JMA 503: Instructional Design

Project and Project Report Guidelines

This document will help you develop the final project and the final project report.
Information presented here is based on Smith & Ragan (2005), Instructional Design.
You may review relevant reading materials in Blackboard’s Course Documents – the
readings discuss each of the steps presented below. The questions presented here
are meant to guide your development and help you prepare the project report. You
do not need to respond to each question. You should review each question and
consider how it may influence the design of your e-Learning application. Format your
report so you have section headings that identify each item listed under Section 1
(Design Planning), Section 2 (Development), and Section 3 (Formative Evaluation)
below. You can find the technical specifications for the project on the Resources page
of the class Web site (I will place them on the class site in the next couple of weeks).

The Project Report

The project report is a print document that has the following sections, Design,
Development, and Evaluation. It should be turned in with the final project.
Immediately below is an outline of what the report should contain – your report
should contain each of the items listed under the three sections. Each of these
sections is discussed in more detail in the following pages. Please be concise in your
report (as a guide it should be between 5 and 7 pages).

Section 1 (Design Planning)

1. A development plan that provides an analysis of the learning context
2. An audience/learner analysis
3. A listing of project/courseware learning goals and objectives. Objectives must
be written according the ABCD (Audience, Behavior, Condition, Degree)
format.

Section 2 (Development)
1. Program flowcharts and storyboards
Develop flowcharts for each of the program sections and one flowchart for the
overall application. Flowcharts should illustrate linking/branching to other
sections and when users will input information (i.e., respond to questions,
etc). Storyboard each of your screen types. For example, you may have
screens that present information, present question/quizzes, present results,
etc.

Section 3 (Formative Evaluation)

1. Each student/project developer will identify three individuals to review and
evaluate (pilot-test) his/her final project. Two of the evaluations should be
conducted with the Morae software. Formative evaluations must include: a) a
summary of the evaluations of the project – what did you learn about your
project based on the Morae recordings and the user reviews; b) a change list
- review the evaluations and consider revising the project based on them. List
all the changes suggested by the reviewers; c) a copy of the Morae recording
on CD.
2. The Self-evaluation briefly discusses the things you learned from developing
the project, problems you encountered, and measures you took to solve them
and the extent to which the project met your expectations and how well your
development plan proceeded and matched the final product.

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Section 1 (Design Planning)

I. Analysis of the learning context

You can use the following information to help you analyze the context of the learning
environment, which includes learning goals, the learner, and the physical
environment (e.g., facilities, hardware, etc.).

Establishing or validating the instructional need

1. Goal identification and development

a. Do instructional goals already exist for your e-learning application? What are
they?

b. List all the instructional goals.

c. Other than you, are there people who should be involved in the development
of instructional goals for this e-learning application? List those people.

d. What is the desirable level of attainment of these goals (e.g., there are no
safety causalities as a result of changing tires on the roadside)?

2. Gap identification

a. Is there evidence that your proposed e-Learning application is necessary?

b. What is the discrepancy between the goal(s) and the current state-of-affairs?
For example, the goal might be that in any given year no individuals will be
injured, while changing a tire on the roadside. However, the current-state-of-
affairs may be that 250 people are killed each year while changing tires on
the roadside. Thus, there is a gap between the goal (no deaths) and the
existing state (250 people dieing each year).

3. Prioritize goals.

a. What criterion (criteria) should be used in prioritizing the unreached goals?

b. Using these criteria, list the goals in order of importance.

4. Instructional need.

a. Of the prioritized goals, what evidence do you have that these are
instructional needs?

b. Is there evidence that these gaps are due to noninstructional problems (e.g.,
are the deaths resulting from tire changing caused by poor tire manufacturing
practices – no an instructional problem or is it that drivers lack knowledge
about changing tires – which is an instructional issue)? Explain this evidence.

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Analyzing the Learning Environment

1. Describe the environment where you application will be used (e.g., at user’s
homes, corporate training center, school lab, etc.). What implications does this
have (if any) on your program?

2. Describe the individuals (teachers, trainers, computer lab administrators,

developers etc.) who may be involved in administering/supporting the e-Learning
application. Describe their experience, interests, backgrounds, preferences. For
example, your application may be installed in a corporate training center and so
the lab attendants, network administrator, courseware trainers may get involved
with administering or supporting the application. What implications does this
have (if any) on your program?

