Ian August - The Collaborative Relationship Between Faculty and Instructional Designers in Course Design or Redesign Projects
What is the relationship like between faculty and instructional designers? In this episode, we'll hear from Ian August, Assistant Director of Online Learning and Adjunct Professor at St. John's University. Ian shares his research findings from speaking with both IDs and faculty about the course design and revision process.
👉 Mentioned Links:
👉 Recommendations:
📙 My Book
👉 Connect with me:
🙌 Support the Channel!
A tremendous thank you to our sponsors! By supporting them, you support this independent podcast.
Instructional Design Institute
Learn to design meaningful learning experiences in 7-weeks
Brightspace by D2L
Try D2L Brightspace for 30 Days. Get instant access and see for yourself why millions love Brightspace
Transcript:
Luke Hobson (00:00)
Ian, welcome to the podcast.
Ian August (00:02)
Great to be here, Luke. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
Luke Hobson (00:04)
Absolutely, man. I can't wait to dive on and more into everything with your research, what you're working on and everything of a sort. It's really important. And as always working with faculty members, instructional designers, thinking more about their relationships is something that we always need to talk more about inside of our field. But before I get ahead of myself, could you please just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit more about who you are and what is that you do.
Ian August (00:28)
Sure thing. So I've worked in higher ed for about 20 years now. I've actually exclusively worked in higher ed during my professional career, kind of ended up here by accident in IT, not sure what I wanted to do with this career. And I met somebody who worked in the SUNY system in their online learning office. It kind of inspired me. And I was kind of chasing passion back then like 20 years ago. And I just said to myself,
I don't even know what this person does, but I kind of want to learn from them. She taught in a grad program. I took her class, Introduction to Teaching Online, back in 2011. And it just kind of blew my mind. Like being a college student, feel like everything was the same. Every class was lecture, was testing. And she opened my eyes to a different way to do it. And I was just all in from there, got my master's degree, started working in this field. I'm currently working at St. John's University in Queens, New York. This is the third college I've worked at, second as an instructional designer. Been doing instructional design work for about 13 years and about three years ago I started leading a team of instructional designers. So I've had about five instructional designers work with me over the past three years, hiring them, training them, mentoring them, and it's been a great time.
Luke Hobson (01:42)
Awesome, awesome. You're one of the few who's only ever been in higher ed. Because everyone I talked to was like, I started in corporate, then I went into higher ed, or like I kind of doubt. Because for my world, I feel like I'm in a weird bubble since I'm in the professional development side of higher ed. So I'm like, I get this side, but then I also get this side as well. So any thoughts so far about being in higher ed for your whole career? Is it awesome, rewarding, challenging?
Ian August (02:08)
It is awesome. I feel like just this connection to like we were all college, most of us were college students, right? In our 18s and 20 year old selves, like this innocence, like a lot of freedom. And I feel like just being here kind of connects me to that still. Working with students, working with faculty. I just love learning. Like I know you talk about, use the phrase, right? Like learning nerd and stuff like that. And just getting to pick the brains of like,
people who are retired superintendents of school districts, people who are retired FBI agents, people who are retired Wall Street investment bankers. It's just really awesome if you love to learn. I kind of think of it as a negative maybe sometimes that I do need more outside experiences of higher ed that might give me some better perspective. Maybe I have been in a bubble my whole career, but.
I enjoy it. It has these natural cycles, Where summer, Christmas breaks.
Luke Hobson (03:04)
If you join, you'll love it. Then like, see no reason to burst the bubble. it's, and it's all good. mean, I just still love just actually being on a campus. Like walking around is still being in a campus. Like, yeah, I remember this and I was 20. Like, was this still cool at 36? This is still fun. It's like, it's still really enjoyable and working with these people. It's, it's, pretty cool. So I love that, man. I'm glad everything has been going well. Well, I cannot wait to dive in more everything in with what you have been writing about as far as with
Ian August (03:17)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (03:38)
the collaborative relationship between faculty and instructional designers and really on what we do with course design and redesigning projects and everything. Tell us more about your research, like set the stage for what this is about and what motivated you to want to be able to conduct this research.
