Focus On User Experiences by Focusing on Intentional Design

Dr Samuel Mormando, Director of Technology, Innovation, and Online Learning, Garnet Valley School District

Dr Samuel Mormando is the director of Technology, Innovation, and Online learning for the Garnet Valley School District in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. Sam earned his doctorate in educational leadership from Widener University and was honoured by the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) as the 2020 K–12 Innovation Award Winner. Under his leadership, Garnet Valley has become nationally recognized for innovative teaching practices, including its adoption of open education resources (OER) and the development of a student-centred course design process that allows students to take courses in the traditional face-to-face, online, or blended formats.

The difficulties educators experienced during and after the pandemic is a failure of our educational system— not schools, not principals, and certainly not teachers. Inequitable access to technology, inconsistent funding, and the lack of federal and state support during the pandemic left many schools treading water.

Even before the pandemic, we saw teachers overwhelmed at balancing the federal and state mandates, district initiatives, and school-specific goals landing squarely on their shoulders. We sometimes forget that teachers have full-time jobs teaching students in their classrooms. Adding more things to their plates, as good and as well-meaning as they may be, only adds more weight to an incredibly difficult job.

Seeing that, we created the effectively designed instruction (EDI) professional learning framework to help tie those mandates and initiatives together and to help support teachers with what we believe is good teaching. The four themes of EDI are Building Student Interactions, Designing Learning Experiences, Presenting Content, and being mindful of accessibility as we work to personalize the learning experience for all students.

The EDI Professional Learning Framework is not intended to be all-encompassing, and it is certainly not the panacea for all the complexities that go into educating students. This professional learning structure is intended to provide a sturdy foundation for what good teaching and intentional instructional design should look like in classrooms today.

Why the focus on intentional design?

When reduced to its simplest form, great instruction is the result of brilliant design and great delivery. Design and delivery go hand in hand; we cannot have one without the other. A well-designed lesson will go nowhere without great delivery, and a well-delivered lesson will inevitably be met with questions and confusion if not designed well.

Many schools spent the pandemic emphasizing the importance of using common nomenclature and folder structures in their school’s learning management system (LMS) to help students access their work. These items were critical to ensuring students could easily navigate the digital classroom. Coming out of the pandemic, it is not enough to just focus on LMS organization. If schools are to meet the needs of every student and allow learning to take place in any format, we must focus on being intentional about instructional design.

There are many instructional design models teachers can follow when creating their digital lessons. The components are similar, whether using the ADDIE model, Kemp Design, ASSURE, or something else. These components often include analysis, design, development, and evaluation, to intentionally design resources for students that are easy to locate, engaging, and can be accessible to all students.

Intentional design is learner-centered; and a way of thinking, developing, and implementing quality instruction to improve the learning experience for the end user. Put more simply; the intentional design is the focus on user experiences.

“Intentional design is learner-centered; and a way of thinking, developing, and implementing quality instruction to improve the learning experience for the end user. Put more simply; the intentional design is the focus on user experiences”

Intentional design encompasses all the components of excellent teaching. It defines what and how teachers deliver their instruction, how they facilitate interactions with and between students, and how they differentiate and personalize the learning experience for the students in their classrooms. More than anything else, the intentional design allows teachers to design lessons to address the predictable barriers that are present in all classrooms.

Some of these predictable barriers include:

● Some students may not be interested in the content or may not know why the content is important.

● Some students may lack the motivation to continue when faced with a significant challenge.

● Some students may struggle with self-regulation and expected behaviours.

● Some students may not be able to comprehend instruction if only presented in one format.

● Some students struggle to express what they really know if only given a single way to do it.

The intentional design addresses many of these issues before students even enter the classroom, ultimately making it easier for the teacher to ensure every student gets the learning experience they need. So, when I think about intentional design, it is one of the most important things teachers do to ensure every learner’s needs are met.

Katie Novak, one of the authors of Equity by Design, points out that effective design allows for the “best first instruction” before differentiation occurs and before systems of support are needed. She also does an excellent job of explaining how the focus of the design is an essential component in schools today. Katie likes to give the example of hosting a dinner party.

I am sure we have all been there. We painstakingly clean the house, buy groceries, and prep the kitchen. We then cook whatever it is we are serving at the party. But we do not just cook one meal and serve it to all our guests. That would not make much sense since it is likely that many of our guests have different tastes in foods; some may have food allergies, and some may be vegan or vegetarian. We know that going in, we cannot cook just one meal that will satisfy everyone.

So, what do we do? We may talk to the people on our guest list to see what foods they like. We may prepare different foods, anticipating that some people like certain things while others may want something different. Or we may create a buffet of sorts and provide our guests with many choices so they can create a meal that best fits their needs and preferences.

Using that analogy, we, as educators, plan a dinner party in our classroom every day. That same attention to detail and that same attention to variability at our dinner party needs to happen in our classrooms if we are truly going to meet the needs of every student. It is certainly not easy, and it will take much time and planning to be an expert designer.

Learning Management