Reviewing Yale's English 291 Open Course

      According to Simonson et al (2012), “open source software is intended to be freely shared and can be improved upon and redistributed to others.” There are many schools such as Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford that are supplying open courses in order to share the information from their schools to those around the world. Learners who participate in open courses do not receive a degree just further knowledge on a given topic.  An instructional designer still needed to go through and plan the course so it benefits learners outside of the classroom as well. The instructional designer on Yale’s open English 291 course (http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291) did a good job but the course could still use a little bit of work.

            One good thing the instructional designer considered was the learners. The open course allows leaners to download a transcript of the course in case they are hard of hearing or cannot download the video. The videos are also available to be downloaded with high or low bandwidth for those all around the world to be able to watch.  Simonson et al (2012) and Dr. Piskurich (Laureate Education, n.d.) state that it is necessary to always consider the type of technology the learners will have in order to help them be successful in the course. This is a very important part of the planning process and the designer for the English 291 open course did a great job.

            Another thing the designer looked at was the students motivation. Many learners who would take this course would have to be highly motivated to learn about the novels and topics in English 291 since it would require a lot of self regulation and work. Since this would be an optional course to further someone’s interest in American novels since 1945, the instructional designer took into consideration that the learners would have high motivation. This allowed the designer to forego some activities.  However, the instructional designer does not help the learners to transfer the knowledge since they do not allow for application of material within the open course (Simonson et al, 2012).

            Activities that would further enhance the learning process were missing as well. The lectures for English 291 were recorded and separated into parts for easy stopping and returning so the learner can go at his or her own pace, but there are no activities provided on the site to test the learners knowledge or to incorporate them further in the learning process.  The course site also does not mention anything about what resources should be read or completed before each lecture—only what was included in the lecture.

            It seems that the designer did a lot of the up front work with the analysis stage of A.D.D.I.E. with some more work in the design stage but not the full amount. It may not have been up to the designer to not include these extra activities and Yale’s decision. However, the instructional designer should have suggested doing some type of quiz at then end of each video or another activity in order to make the courses worth the time of the learners

             

References

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Planning and designing online courses [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

The American Novel Since 1945. (2008). Retrieved from http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291