Ian August (03:56)
Yeah, definitely. Thanks. So this is my third year wrapping up the third year in a PhD program. Each year they asked us to do a pilot study, collect data, analyze it and write up a final paper as if you're writing an academic journal article. So I do this instructional design work. I collaborate with faculty. It's the part of the job that I really love just sitting with them talking about pedagogy, thinking about how we can make their course better. And I'm also like really passionate about being social, meeting people, building relationships.
relationships, so I kind of wanted to tackle this angle of it, this relationship aspect of collaborating with very different people than us. They have different roles, different responsibilities. You know, the research talks about these expertise between these two people coming together to building something that neither could really build on their own.
And there's so many variables in these collaborations. Some go great like you know, some have tons of challenges. Sometimes faculty put up blocks and are very resistant. And I'm really curious to know why. So I have interviewed instructional designers to learn about their processes. Again, I'm curious about how other departments do it, because each department is different. Each culture at a college online learning office is different. Each individual instructional designer has different philosophies and inspirations.
And then I'm curious to learn faculty's thinking behind some of that resistance maybe, how we can better connect with them, because they might not always tell us the truth why they don't want to do something or why we can't even get a meeting on the books.
Luke Hobson (05:33)
I love that from what you just said too, is that you are emphasizing the faculty perspective where for a lot of us in our field, just whether right or wrong, but because of what we do things, we think about us, we think about instructional designers. We don't necessarily think about the faculty members. And then I remember one time I worked with some faculties who were, they were engineers and they asked at the end if we could do like a retrospective for things.
Ian August (05:48)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (06:00)
They're like, do you mind if we do a debrief on how this whole project went? I was like, I'd love that. I never thought of doing that before. And that's what made me think of like, wow, what would other faculty think about this? Should we do this with every faculty? Would that be a extra step that they wouldn't want to work with us on? So was just like hearing that insight from them was something I never thought about before. And the fact that your research actually highlights both of them is something that's awesome, so needed today.
before you started this project, you've been an instructional designer, as you just saying for many, many years now. So you must've had going into this assumptions bias. Like, so tell me more about like your lines of thinking as far as for going into this and thinking that like, this will surely be.
something I uncover, or did you have none of that and say like, I got to step away and make sure to not let my assumptions kind of run away.
Ian August (06:55)
You know, I didn't have too many assumptions. feel like even when we write up these papers, our professors want our hypothesis of what we're going to find. And my mindset is like, I just want to pick their brain and see how they do things. What's their experience? The only assumptions I might have had is just like what the lit review talks about.
You know, things like communication is really important in these relationships. Building rapport is really important. Being clear about expectations and roles up front. And there's a few really cool research articles on the challenges that come up. Not so much on how to mitigate those challenges, but just on how to be aware of them. One of the cool studies I read talked about agency of instructional designers. And almost like...
this drive to change society in a way, which I never thought of before, or how a course design decision, like when you're trying to negotiate with faculty and select a path forward, and maybe they saying no, no, no, how am I contradicting instructional designers personal values, or like what the online learning office or campus culture says the instructional designer has to do, might go against their internal values and they have this internal conflict. What do I do?
Luke Hobson (08:10)
that makes a ton of sense. And as someone who I can tell you that his soul has absolutely died. And when they're just like, our course is this multiple choice questions and it's done. And I'm like, Oh no, no, it's not. are, we are not doing that. We have to take this to the next level. I can definitely sense about how there is that, that personality that like a part of you is in the design of things. If I was putting myself in your shoes for trying to be able to write this
One of the assumptions that I was going to make, just because I've now heard it multiple times from faculty, is they were shocked at how hard the course design process was. They're like, I thought it was going to be easier. And I'm like, it's not. Like, to do it well, we need to really have a lot of meetings. We need to do our design sessions. We need to be able to pilot it. We want to be able to test things out. And definitely, there's a lot of back and forth, which takes many, many sessions, a lot of hours.
