Reflections on NYU's Digital Media Design for Learning program
Learning is the perfect opportunity to embrace the counterintuitive. This blog is a reflection on my master’s capstone project in Digital Media Design for Learning at New York University. I entered this degree as an experienced professional. I have over ten years of experience designing and developing online learning experiences for the corporate and government sectors. Despite this experience, I believe in the need to continually learn, adapt and evolve. I hope this article provides insight for anyone else contemplating further study.
The course in digital learning design meant consolidating my experience with a postgraduate qualification from a leading US institution and expanding my toolset with emerging processes, technologies and design principles. It was an opportunity to challenge myself and take risks. In the process, I gained insights on strength-based perspectives as well as informal learning environments, such as museums. The capstone was a chance to put it all together and dance with the counterintuitive. In the end, the solution was hardly digital at all. It was a piñata, but that is another story. This story is about sharing insights that I would have never have gained on-the-job.
On-the-job, it is unlikely I would have applied an ethnographic approach, strength-based perspectives, or mash-up solution development. While often embedded in the workplace, as an instructional designer, I was often above the immediate learning problem harmonizing three competing domains. The first domain is the organizational need. Learning is often directed at achieving efficient, economical, effective and ethical performance. Business analysis skills based on configuring inputs and outcomes are useful in this domain. The second domain is content. Often the content is sourced from content matter experts, who have the goal of creating other content matter experts. Research, evaluative and interpersonal skills are valuable in this domain. The final domain is the learner experience. Learning also needs to consider the needs of the learner. Empathy and user research skills inform this domain.
An ethnographic approach removes the distance from the learning problem. It means less work as a politician representing the three domains and more work as an activist. It meant becoming a subject within a system of change. This approach had three advantages. First, through living the learning problems, the process highlighted the difficulty of effecting change. I had to change myself. This provided the opportunity to develop a more nuanced understanding of the learning problem. Second, the approach contributed to a more agile process because a personal gaze could immediately evaluate potential solutions. Third, the approach invited co-design based on recruiting the perspectives and ideas of others within the system of change. The perspective and authority of the instructional designer is embraced as only partial. It is shared equally between subjects within the system of change. As a consequence, insights were gained when our perspectives converged or sharply diverged. Diversion suggested opportunities for further exploration and reflection.
The co-design method coupled with a more nuanced understanding of the learning problem presented an opportunity of a mash-up solution development process. Rather than iterating and refining one solution, the mash-up method was based on experiencing a variety of less-than-perfect solutions. The purpose was not necessarily to iterate and refine these solutions, but to identify ideal characteristics of a solution. Innovation would then be based on combining these solution characteristics when solving the learning problem. This process delivered more than just the incremental improvement of existing approaches. It provided a foundation for lateral thinking.
Identifying solution characteristics provided a novel method for evaluating potential solutions. The mash-up method contributed to an improved understanding of the interaction between the learning problem and particular solution characteristics, including characteristics that would have detracted from a solution. This provided an opportunity for the co-design team to evaluate the affordances of various digital experiences and identify an unanticipated solution. Of course, this solution was not perfect. Additional iterations and refinement were still required.
While it is unlikely that I would have developed these design insights on-the-job, they are relevant and now part of my toolkit. The master’s program is an opportunity to experiment and deviate from my existing approaches. I recommend it to other experienced professionals. For those interested, I will be presenting my capstone project at the 2018 ECT Design Expo on Friday, December 14, between 4:00 and 6:30pm. It is an open event so it is an opportunity to mix with faculty and students as well as find out more about the program and how it can also expand your learning design toolkit.
Image source: Cecilia Hevia and Kamran Khan
