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

4.0
stars
679 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

ML

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I think sometimes the assessments (quizzes) were too specific on language so if you understood the concept, sometimes the way it was said was so specific it made it incorrect.

NM

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Only include the first step of instructional design. The videos mostly provides the theories, there is not a lot of examples (how to apply the theories in real world)

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251 - 275 of 285 Reviews for Instructional Design Foundations and Applications

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 Michelle B

Jul 22, 2024

The irony of an Instructional Design course being poorly designed is clearly not lost on other Coursera users. This course is great to gain some key vocabulary, but that's about it. Monotone talking heads deliver the majority of the information via lecture. Checks for understanding (at least for me) appeared in RANDOM spots in the video not associated at all with the topic the lecturer was currently presenting. Maybe there was a glitch, or maybe they just chose a random video spot to add a useless question. There is no feedback in the quizzes, and most questions were "select all that apply" multiple choice questions. Terrible way to check for understanding.

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.

By Lauren C

Nov 15, 2022

I did not feel that the lectures alone really helped to communicate the information covered in the quizzes. I think this course would be much more helpful with more comprehensive charts/graphic organizers. I constantly had to go back to watch the videos to understand the sequences of different parts of the analyses covered.

By Ms. K

Feb 21, 2022

I'm sorry, but it's difficult to trust an American course about education when at least one of the instructors isn't a native speaker and has pretty poor English. I've tried watching a few videos but it's been really tough because, on top of that, the women's voices are really high pitched so quite annoying.

By Michael C

Jan 18, 2022

Majority of "instruction" in this course was the lecturers simply reading their slides. Little was added to those descriptions and I found myself focusing on writing down verbatim info from the slides so that I could score effectively on the quizzes.

By Shoohira A

Aug 29, 2023

The content is okay, but I was looking for more actionable teaching. A course on teaching that specify that after learning the learner should be able to do something, it is disappointment that there is not much actionable items in the course.

By Asmara M

Jul 16, 2020

Although the course provides relevant information, it was extremely slow and wasn't engaging. I found it hard to pay attention to just videos being played the whole time.

By Tatiana D

Nov 20, 2023

I've started a similar course on linkedin learning and it's ten times shorter and more to the point

By Mariam B

Jul 21, 2024

The instructional design of this course is so Bad. It made me feel frustrated.

By Anne M U

Jun 28, 2022

This course should be more project based and less quiz based.

By Priya M M

Apr 21, 2020

The assessments were really very tough .

By Cherize S

Jan 28, 2023

Videos are way too long.

By Aleda H

Sep 13, 2022

This is course need to be evaluated, tested in production before going live. The transcripts don’t match the video and have poor grammar and missing words. The peer review is pointless. Most of all I don’t feel as if I learned about ID. I learned more about the history than the topic. Also, the quizzes were an embarrassment. Most had incorrect answers when you base them on the reading and videos. The worst is Module 4 quiz. I took this multiple time with no success. Reading the comments about this quiz I can see there is a high rate of issues with this quiz. I was also shocked to see the high number of students who didn’t have resources for help. When asking other students and this quiz the response was the same amount of frustration. Many of them couldn’t pass thus failed the course. I paid for this “course” but I do feel as though I was taken for my money. How can they teach us about ID when this class shows what not to do for a company. The University of Illinois should investigate this as their name is on this course. I do feel as if the Coursera site is a scam!!

By Kenya N

May 13, 2023

I wish I could give this course zero stars. This is the absolute worse online course I have ever taken in my entire life. I took this course to get my feet wet in instruction design. I was deciding whether to transition into instruction design or UI and front-end development. The only positive thing about this course is that it has made me realize that UI and web design are where I belong. I felt dumb and incompetent taking this course. The videos are boring, monotonous talking heads. The quizzes are horrific. This course would make you not want to pursue Instructional Design which is a CRITICAL problem. Horrible course! I hated every minute I spent doing this!!!

By Maura O H

Sep 9, 2023

As a veteran teacher looking for knowledge and experience to help me make the shift from teaching to instructional design, I found this course very poorly designed! Practice what you preach- pre-assess, engage your audience, make your slides easy to read just for starters, be considerate of timing of the videos as some are way too long to keep your learner engaged. The theory is important, but the application is what is truly valuable. Connect your instruction to real world applications- posing a project from the start and walking "students" through the steps to create and the why behind the choices would have been much more effective in my opinion.