Ian August (08:50)
for sure.
Luke Hobson (09:08)
those types of conversations are like, wow, this is really hard. It's like, well, yeah, it can be. You're right. You're right.
Ian August (09:17)
Yeah, one thing we definitely recommend in our office, we haven't been able to get it from the leadership, is like paying faculty for their time in these projects through like stipends or through course release. We're trying to press for that and advocate for faculty. We don't always get it. So I can see faculty, you know, have been stressed working with us where they're designing a course they're not even going to teach. It's like a master shell. They're passing off to someone else and we're still not like compensating for their time.
So that could be a stress point for them.
Luke Hobson (09:48)
Yeah, that's, that's really challenging. It's really interesting too. And kind of like a, you know, maybe a study for another day about how each university pays faculty in a different way, especially for designing learning experiences, which I have found about that. So it's kind of interesting because if it's a requirement to this work with the instructional designer, because it's a part of their job, like then that's one side.
But of course, as you were saying that like, well, no, if we can pay you a stipend and an auto area so much per hour or whatever, well, then that's a different motivational factor that obviously wasn't there before for things. So it's kind of surprising to hear how, how different institutions do things differently. Speaking of surprises, did anything jump out at you when you were conducting this research that really did catch you by surprise?
Ian August (10:37)
Yeah, definitely. Can I just add something to that? you just out like so I one of questions I asked from what you just said is how do faculty come into these projects? I'm really curious how they start how they're inspired. So one professor shared with me that her university has a three tiered approach to paying faculty depending on how much effort they put into the course. So if they're just a subject matter expert, they get paid the minimum. If they want to be subject matter expert and build out the entire course, they get paid a higher stipend. I thought that was kind of interesting. Haven't heard of that.
Luke Hobson (11:08)
Yeah, that I have heard of that one. And there was one example. I've also heard of royalties. I have heard of what else is there like every, every university I've worked at is a different way of paying faculty for creating courses. And for some of them where it's just like, we're just going to hire our adjuncts to do it. That's our, you know, our process as opposed to if we paid the full time tenure people, then that's a whole different process of doing things. So it's, I don't know.
It's interesting. It's, it's challenging to be able to think about because of course, too, you're thinking about the human being and you're also working with them and trying to figure out like, all right, like, how do I spin this to make you really care about this, where your role might not set it up like that way or your leadership team tells you, which is also like, and we'll go back to the question I just asked you in a moment, but this is like a number of things too, is that if the, if the leadership is directing the faculty,
Ian August (12:02)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (12:07)
To essentially say just like, just go do the thing with them. You know, on you go kind of a thing. Well, then that's really not setting anyone up to be successful because now we're not a team. Now it's us versus them. And it creates that really awful dynamic. They have to get around to be able to get them to try to bring things back. Whereas if you have more of a unified leadership team who knows about the benefits and the collaborative efforts and everything of a sword, then that's a whole different story. So that's like the part of the equation that doesn't get always talked about enough, in my opinion.
Ian August (12:38)
Definitely, definitely. I can add one more example too of a professor who, she wasn't getting funding from her college for like travel. So they had two paths to get that funding. One was through grants, which she didn't really do, wasn't part of her discipline, or through doing innovative projects like launching online courses that could bring in more revenue for the university. So she shows that and she had a real, real struggle throughout the process.
And that was like one of surprises if I could jump to the next question.
Luke Hobson (13:07)
Yeah. Sure.
Ian August (13:11)
Yeah, one of the surprises for me was how resistant, I just interviewed this person for this current study, so it's fresh in my mind, super, super resistant almost every step of the way this faculty member was. She wasn't happy she wasn't getting paid for working with the instructional designer, wasn't happy that they told her she had to take a professional development course also, which we ask a lot of online faculty to do.
