid context.

This lesson is going the best any online lesson ever has. The students are engaged and focused, the technology is working flawlessly, your instructional design has been perfect, and you’ve got a great sense of the learning that is taking place. There’s great engagement from the students, and everyone is enjoying the learning experience.

This is a dream lesson.

Think about how that feels, what that looks like, and what sort of things are taking place.

Try and imagine this scenario.

Now think carefully about how you could reach that dream lesson. What skills, knowledge, or competencies would you need to develop? What challenges or difficulties would you need to overcome? What could help make it a reality?

Try and list three key aims or ambitions for your own online teaching and learning.

Focus on skills, knowledge, and competencies that can be developed or improved.

Overall aims and ambitions of this module

This module’s primary aims and ambitions relate to instructional design for online teaching and learning. It is hoped that by working through this module you’ll be able to achieve these aims and that they will, in turn, help you to fulfil your own personal learning goals. Through this module, it is hoped that you will:

1. Develop an understanding of the fundamentals of instructional design for online learning.
2. Learn how to craft instructional objectives that meet the individual needs and preferences of learners.
3. Gain skills in selecting and using delivery tools and methods to create effective learning experiences.
4. Develop a clear understanding of the challenges of online teaching and learning, and how to overcome them.
5. Understand and make use of models for instructional design that can help to create successful and impactful learning experiences.