For too long, instructional design has been reduced to page design, alignment of content and assessments with outcomes, and the “science” of step-A-to-step-B learning. It has lacked imagination, spontaneity, passion, and care. What we propose here is that instructional design and the digital platforms (and spaces) we use for teaching and learning can be more. More critical. More relational. More flexible. More beautiful.

1. Critical Instructional
Design
Sean Michael Morris
Director, Digital Pedagogy Lab
@slamteacher
All photos by Fio, unless otherwise noted. bit.ly/fioflickr

2. We amplify silenced voices by listening. Because
it’s never safe to speak.

3. Today most students of online courses are more
users than learners … the majority of online
learning basically asks humans to behave like
machines.

4. Remember. Understand. Apply

5. Personalized learning.
Adaptive learning.
Competency-based learning.
Vive la Revolution.

6. “Most honest Schoolers are locked into the
assumption that School’s way is the only way
because they have never seen or imagined
convincing alternatives to impart certain kinds of
knowledge … almost all experiments in purporting
to implement progressive education have been
disappointing because they simply did not go far
enough in making the student the subject of the
process rather than the object.” ~ Seymour Papert

7. Image by lili chin CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

8. Image by Axel Tregoning CC BY 2.0

9. “At the heart of my lecture was my search for a
presentation that could unveil a compelling reality
to the students.” ~ Ira Shor

10. Something pretty horrendous happens when we
assume all ears are the same ears. And that all
ears are trained to listen in the same way to the
person at the podium. When we do that, we’re
silencing voices that might speak.

11. “This school seemed like a jail, and level two...was
the psych ward. Students bolting up and down the
hallways, desks taking flight, a trail of graded and
ungraded papers scattered everywhere, fight
videos being recorded on cellphones, Rich Homie
Quan turned to the highest level, crap games and
card games going down...everywhere – all bottled
up and sealed with that same shitty smell, so bad it
was loud enough to hear, a shit stench I hoped
wouldn’t stick to my flannel.” ~ D Watkins

12. When we’re talking about designing for outcomes,
designing for skills, or designing for emergence,
we are not talking about this. And we must.

13. “To teach in a manner that respects and cares for
the souls of our students is essential if we are to
provide the necessary conditions where learning
can most deeply and intimately begin.”
~ bell hooks

14. “As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that
learning to read had been a curse rather than a
blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched
condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes
to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to
get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow
slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself
a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest
reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get
rid of thinking!” ~ Frederick Douglass

15. • Give tongue to interesting thoughts of your own
soul;
• Gain from dialogue the power of truth;
• Abhor and detest your enslavers;
• Understand how the silver trump of freedom
rouses the soul.

16. With this gray beard of mine, I am the institution.
I am the LMS.

17. We need to change our minds about speaking as
coming from a single mouth, a single amplified
signal.

18. Thank you.