You know, she had this quote where she said to me, how could they make me take training about teaching online? I did that already. They treated me like I didn't know what I was doing. But then in the next breath, she said something like, well, after taking the course, I realized I never taught asynchronously. I only taught synchronously during COVID. So I really didn't know what I was doing. So like this wall, to me, my interpretation of that is like right away, a wall goes up. No, no, no. And it takes a while for it to come down and to be open to these ideas.
Luke Hobson (14:08)
Yeah, that's amazing. That's, that's such an amazing find. I know that when I first started to teach online, I always took courses as an online student. So I felt like I got this, like I know what to be able to do from this perspective. And I had to take a three week long training that was essentially about how to be able to teach online, but it was the, the background of things that doesn't get talked about as much. Here's how to be able to use a rubric. Here's how to give feedback correctly.
And like trying to be able to have that form of engagement from the student perspective of just making sure from their progress and that they're moving along. And that was something that never came up. It was more about, here's how you can lead a discussion. Here's how you can have your type of your, as you mentioned, like synchronous components of a source, if you're live webinars and everything, but to be able to do that other part is a huge part of the role. That if you don't do it well, then students are like, where the heck's my feedback?
Luke Hobson (15:05)
What am I doing? You're like, yeah, that's pretty important too.
Ian August (15:08)
Yeah, I completely agree. And here we don't touch on our course at St. John's, we don't touch on tech really at all. And I feel like most faculty come into that experience expecting to learn how to use Canvas and build.
Luke Hobson (15:22)
Yeah, yeah, I know for you because I know you've been in the online space as well to have you been at an institution before whether as a student or as an instructional designer where they didn't put up any guardrails for the LMS faculty could just do whatever they wanted.
Ian August (15:37)
Yeah, I think we have that now. We have a lot of freedom.
Luke Hobson (15:40)
Okay.
So in one sense is great because you do have that. can make freedom and building things all together in another sense. And when I was a student at seven, New Hampshire university, eventually they put up these guardrails where you could change the colors of a navigation. You could do whatever you wanted. And there was one course I took that was pink and neon green. And I remember, I still remember a divest day where I was like, Oh my God, I'm like, what are you doing? Like my poor eyes. can't even, I can't look at the course.
Like it was that bad and the teacher was like, that's fine. It's like, are you kidding me? Like anyone would tell you this is not a good event. Then of course, then all of the guardrails eventually came up with like, no, we're going to have a style guide and we're good. It's like, yes, that's, that was a very smart decision to fix things. And now it's a standardized across the board that I, even if you wanted to do that now, I don't know if you could, I don't think again, I think it's locked from.
Ian August (16:21)
Yeah. Well, good. I can see myself staring at that screen for like hours and then I'm seeing all these like flashes as I look around the room and leave the screen like for days.
Luke Hobson (16:42)
Yeah. Oh yeah.
It was the only course I've ever taken where I couldn't consistently stare at my screen. It's like this actually hurts to look at because the colors were so contrasting and so bright. it just somehow it's like, how has that never come up before of like, let's just make it like look good. Just basic 101 of things. So.
Ian August (17:02)
And I heard even the opposite with some instructional designers I interviewed that they locked down the course so faculty cannot make any changes. And that seems like a little too rigid for me. I don't know.
Luke Hobson (17:13)
It's, it's tough because I understand why that they do that because of course they're trying to make sure that nothing's going to happen and no one makes it because we've all had it before where someone makes an edit by accident and that's gone. And you're like, no. And you go in and like somehow like the backup of the backup doesn't have it because someone was editing in the wrong course shell. And then you're like, there's all that work that's gone. But if it's so rigid and no one can make edits, then yeah. Then you get this thing like, well, is it my course?
Or is it yours and I'm, know, and that's a whole different argument to be able to have. So yeah.
Ian August (17:51)
Yeah, if I could share two more things that jumped out of the research. One is the idea of collaboration, right? So really interested in this collaboration aspect. So I always ask faculty their experience, prior experiences with collaboration outside of instructional design in higher ed, very limited. You know, one professor in the School of Ed said, we never talked about like how to teach with other colleagues. And I just found that so fascinating. Like if we want professors to work with us more, if we want to build this collaborative
Luke Hobson (17:53)
Please. Yeah.
