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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Instructional Design Foundations and Applications by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

4.0
stars
659 ratings

About the Course

This course, Instructional Design Foundations, introduces learners to the conceptual and theoretical foundations of instructional design as well as the analysis aspect of instructional systems design in order to create an innovative instructional solution to performance problems in organizations. This particular course also introduces learners to concepts covered in the Instructional Design MasterTrack Certificate. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to: ●Describe the major concepts of instructional systems design ●Describe the major learning and instructional theories ●Describe the process of instructional design and instructional design models ●Describe various analysis activities for instructional design...

Top reviews

GS

Apr 15, 2021

Very clear course, provides definitions and/or discussion of terms that at are useful for a clearer understanding of the ID process. Good continuity between topics and good use of diagrams.

JT

Jul 4, 2020

I thoroughly enjoyed this course. It is well taught and well organised. The material provided a thorough overview of the field, and the readings were particularly fascinating and helpful.

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226 - 250 of 275 Reviews for Instructional Design Foundations and Applications

By Wayne S

Sep 13, 2022

Provides a good foundation in the background and theory of Instructional Design. For a course that is about Instructional Design it does not set a good example of a well designed course. The video lectures are not dynamic or engaging. The questions in the modules at the end of the module are poorly written and could use some revision.

By Kokeita M

Apr 30, 2020

This is an efficient, convenient way to learn the Instructional Design Foundations and Applications. However, there is no interaction with any of the instructors. The course offers very little practice or ability to apply what you learn. If you enjoy watching videos and reading, this course is ideal for you!

By Jean-Marie B

Jan 24, 2022

The structure of the course is somehow quite strange and the final quizz did not really help me to reinforce my learnings. Globally I learnt concepts and got a global view on the "instruction design" ecosystem, however the invested time versus the new acquired knowledge does not sound optimum .

By Eric B

Oct 8, 2021

The course provides good information and is a solid introduction into instructional design. However, some of the lecturers are quite stale and it's hard to keep focus, despite being interested in the topic. If the lessons and lecturers were more engaging, I'd leave a higher rating.

By Paige W

Jul 12, 2023

The material was informative, the lectures were interesting and the pace of the class was very good but the quizzes were very poorly written. They were designed for students to fail and retake them multiple times, which was an extremely frustrating experience.

By Funda Y

Feb 26, 2023

Even though the topics were instructive and essential, the assessments and the feedback should be improved. Also, it would be great if we could have more in-video questions per sessions.

There should be a final week focusing on a real-life project (gradable).

By Re A

Feb 18, 2019

This course is packed with information. It can be hard to digest in the format presented. Please note that many of the professors are skilled but have very thick accents and the transcripts are often inadequate to get the point across.

By Kathryn N

Apr 3, 2023

While content was great and instructors were very knowledgeable, the quizzes were poorly written and seemed meant to confuse. For a course about designing good courses, I expected a better grading mechanism.

By usha

Jun 26, 2020

Really enjoyed the sessions with Grace especially. This was an interesting course considering that I am a Design Educator. I will be able to implement what I have learned in my teaching skills

By Iulia K

May 13, 2020

too much theory., while instructional design is all about practice. The course needs more examples and case studies. Also, the multiple choice tests need improvements

By Christina H

Apr 30, 2022

For the quizzes, they kept glitching. I had correct answers one time, and the next time putting the same answers it was marked wrong. This happened frequently.

By Weston W

Jun 11, 2022

As a course on instructional design, it is ironic how monotonous and unengaging the delivery of this content is. That said, the content is pretty good.

By Staci P

Oct 6, 2022

I wish the assignments were graded and feedback given were from an actual instructor other than just a peer.

By Nadiia B

May 29, 2020

Overall, the course has a significant amount of useful information, BUT it is VERY POORLY DESIGNED, which is an unpleasant surprise since the course is about Instructional Design:

Lectures:

a) Using many different lecturers deprives the course of consistency because students have to adjust to each lecturer's style of talking and pronunciation.

b) Switching back and forth from lecturers to PowerPoints does not help to concentrate on the lectures.

c) Lectures that are longer than 15 minutes are very hard for students to keep their focuson.

