Preparation of IMS in Language Teaching

I. What is an Instructional Materials (IM)?

- it refers to the human and non-human materials and facilities that can be used to ease, encourage, improved and promote teaching and learning activities. They are whatever materials used in the process of instruction. They are a broad range of resource which can be used to facilitate effective instruction. They indicate a systematic way of designing, carrying out and employing the total process of learning and communication and employing human and non-human resources to bring out a more meaningful and effective instruction.

( adapted from Remillard & Heck 2014)

II . What is instructional materials development?

- IMD develops high - quality, research - based instructional and assessment materials for students that enhance knowledge, thinking skills, and problem solving abilities of all students.

III. Principles in Instructional Development

- Instructional design (ID) is based on three psychological principles of learning: behavioral, cognitive and constructivist.

Behavioral psychology advocates repetition and reinforcement in learning material to create a "behavior" in the learner. Cognitive psychology focuses on engaging the learner's senses to create a learning process, while constructivism emphasizes the learner's own experience and personal interpretation.

IV. What are the steps in developing Instructional Materials?

Step 1: Analyze Requirement

Analysis is perhaps the most important step of the Instructional Design process. When analyzing, never limit your efforts to understanding just the training and business needs. Stretch your analysis to include four other areas as well: Audience, Content, Technology, and Expectations.

Learners’ Profile

Analyze learners’ profile based on their roles, responsibilities, professional experience, educational qualifications, skill sets, age, technical proficiency, ethnicity, and geographical location.

Step 2: Identify Learning Objectives

Once you analyze the requirements, frame the learning objectives. Learning objectives help you distinguish between the ‘good-to-know’ and ‘must-know’ content, and determine the emphasis every piece of information needs in the training. Also, your assessments should be drafted mapping to these learning objectives.

Step 3: Develop Design

Design development is a process in itself. First, segregate the content into small chunks of information and organize them in a logical sequence. Once the topic list is ready, determine an instructional approach for your course (story-based approach, problem-based approach, video-based approach, game-based approach, etc.) in line with the scope defined during analysis. Insert engagement points into your Instructional Design by adding an attention-grabbing activity, motivational videos, reflection questions, interactivity, scenarios and examples, a summarizing activity, etc.

Step 4: Create A Storyboard

A storyboard is a visual document that lets you organize your content with visuals and present a flow for the topics. Identify the type of content you are dealing with. It could be facts, principles, process, classification, or relationship. Present the content for each page using relevant text, images, icons, characters, development notes, etc.

Step 5: Develop Prototype

Develop a functional prototype before starting the complete development. Identify four to five unique pages of different types and develop them using the approved design strategy and the client’s branding guidelines. A prototype will help your client visualize how the storyboard will be transformed into a functional module.

Step 6: Develop Training

Once storyboard and prototype are signed off, initiate the development of training that will be finally uploaded on the LMS. This will include developing visuals, interactivities, knowledge checks, and assessments per approved storyboard along with recording and integrating voice-over of a professional artist. As a resource, you can download ready-to-use eLearning templates to expedite your development process. These eLearning templates present visually appealing layouts and include placeholders for content. Simply download and integrate eLearning templates that cater to your content type—introduction, scenario, process, assessment, etc. and customize them further as needed.

Step 7: Deliver Training

LMS is a platform to host eLearning courses for an organization. Ensure your course is compatible with the LMS on which the training will be hosted. Also, understand the different features of the client’s LMS like tracking learners’ progress and assessment performance, generating course completion report, and adding pre-training and post-training resources.

Step 8: Evaluate Impact

The final step is to evaluate the impact of training. Typically, the evaluation can be done at two levels – at learner’s level to analyze if the learners found the training to be engaging and useful, and at organization’s level to evaluate if the training has positively impacted the business and helped achieve the business need.( elearningdom.com>instructional - design)

V. What is the significance of IMS in teaching?

- based on my experience in teaching the significance of instructional Materials, it helps the learner to interact with words, symbols and ideas in ways that develop their abilities in reading, listening, solving, viewing, thinking, speaking, writing using meadia and technology.

VI. Types of Instructional Materials I usually use in classroom

_ Textbooks

_ Power point

_ Handouts

_ Videos

_ Graphic organizers

References