Ian August (18:21)
environment, it seems like we should be setting up this culture like before they come to us and they're like, I this is tough I've never done this before kind of a thing.
Luke Hobson (18:31)
Yeah, absolutely. Have you, what you just said reminded me, have you read the book, finished lessons? That's it's about the, it's the educational development process of, has to be a better way of saying that, but basically about like how they train their teachers in, in, in Finland. And it is wild to hear how hard it is and what they do. And then think about what we do here where I'm like, what do mean you're
Ian August (18:37)
I haven't.
Luke Hobson (18:58)
The first course that you teach is a pilot and five other faculty sit in the back room and critique your every move. Like, my people would quit on the spot. Like they would be like, no, no, no, my course, my, my, this is how I do things. But to them be able to say that, you know, this is actually, I'm going to get the very best I possibly can out of these senior faculty members and they're going to observe and they're going to help me. And then eventually like, I'm going to co-teach with them and going into that direction.
It was mind boggling to hear, so it doesn't shock me at all. But what you just said of how there was none of that collaboration and such from that perspective.
Ian August (19:33)
I love that. mean, I've been teaching at a university in person for three years now and no one's ever observed me. No one's ever met with me to discuss anything. And being on this other side of instructional design, I'm like, that makes sense with some of the stuff I've seen.
Luke Hobson (19:51)
Yeah, that's right. I mean, the first course that I taught, I remember I was given the syllabus and they're like, all right, you got it. anything else? Like, no, it's fine. Like, okay. And this, and you know, and my, poor students, uh, they hung with me. It was, but it was, it was rough. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, why is no one helping? I actually, called the, um, the former faculty member who taught that course because I knew him and I was like, any tips? Like.
Luke Hobson (20:20)
anything. I will take anything you want to give me. Because I was craving that as a new faculty member. I didn't know.
Ian August (20:28)
Definitely. Yeah, and just that last surprise that I thought was pretty cool. I interviewed a faculty who was a liaison to an engineering program, so he only worked with them. He had a degree in engineering. So I thought that was so cool that he had that mindset, took the classes that he's developing for. And he really pointed out this unique thing where some of the math teachers he was designing courses with were teaching the students from a mathematician mindset.
And he said, my students needed the math to be engineers, not to be mathematicians. And he really made a point of saying that's a huge difference. And I don't know if I would have been able to spot that, not having an engineering background. But that was a cool story, I thought.
Luke Hobson (21:10)
That's super cool. No, there's there's no way because he has that insider knowledge and experience and education that only he would know that. So that's awesome. That's awesome. What are, tell me, what are some of your favorite tips about collaboration, whether from the faculty perspective or the ID perspective?
Ian August (21:29)
Definitely so. man, I wrote some of these down, so I hope it doesn't look like I'm reading.
Luke Hobson (21:34)
you're good,
Ian August (21:38)
Okay, so the same person from the engineering program, this instructional designer, just talked about this idea where he sees his role as pulling ideas out of the faculty members' heads. So sometimes I feel like it's something we all probably learned in education classes. Faculty teach this stuff, they're experts, they teach for so long that they almost are so far removed from that novice mindset of their students. And he thought his job is to pull that out, that maybe the steps in between that faculty were leaving out of the classes.
I thought that was cool.
Luke Hobson (22:09)
Absolutely. That, that kind of reminds me of the whole like explain it to me, like I'm five thing that we always say, just because they're, they're so, so in the weeds. then you as the ID are like, well, wait a second, I need to translate this into the course. It, needs to make sense. Especially if you're building a course for a target audience that is not ready yet that they are like, like a freshman course, but the course is meant for like, well, they're thinking about it like a senior level course.
And you're like, hold on, wait a second. Like we're, not matching who the target audience is. So that's cool. Did he mention like any further things about how to make them go into details like that?