Suggestions: make lectures shorter, have one, two at most, lecturers; have a lecturer view start and end the video, and have narrated PowerPoints in between.

Assessments:

a) Quizzes - different numbers of questions in each quiz and time sensitiveness in some quizzes bring chaos in the learning process; students have to guess their instructors' exact thoughts - the Week 4 quiz is especially poorly designed.

Suggestions: have the same number of questions for each quiz throughout the course; time all or do not do it at all; make the answers clear and easily derivable from course resources.

b) Written Assignments - grading through peer reviews is a nightmare, heavily based on a subjective point of view.

Suggestions: remove the grading portion from peer reviews and leave only the feedback comments required.

Demand Hours:

a) Weekly demand hours are unbalanced - one week is heavier than another which is not helpful for students to plan their learning time.

b) Reading rates are ridiculous: 10 minutes are given to read 12 pages of scholarly reading while in reality, it can take about an hour (undergrad - 11 pp/hour, grad - 13pp/hour)

Suggestions: Balance weekly demand hours and put in feasible reading rates.

I work as an Instructional Designer in a University, and if this course is well-designed, I would consider taking the suggested MasterTrack. But since this course was designed so poorly, it became an anti-advertisement for me about the University, which offered it, and Coursera platform as a whole.

The level of frustration I got from taking this course overpowered all of the useful knowledge that I acquired from it. I do not think I am going to take another course neither from the University of Illinois nor on Coursera platform in the near future.

I rate the course TWO out of FIVE and only for the useful theoretical information that has been presented in videos and readings.

By Nicholas T

Apr 19, 2023

Honestly, not the best course. It didn't matter what notes I took or how much I understood the content, the quiz would be significantly different than what they were teaching on the slides, what they were saying in the video lessons or in the readings. I would take the quiz and immediately fail it and have to go back and edit my notes which were basically copy pasted from the lesson and change them to fit the answers of the questions so I could actually, finally, understand everything. On top of that some of the videos were extremely long for what they were trying to actually attempting to teach us. It seemed like they were just spinning their wheels and not getting to the point of what they were talking about. I think the one thing they forgot to do in this whole production is something called...a "script". To be honest, and not to be mean, but this instructional course needs to take an instructional design course. The course didn't flow well at all and felt almost out of order at certain points. The funny thing is I'm just learning about ID and it felt like this course is actually teaching you how NOT to make a course. I really just wanted some kind of certification behind switching my career to instructional design, but I will always look back at my certification as "Learning What Not to Do". I'll be watching some devlin peck videos soon to hopefully whipe away all this confusion.

By Bobby K

Mar 29, 2023

Foundations and Applications are fleshed out nicely and is a well rounded general knowledge of Instructional Design course. The submission and reviews for certification are not so well achieved. You will not be able to complete the course until another course learner reviews your coursework. Very few people take this course over a long period of time. There are still people waiting to be reviewed months after submitting coursework.

Testing is random and arbitrary on the subject content. Many multiple choice questions can have varying number of answers. Results of the testing are never critiqued and you are left not knowing if you selected all the correct answers or are informed of what element of your answer was wrong. When the test will tell you that over 85% of first time test takers fail their first attempt on a test, that should tell you that the testing is not built right. For a course built on Instructional Design content, that seems very amateurish and not conducive of testing a subject well. As an adult taking this course was to better firm up my foundation of knowledge, but because of the way this course tested and required peer reviewed submissions that are going to take months to get reviews, I feel this course was overly gated in knowledge keeping and the information of foundations and applications was minimal for the amount of effort required to gain certification.

By Drew C

Aug 27, 2022

This course offers excellent content for an overview of learning and instructional design. It suffers from excessive reliance on talking heads that teach to a set of powerpoint slides. However, it does add some nice demonstrations with individuals role-playing or talking more extemporaneously; it would have been nice to have seen more of that. The major problem is with the course's assessments. Its quizzes rely heavily on sets of checklist responses with 5 or so options, each of which must be correct for the student to receive any credit. These checklist responses are incredibly narrowly drawn. Achieving a passing score on a quiz may take up to 8 tries and winds up feeling like a cram school. It is also clear that the course owner does not attend much to feedback in the forums; one problem noted by a student 5 months ago (duplication of video content in one module) was still not addressed when I took the course. The irony here is that these issues are problems with instructional design, and this is also a course about instructional design. The sad thing is that the assessment and duplication issues could be fixed rather easily. The course owner and the University of Illinois shouold make this effort.

