A Designer’s Log Case Studies in Instructional Design- P14:This book deals with the design of distance education at an emerging dual-mode university, that is, a university offering courses both on-campus and via distance education or online in a variety of manners. It was written from the point of view of an instructional designer (ID) working alongside university professors in designing their courses for distance delivery | she could get some practice using the V C equipment so as to feel more comfortable with it before beginning to teach in this environment. We returned to her syllabus and I immediately went back into reflective mode on the synthesis grid idea. My mind returns to the grid and the newly-emerged categories. I see that I have probably come to re-conceptualize the grid because of the severe constraints under which I have been working with faculty since Case 1. Lacking time faculty availability technical support and so on I have been frantically been searching for a solution a short-cut in effect something that would allow me to focus on design essentials nothing more. I see that learning activities are the brings to mind what Janovy 2003 said in Lessons from Cedar Point course design consists primarily of the activities you ask your students to perform p. 67 . That was it. The penny had dropped. So I get out some paper and redesign the grid on the spot see Table 7 . Table 7 Version 2 of the synthesis grid Week Objectives Content or Individual Team Plenary Session Themes Activities Activities Activities Using this new grid we started assessing the work required to convert her current plan into a new one. Because this course had a strong theoretical component its primary didactic resource was readings from various sources. She had already distributed these texts throughout the course but there was no weekly division. As I explained this new grid to her I also explained the usefulness of dividing her course into weeks of study rather than units of study to give her students a better idea of what was expected from them and when. There is no universal standard for the length of any given course and many possible variations a regular course can last from 12 to 15 weeks but during the summer it necessarily has a shortened schedule. This variance creates a supplementary difficulty when designing an online media-rich course because they require a fixed schedule .
