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

4.0
stars
722 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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26 - 50 of 298 Reviews for Instructional Design Foundations and Applications

By Lauren K

May 10, 2020

The instructors weren't interesting to listen to. I expected better curriculum since the class is Instructional Design. The male teacher mumbled a lot so I'm very glad there was a transcript. It was a good course to get a small grasp of what ID is. I definitely will need to take more courses to actually learn more valuable information.

By Andrew P P J

Dec 27, 2020

Overall rough course. Auditors definitely recieved more out of this course because they are free of the abosulely awful assignments that come with this course. While the class offered a decent introduction to what ISDs do and how the field has changed over time, the value of this knowledge is lost in light of downright boring, monotonous, and long-winded video lectures. The professors did not display any mastery of the topics because they read scripted lectures. The assignments, particularly the last quiz, were unfair and designed to trick students. The covered insignificant details rather than big picture ideas. The list of things wrong with this course is a long one.

By Lee S Y

Jul 18, 2020

I learned a lot of concepts, took copious notes but end of the day, I don't think this is a good course as an ID foundation. There could be more practical aspects to allow learners to internalise the concepts and more attempts to break down the chunks of information rather than a dumpster to throw out all the concepts at once.

By Kenny C

Jul 13, 2021

Long and dreadful videos with a monotone voice. There were some great guest speakers, but 80% of the videos were tough to sit through. Content is not well explained, but does cover a very surface level of instructional design. There's more to say, but previous reviews have already stated them.

By Amy W

Oct 6, 2020

Disappointing. Too much about Instructional Design history, not enough about how to actually design courses.

By Nick

Jan 19, 2021

horrible

By Akram Z

Apr 4, 2021

I have learned so many things with this course. The instructor can deliver the material as well and the design on this course makes me feel smooth and understand clearly the material

By Devan B

Jan 29, 2019

This course was excellent! It provided a great overview of the instructional design field. I'm excited to take more courses from the University of Illinois.

By Rhina R N

May 6, 2019

The course was very informational. I hope there will be other courses to follow to complete the ADDIE Model.

By Aderonke K

Feb 3, 2020

Quite an intensive online course. Insightful as a good foundation to Instructional Design Overall i will rate the course 3.5 out of 5.

It was quite heavy on theory; typical of a school course, with all of the journal readings, but practical real life scenarios and best practice ideologies would have been great to aid learning and engagement. For example having an Instructional Designer at a company teach one of the modules or run us through one of his past projects, So we get a feel of what a real life project is like, straight from the horses mouth.

Also the quizzes- The point isn't just to score 80% as a pass grade for the quiz. The quiz is to aid learning and ensure the participants can recall what has been taught.

Firstly, when attempting the quiz more than once it will be good to show the correct options to the answers the learner got right, and not make them attempt answering those right questions again. Let the answers to the right options be visible. Looking at them over and over will aid learning.

Also, after scoring the pass mark of 80 let the participant know the answers to the failed options. The point isn't just to score grades to pass, but for learning.

By Josie S

Jun 9, 2024

For a course on instructional design, this was not a well designed course, unfortunately. Lectures should have been shorter, contained more direct application and less theory (this is a MOOC), the quiz questions should have related to broad objectives and not specific theory/wording on slides, and the two written assignments could have also been clearer/more valuable. I hope this one is redesigned soon!

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 Maria M A A

Sep 29, 2024

Was able to upgrade my existing knowledge. Being a part of higher education I knew some concepts. However, never know the organizational structure .This course has brodern my perspective.

By Josephine T

Jul 5, 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.

By Jaime D

Oct 29, 2021

This course helped me to understand the theoretical foundations of Instructional Design. In addition, I learned some of the foundational skills needed when beginning in this field.

By Surbhi

Jun 6, 2019

I really liked this course. The assignments were designed really well, giving us the sneak peek into what a instructional designer would do.

By Shana B

Jul 21, 2021

I think it was helpful as an introduction course to instructional design, but I would have preferred more opportunities to gain more experience with real world scenarios. The project on Module 3 was the only one I felt I got that experience with. Even more short answer or challenges to do things like write learning objectives in place of a quiz on Module 4 would have been more beneficial to my learning application. Also, I would have liked to have access to correct answers on the quizzes after I submitted them for grades because on some questions I didn't understand why I got them wrong even though I went back through the videos and notes. I understand there is a concern about cheating, but I feel like I may have had misunderstandings that will never be corrected.