By Shawn

Sep 25, 2022

The content is informative. Unfortunately, subtitles are not thoroughly checked through as the captions don't match what the instructors say (which leads me think twice what the professor ACTUALLY said). Most of the professors are dry, harder for me to digest information. Guest speakers are great and far more engaging (though, you don't see them very often).

Assignments are graded by peers, which is never looked at from a professional viewpoint. There are rubrics provided but the rubrics are only provided AFTER you submit your assignment, when you're grading peers' assignments. Not useful or helpful at all.

Quiz questions contain a lot of "select all that apply" questions that can throw learners off. No feedback as to why the answers are wrong. Only feedback is "wrong answer" but nothing else.

Rating this course 2 stars only because some of the guest speakers are good. Otherwise, I would have rated this course 1 star.

By Shay R

Nov 5, 2022

Many problems/incongruencies with stated learning objectives, focus questions and what is actually assessed via quiz. I could not pass a single quiz on the first attempt and I took notes and was actively engaged. The most helpful assignment was the case study. The readings take well longer than the estimated 10 mins. Most instructors were very confusing and did not follow their stated objectives. There should be more summarizing key points before going on to the next key point.

The length/pacing of the modules was fantastic. The best presentations were from the Prof talking about Diversity and Inclusion - quiz questions/responses were not clear however. Mr. Mock by far was the best presenter. The example of an ID interviewing a SME was a helpful vinegette.

By Gregory W

Nov 4, 2022

The design of this course is frustrating- ironic in an instructional design course! 1)words on slides do not match up with spoken words. This makes it very difficult to process information on the screen and audio at the same time. 2) the video keeps switching back to a view of the instructor talking to me- and pans away from the slides with important information I am trying to avoid. I get no added benefit from watching someone talk, but I DO get added benefit when the slides and graphics stay on the screen longer. 3) some of the graphics are difficult to absorb visually, I think they could be more clear. 4) When subtitles are turned on, they cover important information on the slides, this is a problem for accessibility.

By Michael A U

May 25, 2020

While the professors were knowledgable about instructional design, they failed to utilize that knowledge in designing the course. Poorly edited videos, basic quizzes that only assess a narrow range of information recall, a lack of academic rigor, and to be frank, poor MOOC design betrays the founding principles the course is attempting to teach us. I expect a lot more from an instructional design course, and it has seriously put me off of the University of Illinois as a choice for my Ph.D. in ID. My advice to the course creators is to practice what you preach.

By Michael M

Mar 1, 2022

The fact that most people fail the quiz on first attempt shows that the course was not well designed. The student learning outcome for this course is that students pass the quiz, know the answers to the quiz questions. You need to teach to the quiz. Part of good design, from a management perspective, is not just to choose good graphics, but also to choose good presenters. This course had one of the most boring presenters I've seen - monotone and expressionless. If the person has good content, use the content, but have someone else delivery it.

By JAYSON M

Jun 21, 2019

The content is great, although some of the lecturers could be more engaging.

Moving forward, perhaps the institution could make the quizzes/homework accessible to those who only availed of the free course. I completely understand the necessity of the 'paywall', but perhaps they could follow the model of some other Coursera offerings, where all the material is available for free but you have to pay for any certification--I feel that is a good way in the future. Thanks.

By Rachel E

Oct 3, 2022

I found the first week incredibly dry. I had hoped for somthing more engaging from Instructional Design Experts. The pace, the text-heavy slides and the tones of presenters were not at all engaging for me. I am sorry, but I don't think I can struggle through the content, as I don't necessarily trust the ID expertise with this week 1 content delivery.

By CARI C

Apr 1, 2022

Please take a look at the Module 4 quiz, that quiz needs some work.

I would recommend bringing in your Instructional Designers and offering them the opportunity to teach out some of these segments. It would be more authentic and in the future, avoid the "Select all that apply" questions, they are not good or accruate options for assessment.