ilt/vilt solutions
Please note: due to the proprietary nature of these work samples, some materials cannot be shared here in full.
Example 1: Course Design Faculty Training via Zoom (ILT/VILT)
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Audience: University faculty.
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Skills Used: Instructional design, visual design, graphic design; written and verbal communication, collaboration; synchronous e-learning creation (Zoom); script writing; participant guide creation.
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Tools Used: Zoom; Microsoft PowerPoint and SmartArt, Google Slides; Snipping Tool.
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Highlights: Zoom breakout rooms utilized to provide personalized support to SMEs; live questions from the audience via Zoom chat during whole group components; built-in break time to allow for stretching or coffee refills; participant guide and relevant materials distributed two days in advance of training session; real-world examples to apply to everyday life.
Context
My partner designer and I had been working with a particular client for about a year and had developed an incredibly positive relationship with the institution, which was highly engaged and responsive. Client leadership approached us to let us know that many new faculty SMEs would be developing courses with us soon, and overall, they would be new to online and relatively new to teaching. She asked if we would be willing to create a presentation to provide an overview of what goes into planning a course and our answer was “absolutely”! This training session was conducted with new faculty SMEs to better prepare them for developing an online course.
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The Process
The first step in our process was to talk more with client leadership to conduct an informal needs analysis and learner analysis. We inquired about the characteristics of the faculty SMEs to determine ways to create an engaging session that would translate to their real worlds and interests.
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Next, we completed a concept analysis, breaking down the major components of online course development aligned to backwards design. We decided on three major topics to cover: determining objectives, planning assessments, and selecting learning resources. We crafted learning objectives for each major topic, and that foundation gave us what we needed to move further into the planning phase.
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We transitioned to creating an outline where we included each major topic and the sub-points that we wanted to include. There were many revisions during this stage in the process, as we only had 90 minutes for the presentation (which we knew would go quickly). We spent substantial time selecting the most important points and removing others that we would not have time to address.
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Once our outline was created, we began brainstorming the shape and form that our presentation would take, and we established actionable items and a working timeline for deliverables. We decided upon an interactive presentation using PowerPoint, Zoom Breakout Rooms, and a participant guide.
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The next few weeks were spent creating slides, reviewing and revising our work, and then writing a script for each slide. I created the participant guide so that attendees could follow along and complete interactive activities using a template with clear instructions and links to resources.
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Our last step was to do two practice run-throughs of the training session to ensure that our time estimate was accurate. This led to us eliminating a few more points to keep us within our 90-minute allotment, as it was important to us that we gave attendees a short break in the middle to get up and stretch.
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The Final Product
The final format of our training session was a PowerPoint presentation that would guide us through our discussion of content. We included an agenda and used images, charts, and tables wherever possible to prevent having too much text on a slide. We strived for real-world examples, such as relating course planning to cooking dinner or planning a trip. We used a universally understood model, riding a bike, to convey the differences between big-picture goals and bite-sized goals (course objectives and module objectives). We distributed materials about two days ahead of the training session so that attendees could preview the material and come prepared with any questions.
We met with about twenty attendees on Zoom and wherever we could, we utilized attendee participation during direct instruction portions to increase engagement. For example, in the screenshot below, the slide titled “Draft Learning Goals” purposely includes weak objectives that are not measurable (“know how the pedals work” and “understand how the brakes work”). At this point in the instruction, we asked attendees to share ways in the Zoom Chat that we could strengthen those objectives.
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We utilized Zoom Breakout Rooms to form small groups for attendees to share their work, ask questions, and garner feedback. We had enough designers attend that each of four Breakout Rooms had someone present to serve as a support and mentor to the attendees and help drive conversation. Breakout Rooms were placed throughout the training session after periods of direct instruction.
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After learning about how to write an objective and seeing examples of measurable and aligned objectives in our presentation, attendees wrote their own macro and micro-objectives and shared with their group. After direct instruction on designing assessments and using the community of inquiry framework and seeing examples of objective-aligned assessments, attendees created their own brief assessment plan and shared it with their group. Lastly, after direct instruction and examples of resources that could be used in an online course, attendees jotted down types of resources they would like to use in their course and how that resource aligned to course goals and content.
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Results and Reflection
From the feedback forms we sent out to our attendees, the response was positive and the Breakout Rooms and participant guide were well received. In my own reflection though, I would complete this training slightly differently next time by using pre- and post-assessments and integrating more varied resources (perhaps short video clips or courses created in an authoring tool to collect data).
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ILT Option
This professional development was originally scheduled to take place in person on the client's campus, but COVID forced us to cancel our travel and transform this ILT into a VILT. We did so through the participant guide and Zoom breakout rooms, but this activity could have easily occurred in person in small groups.
Example 2: WEXPO Company-Wide Presentation (VILT)​
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Audience: Members of the company from other departments interested in learning more about the Instructional Design department.
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Skills Used: Instructional design, visual design, graphic design; written and verbal communication, collaboration; script writing; synchronous e-learning creation (Mural).
