Learning, Design, and Technology Minor

This course provides the knowledge of the foundational theories, models, ethical principles, and career options in Instructional Design and Technology (IDT). Students engage in instructional design situations in which they apply the appropriate IDT models, theories, and ethical principles. Students select an IDT career option they are interested in and research the essential competencies of it to develop career goals within the IDT field.

This course enables students to develop foundational visual communication design skills related to instructional design. With a focus on visual design, typography, grid structures, and the application of these skills to achieve specific instructional and learner goals, students use industry-standard technologies to demonstrate visual design proficiencies. Students create effective instructional and learner artifacts through sketching, digital rendering, and apply instructional design practices and processes.

This course provides an overview of the emerging field of human performance technology (HPT). Performance issues can be found in any setting where individuals work toward a common goal in an organization such as corporate, military, and educational settings. Students complete a semester-long collaborative HPT project in which they conduct a needs assessment, identifying gaps between ideal and actual performance status. Students also analyze the causes of performance gaps, environmental issues, and causal influences to determine appropriate interventions. They recommend appropriate interventions to address identified gaps.

In this course, students create a complete instructional package by applying instructional design models, principles, and theories. Students engage in a semester-long collaborative project where they determine instructional objectives, design an instructional system to achieve the instructional objectives by applying relevant instructional design principles and theories, and develop an instructional package including instructional materials, supporting materials, assessments, and instructor guides.

In this course, students take a multimodal approach to uncovering the fundamental theories and practices of designing and developing for multimedia-rich learning environments. This course provides a practical introduction to current industry software suites and technology, including Adobe Creative Cloud and Articulate 360. Students can apply these multimedia and instructional design skills to multiple contexts (e.g., corporate training, online courses, and streaming video) to support diverse learners regardless of their background or experience.

This course examines models and methods of formative and summative evaluation of instructional design products and programs. The effective and efficient evaluation of instructional and training programs is a key task for instructional designers, particularly in the face of demands for greater accountability. As a result, instructional designers are under increased pressure to show how designed instruction works and identify possible improvements. In this course, students learn the theories, processes, and procedures of program evaluation via diverse instructional tasks, including case study analyses and role play.

This course examines the tools and technologies used to design interactive learning environments. apply their instructional design knowledge and technological skills to ILE design projects. Topics include understanding Quality Matters Rubrics, using various Learning Management Systems, designing interactive learning environments using tools like Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and SCORM, and integrating accessible tools to ensure the accessibility of the interactive learning environments.

In this course, students examine recent trends and issues associated with the field of instructional design. Topics may include personalized learning, adaptive learning, social learning, mobile learning (mLearning), content curation, interactive video, universal design for learning (UDL), eXtended reality, gamification, rapid development, microlearning, artificial intelligence, and other topics.

Project management in instructional design requires the examination and application of core principles of planning, scheduling, resource allocation, budgeting, proposal preparation, cost control, risk assessment, and personnel management. In this course, students design an effective instructional design project management plan focusing on these core principles. Additionally, students develop an active understanding of project management vocabulary and software, stakeholder interactions, and other foundational concepts related to project management for instructional design.