Graphic Design Studio 1

Submitted by browncarolyn on 14 April 2008 - 6:56am.

Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award:

2008

Award Status:

Entry

From the college catalog:Introduction to graphic design and visual communication. Projects include composition, typography, image creation and logo design. Creative ideas are explored in technique driven lessons. Students learn fundamental software skills using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to complete the graphic design activities in this course.

Course Information

Course Number/ID:

GID050

Course Length (number of weeks):

Course Delivery Mode:

Distance

Average Number of Enrolled Students:

More than 60 students

Course Level:

Technical

Course Level:

College/University

Course Level:

Vocational/Professional

Course Level:

Other (please describe below)

Describe Other Course Level:

vocational program at a 2-year community college

Course Development & Delivery

Course Contributors:

none.

Course Development:

This course is an introductory graphic design course that is taught during a 12-week term at a 2-year college.
This course attracts two significant populations of students. Because the course is at the introductory level, many students take this as their first graphic design, computer graphics, or art course. Additionally many students are first-time online learners. In developing the model and method for this course many popular theories and applications were studied. Although constructivist principles are the popular choice for today’s online courses, this course incorporates cognitive structures and constructivist principles. Cognitive structures are used to inform learners about the goals and objectives, assess learning prerequisites, present instructional stimuli, provide learning guidance, elicit performance, provide feedback, and assess learning outcomes. These create structure to help the first time graphic design students as well as the first time online student. Constructivist principles are used to embed learning in real world problems, provide a rich and flexible learning environment, emphasize continuous assessment, facilitate multiple perspectives and social interaction, and encourage ownership of learning by active engagement in the process of knowledge construction.
In the development phase it was determined that the course would work best with 12 individual lessons delivered once a week. Each lesson includes a creative exercise. Although the creative exercises are independent of each other the concepts learned are applicable in a cumulative manner from lesson to lesson throughout the course.
At the lesson level, modularity is very important. Most educators consider the lesson to be the module, however, this does not break down the content enough. The adult attention span is between 10 and 15 minutes long. A lesson represents one week of in-classroom lectures, demonstrations, and practicing. Dividing the instructional content into multiple 10-15 minute sub-modules results in better engagement during each module, allows the students to pace themselves better throughout the lesson, and boosts student confidence. The design of each 10-15 minute sub-module addresses multiple styles of learning through virtual experiences that include animation, audio, text, and user interaction. The content of each virtual experience is downloadable in PDF format.

Course Delivery:

Throughout the evolution of this course the ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) instructional model has been influential. Attention: arousing and sustaining learner curiosity and interest. Relevance: the learner is aware that the learning being undertaken has personal value or importance. Confidence: learners believe that they can accomplish the goal of learning successfully. Satisfaction: the feeling accompanying the process of reinforcement.
The first term this course was taught it included Modules, Assignment, and Discussion. Modules delivered the instructional content. Assignments collected student work, provided feedback and assessment. Discussion was for self-reflection, group discussion, technical support, and social interaction. Summative evaluations showed that spreading the course design presented unrealistic challenges for many students, particularly those new to online learning. Collecting assignments also added to my workload because I reposted the work in Discussion for students to see.
The next term I simplified the course design by moving Assignments into Discussion, and the students also posted their work in Discussion. This improved student experience significantly. Student projects were instantly viewable by the rest of the class, as was feedback. Public feedback turned out to be a valuable aspect of the course, students could learn from feedback as well as from other students’ work. Summative evaluations showed improvement but indicated further simplification of the course would be ideal.
The third term I moved Modules into Discussion creating “one stop shopping” course design and a minimal main menu. Students go to Discussion where they find a topic for the current lesson, past lessons are locked, future lessons are invisible. Each lesson topic includes instructions and sample solutions. The brief instructions include: topic summary, links to instructional content, list of objectives, and requirement for completion. Instructions are edited to one screen length to minimize scrolling. Students start their own topic below the instructions and post in a self-reflection with their creative work attached. The instructor and other students contribute feedback by replying to each student’s topic.
Lastly, chat was added twice a week to increase social interaction, provide support, and alleviate alienation. Chat enabled idea exchange and allowed students to develop friendships.

Course Self-Assessment

Communication & Collaboration Self-Assessment:

Effective

Communication & Collaboration Evidence:

The Discussion forum and Chat are provided for collaboration and community building throughout the course. Students are required to participate in the Discussion forum several times a week. For each lesson they first post their creative project solutions, research examples, and self-reflection. Then they revisit the Discussion forum to contribute feedback to the creative projects of at least two of their classmates. Because of the introductory level of the material and the many students new to online learning enrolled in this class, true collaborative activities are not effective use of student time. Collaborative techniques are introduced in intermediate and advanced courses later in the Design program at this.