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Tools Used: Mural; Microsoft PowerPoint and SmartArt, Google Slides; Snipping Tool; Microsoft Teams.
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Highlights: Interactive and real-time pre- and post-assessment through Mural; visually appealing images and graphics to summarize information; live questions from the audience via Microsoft Teams chat.
Context
Each year when I was there, Wiley put on a virtual “expo” for the entire organization to participate in. As there are so many different departments within the company, the expo gave us all the opportunity to learn about those other departments and what they specialize in. For this project, I volunteered to collaborate with another designer on a presentation about our department.
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The Process
The first step in our process was to meet together on Teams to brainstorm and decide on deliverables and a timeline for those deliverables. We discussed what we wanted to accomplish through the project and determined our learning objectives. We created a PowerPoint to serve as our presentation which was then placed into Google Slides to help keep all updates in one place. At each deliverable, we used the comments function in Google Slides to ask questions or share revisions. We incorporated visually appealing charts and images wherever we could to make the slides simple and easy to read.
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After the slides were created and finalized, we worked on a script for each slide which was used during the presentation. Since a detailed script was prepared, we kept slides as clean as possible to eliminate the dreaded wall-of-text.
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The Final Product
The final form of our presentation was a PowerPoint deck shared in Microsoft Teams that aligned to our learning objectives and covered a general overview of what our development process looks like when we create a course.
It was important to us that the presentation was not just the two of us alternating discussing slides with no audience engagement, so I created an interactive pre- and post-assessment using Mural. Before we began the content portion, our audience navigated to the Mural link that was shared in the Teams chat. They answered a question on a “sticky note”, and placed their sticky note in the appropriate spot on the Mural. This activity allowed members of the audience as well as us to watch in real time as members jotted down responses on their sticky notes. This same activity was completed after our content presentation, where the audience reflected on how their opinions grew or changed as a result of our instruction.
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At the end of each session, we allotted time for the audience to ask questions. We received numerous questions via Teams chat throughout the presentation, so this was a time we were able to address those with our audience. We completed two sessions, with about 75 people total attending our presentation.
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Results and Reflection
We were lucky to be able to get some feedback after our sessions were completed, and overall, feedback was very positive! We received many compliments on the interactivity of the Mural component. We actually had multiple employees from other departments reach out to schedule meetings with us to learn more about our roles as instructional designers, which to me is a flattering indicator that we achieved our goal in garnering interest in what we do each day.
Example 3: Active Listening Interactive Presentation (VILT)​
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Audience: Members of the instructional design team.
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Skills Used: Instructional design, visual design, graphic design; written and verbal communication, collaboration; script writing; text storyboard; synchronous e-learning poll creation (Slido) and integration with PowerPoint.
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Tools Used: Microsoft PowerPoint and SmartArt; synchronous e-learning poll activity (Slido); Microsoft Teams.
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Highlights: Integrated polls through Slido so that participants could answer questions as pre- and post-assessment reflections, and see the results live in the PowerPoint presentation in Teams. This fueled conversation as we discussed our surprises and main takeaways based on the results from the polls.
Context
As a Senior Instructional Designer at Wiley, I was responsible for mentoring my teammates and designing and implementing professional development efforts. This presentation was given over Microsoft Teams during a quarterly Professional Development Day, where the Senior IDs presented on topics. The theme for the day was communication, and I chose to present the significance of active listening and how we can use it to improve our craft as designers.
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The Process
To complete this project, I first brainstormed possible topics related to communication and decided on active listening. I did so through an informal needs discussion with my manager, with the justification being that while we all use active listening skills daily, there are simple and quick ways to become even more active listeners without making substantial changes other than some intentionality. In these conversations with him, I decided to focus on how we could improve our skills and how these skills can be used in our everyday responsibilities. The learner analysis found that we were not starting from scratch, and everyone on the team had experience with listening abilities; I would create this training to fine-tune those skills and share easy ways to implement new listening methods.
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The process I followed included outlining, revising, and then moving on to a text storyboard where I wrote the contents for each slide before creating it. Next, I created slides in PowerPoint, used SmartArt to create images, and used open source websites to increase visual appeal. My last step was to add an interactive component, and it was important to me that my audience would have something to do to increase engagement and active participation in the presentation.
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The Final Product
The final form of my presentation was a PowerPoint deck shared in Microsoft Teams. It included a pre- and post- interactive activity, agenda, and content slides (including active vs. passive listening; the significance that active listening holds to us as instructional designers; how we could improve our active listening skills and the impact those skills can have; particular strategies and examples of how those strategies can be used during meetings with SMEs).
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The pre- and post- activities were created using Slido, which is a polling tool that integrates seamlessly into both PowerPoint and Teams. I used the tool in PowerPoint so that when my slide deck was shared in Teams, we would see the results of the poll in real time directly within the slides. As each participant selected their poll answers, the results would jump around on the screen so that we could all see how many responses each option was receiving. This was definitely a fun part to watch! I received positive feedback about Slido and would definitely use it again in the future.
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