3. Describe the instructional hardware that is available to run your application.

4. Describe the organization in which the learning will take place.

II. An audience/learner analysis

Review the following items to organize your description of the learners who will use
your e-Learning application. You may find that knowledge of a particular
characteristic is not important to your project.

1. What are learners’ cognitive characteristics

General characteristics
• General aptitudes
• Specific aptitudes
• Language development level
• Culture
• Reading level
• Level of visual literacy, ability to gain information from graphics
• Cognitive and learning strategies (e.g., visual, tactical, auditory, etc)
• General world knowledge
• General computer knowledge.

Specific prior knowledge that relates to the e-Learning application.

2. What are learners’ Physiological Characteristics

• Sensory perception
• General health
• Age

3. What are learners’ Affective Characteristics

• Interests
• Motivation
• Are they motivated to learn
• Attitude toward subject matter
• Attitude toward learning

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 • Perceptions of and experience with specific forms of mediation
• Academic self-concept
• Anxiety level
• Beliefs
• Attribution of success, i.e., locus of control

4. Social characteristics
• Relationships to peers
• Feelings toward authority
• Tendencies toward cooperation or competition
• Moral development, such as Kohlberg's stages of moral development
• Socio-economic background
• Racial/ethnic background, affiliations
• Role models

5. Design Implications (what implications do these characteristics have for your

design?)

III. Goal Identification and objectives

Project/courseware learning goals and objectives. Objectives must be written

according the ABCD format.

1. Write the instructional goals of the e-Learning application in performance terms

(e.g., the learner must be able to identify…; the learner must be able to locate…).

2. Identify the constituent parts of the goal(s) and what learners need to learn or do
to attain the goal. What are the mental or physical steps that a person must go
through in order to complete or achieve the goal? (see chapter 5 Ragan & Smith
in Blackboard). For example, the learner must demonstrate how to correctly
change a tire. The steps to achieving this goal are jacking the car up, removing
the lug nuts and tire, etc.)

3. Write performance objectives for your primary instructional goal(s). The objective
should include (ABCD): 1) a description of the Audience – who is to perform
that action stated in the objective; 2) a description of the terminal Behavior or
action that will demonstrate learning; 3) a description of the Conditions under
which the leaner must demonstration the action; 4) a description of the standard
or Degree to which the action is measured.

Here are examples:

o Given a flat tire on a 1971 Dodge Challenger RT, the trainee will locate the
car jack, position it, and jack the car up according to the car user manual
so that the tire is 2 inches off the ground.

o Given a simulation of the malfunction combustion engine, the trainee will

locate and repair the problem so that the engine functions properly.

o Given a simulation of a patience entering a hospital emergency room with

acute respiratory problems, the resident will diagnose the illness and

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 administer treatment to reduce the patient's symptoms and remedy the
health problem, with 100% accuracy and in less than 20 minutes.

Section 2 (Development)

1. Program flowcharts and storyboards

Develop flowcharts for each of the program sections and one flowchart for the overall
application. Flowcharts should illustrate linking/branching to other sections and when
users will input information (i.e., respond to questions, etc) (see figure 1).

Begin Lesson

Glossary
Lesson Menu 1 - 6

No No No No No No
Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5 Lesson 6 Quit

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Begin Lesson 1 Begin Lesson 2 Begin Lesson 3 Begin Lesson 4 Begin Lesson 5 Begin Lesson 6 End Program

Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Present 1

Present 2

Question 1

No Negative
Correct ?
Feedback

Yes

Lesson
Menu

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 Figure 1: Program-level flowchart
Storyboard each of your screen types. For example, you may have screens that
present information, present question/quizzes, present results, etc. (see figures 2
and 3).

Figure 2: CBT Question screen example

Figure 3: CBT Results screen example

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Section 3 (Formative Evaluation)
1. As stated above, each student/project developer will identify three individuals
to review and evaluate (pilot-test) his/her final project. Two of the
evaluations should be conducted with the Morae software. Formative
evaluations must include: a) a summary of the evaluations of the project –
what did you learn about your project based on the Morae recordings and the
user reviews; b) a change list - review the evaluations and consider revising
the project based on them. List all the changes suggested by the reviewers;
c) a copy of the Morae recording on CD.

2. The Self-evaluation briefly discusses the things you learned from developing
the project, problems you encountered, and measures you took to solve them
and the extent to which the project met your expectations and how well your
development plan proceeded and matched the final product. When the final
project report is complete, it should be prepared as a PDF and posted to your
Web site.

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