Learning Material Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Learning Material Evidence:

The visual design and written materials are very consistent, establishing a easily recognizable and understandable format for the components of the course. The visual design clearly identifies the individual components of the course, the overall course structure and sequence, each lesson’s structure and sequence, and course and lesson expectations. All instructional content is student-paced and provided in virtual experiences including: animation, audio, visual, and printable text to accommodate different student learning styles, abilities, and levels.

Learning Outcomes & Assessment Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Learning Outcomes & Assessment Evidence:

The course has defined goals and provides ample activities based on all 7 principles for good practice. Frequent communication between students, instructor, and content happens in the Discussion and chatroom. 24-48 hour feedback provides clear opportunities for improvement and encouragement to excel. Student-student communication develops reciprocity and cooperation. Students view each other’s solutions for inspiration, fostering a noncompetitive, collaborative learning community. Critical thinking and problem solving is integrated throughout the course. Active learning occurs when students complete virtual experiences, share solutions, critique professional examples, write reflectively, and scaffold knowledge from lesson to lesson. “Publishing” in the public Discussion motivates students to work toward higher expectations. Technology and instructional design increase time on task by breaking each lesson into sub-modules making studying more focused and efficient. Multiple ways of learning are addressed in well-organized pages, virtual experiences, and tasks requiring analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, with applications to real-life situations that encourage self-reflection.

Course Look & Feel, Web Usability Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Course Look & Feel, Web Usability Evidence:

Delivering the course entirely in the Discussion forum makes it very well organized and very easy to navigate. The aesthetic design reinforces the subject matter, graphic design, with a classic straightforward solution avoiding any design trends that might influence the students. The aesthetic design adopts the branding color palette of the Adobe CS3 products that are taught in the course. This choice of color and style enhances the presentation and the communication of the course content and visually connects it to the software applications the students are learning to use. All web pages are visually, functionally, and aesthetically consistent to aid in course navigation. Different types of media are used to suit best the content being communicated. Accessibility issues are addressed by providing audio narration, and printable and screen-readable PDFs throughout the course.

Learner Support Self-Assessment:

Excellent

Learner Support Evidence:

Course contains extensive information about the online environment and requirements for this particular course as well as a link to online and on campus orientation sessions for first-time online learners. The instructor’s contact information is clearly presented including private messaging with the CMS, email, IM, and telephone. On the fly support is provided during real-time chat sessions and additional support materials are developed throughout the term if needed.

Teaching Innovation

Teaching Innovation:

Sakai offers many tools that simplify the development process and enhance the quality of distance education. The test center, modules, assignments, and resources tools are outstandingly innovative and robustly designed. I’m sure the recipient of this award will be someone who puts many of the tools to use to create a truly transformative learning experience.
I am submitting my course because it is innovative in its simplified use of Sakai. This course uses the Discussion forum for all content delivery, and a good portion of student-instructor and student-student interactions. The Chat Room is used for real-time instructional, technical, and emotional support, as well as an opportunity to make distance learning a more social experience. Aside from the simple one-way Announcements and Gradebook tools no other Sakai tools are needed.
The development and subsequent evolution of this course led to this solution. The main menu is minimal making it easy for students to understand. Once they get into the Discussion forum the topics are clearly labeled one-per lesson for 12 lessons. Each lesson contains two topics: Instructions and Sample Solutions. Each Instruction contains all the instructional content, objectives, and submission details for the lesson. This format minimizes confusion, boosts student confidence remarkably, and immediately gives them the confidence that they can succeed in the online class. Each lesson’s instructional content includes 4 to 7 swf movies (virtual experiences) with pdf versions available for those who prefer text. The swf movies were developed outside of Sakai, in a manner to make the easily linkable and playable within Sakai without any effort from the student.
When students have completed a lesson they start their own subtopic in that Lesson’s topic and share their work and their self-reflection with the class. The instructor and all students view each other’s work and reflections and reply with comments, questions, or feedback. The students review the comments and may respond with their own and/or alter and resubmit their creative work. The open exchange of creative work and thoughtful reflections inspires students in numerous ways. As a result, the students are more focused, more engaged, produce better work, and have more time to redo or fix work in response to feedback from classmates and the instructor.

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Graphic Design Studio 1

Sakai Award

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