By christopher g

Jun 7, 2021

Well thought out course that covers the basics initially, and then concludes with some good management hints for both projects and people that assist Instructional Designers in their work. Only issue with the course is that it is a MOOC so has to be all things to all people. A tough approach for any subject, at least the ones you want to be thorough. I do better with looking at a slide while the audio/briefer describes what they are showing me. But that's just me. I'd prefer seeing less of people talking. Once again though - this is good bargain - solid entry to the skills in the field and one of the few online courses that actually provides a certificate. So I recommend!

By Melissa F M V

Apr 25, 2022

Good starter for people like me who had no idea what ID really was and wanted to get the overall idea and introduction to it. Effective introduction course!

By Tania R R

Jan 12, 2024

The information is good if you aren't familiar with instructional design basics. The teachers go over information and are relatively engaging, so that information can be retained. The information is pretty standard for instructional design but I did like that there was some discussion around instructional design careers. One problem is that the assessments are hard to get correct because very little information from them is coming from the course material, and you are somehow expected to synthesize the information in a manner that translates to the assessments, which does not work well at all. I only passed the assessments because I have a background in instructional design, and I had to retake them many, many times. Course questions should NOT be trick questions, and if you're an instructional designer, you should already know that! If you know nothing about instructional design, I would recommend this course, but if you already have basic knowledge in instructional design and are just looking to gain more information or different perspectives on instructional design, I would not bother taking this course.

By Daniels K

Oct 6, 2022

This course surely is a "Foundation of Instructional Design".

Course only looks at the first portion of Instructional Design process, which is "Analysis". Information provided is quite basic and people already working in Instructional Design or L&D, might struggle to find new information for them.

My bain with this course were weekly tests. They are in urgent need of revision, since a lot of the time there is an unclear expectation from learner - whether we should simply recite information from video lectures or actually apply critical thinking and answer the question logically.

On one of the tests Coursera provided a "helpful" tip stating that 86% of learners fail said test on the 1st attempt. Not sure about everyone else, but to me this signals bad test design and suggests certain issues with the way information is provided.

By Josh P

Jan 7, 2021

The reason why I don't give this course a 4 or 5 star review is because it seems the administrators/facilitators of this course haven't looked into and changed the issues that learners are identifying in the discussion forum with Week 4 quiz- particularly questions #3 and #5. Either the wrong answers were mistakenly checked as correct answers in the quiz builder, or the content does not line up correctly with the questions, because there are inconsistencies with the content and those quiz questions. I spent several hours re-attempting this quiz and became very confused with the content and also very frustrated. In the end, I had to search in the discussion forum for the correct answers that someone kindly provided, or else I would've spent multiple additional days re-taking this quiz until I passed by luck.

By Kailana D

Nov 28, 2020

Very useful overview of the material for people looking to explore this profession. However - and somewhat ironically for a course about how to design engaging and effective learning experiences - the lecture styles are very dry and mostly unvaried, and the unit quizzes are incredibly vague and hard to pass (make sure to retake multiple times!). The course focuses specifically on the learning theories that inform instructional design, but keep in mind that you don't get to practice any designing yourself - in fact, the course only focuses on the procedures for context-gathering and goal-setting that precede the active phases of design and implementation.

By Kirsten C

Mar 15, 2022

While this course was very helpful, the quizzes were constructed so poorly that even quick 8-question quizzes might take hours to complete. "Select All That Apply" is very problematic phrasing, as it doesn't indicate how many choices are needed for the question. It leaves you having to use a side-paper to keep track of all the combinations you've tried. Passing difficult quizzes is not the instructional goal of the course. This could be vastly improved.

By Claire W

Jul 7, 2020

After finishing it I feel that as a standalone course it really doesn't cover enough content to be a benefit. It doesn't finish at a natural pause in topics, but rather feels as if it ends while you are still partway through. As it is part of a mastertrack certificate, I guess it really only makes sense to do the course if you are planning to complete the whole certificate.