Ian August (22:50)
I mean, he just did it by questioning, inquiry, being curious. You know, lot of the instructional designers or faculty I talk with had these, when they talked about great experiences with an instructional designer, like one faculty said she sat in a room for like two and a half hours with the ID, huge whiteboard, and they literally mapped out every single part of their course. Why are you doing this? What's the goal? What's the student's response when you did this in the classroom?
You did it as a discussion. What do you think about doing it as a different type of assignment category? How would it work out? And it's picking apart everything that I thought was pretty cool.
Luke Hobson (23:24)
I love that. Credit to both of them, because a two and a half hour design session is, that's no joke.
Ian August (23:26)
Yeah. They had a strong history. had, I think, 20-year friendship relationship, which helped a lot with that.
Luke Hobson (23:34)
Yeah, yeah, that would help out just a little bit. Well, but before I jump ahead, anything else? Any other stories before I okay.
Ian August (23:42)
Definitely.
It's the idea of building relationships and rapport. Somebody shared with me being available and responsive. You want them to associate with you with being a helper. I don't know if I love the word helper because it almost feels like an assistant, but I feel like that's not what they meant. I feel like they meant something else. And another question you wanted to discuss, how can they solve maybe challenges for me that I haven't been able to solve on my own?
thought that was kind of cool. And this person also talked about working with another instructional designer who's they call this person a faculty whisperer. She tried to speak the language of the faculty member making jokes, finding common ground, and trying to make a variety of connections. And I love that idea of common ground and variety of connections. So it reminds me of another faculty who shared a cool story with me where every time she met the instructional designer in person in the office, she was offered a warm
La Croix seltzer. And first I had to push back on that a little bit because I love ice cold, slushy seltzers, but that like became their thing. Like they bonded over it in my mind. Where years later this faculty every time she has a warm seltzer she's taken back and reminded of that. And to me that's like a powerful rapport building experience.
Luke Hobson (25:04)
Absolutely. When you find that connection or that thread, you don't let that go. Cause there are some faculty who I've been working with over the years where like one of them loves his Harley Davidson. Talk about bikes all the time. another one loves the Steelers. I always mention about football. Like you figure out what they like and you're like, that's the thing. I will open every conversation with that to try to set the stage and then we can go further.
Ian August (25:32)
Yeah, I love music. So one of the first questions I ask faculty is, who's your favorite band? And if they're open to it, I like to play a little bit on a low volume when we're working.
Luke Hobson (25:42)
That's a neat idea. Do you find that goes well for like music in the background?
Ian August (25:47)
It does. So some people need the silence, you know, so with everybody. But one person recently, John Mayer was his favorite. So I played some Mayer when he came to my office last week and he told he says to me, remember when John Mayer was on the Dave Chappelle show? So I pulled up the sketch and we watched it. We had a laugh. He's like, I haven't seen this in forever. And I'm like, I love this.
Luke Hobson (26:08)
That's really cool, man. I love that idea. And John, and I remember that skit by the way, and John Mayer can shred people don't give him credit. He's an amazing guitar player. Yeah. that's cool. I really liked that. That's an interesting idea. And I was thinking about that too, for John Mayer music, like that makes sense. And same thing. If it's just like more of the kind of, I don't know more, more like a go with the flow kind of music where it's not so
Ian August (26:18)
Yeah, heck yeah.
Luke Hobson (26:36)
abrupt or harsh or something because if someone's like man my favorite music is Metallica and you're like okay that's what you want we're gonna play the black album and here we go kind of a thing you know
Ian August (26:47)
Well, I actually just picked up a great Metallica cover. Metallica's playing, but Miley Cyrus is singing on the Howard Stern Show. And it's a little gentler and it's amazing. I'm like a huge Miley Cyrus fan the past couple of weeks.
Luke Hobson (26:59)
Huh. Alright. Okay,that's kind of breaking my brain. I'll believe you I know what I'm gonna listen to you at the end of this episode to go to go confirm if you have good musical taste or not That's really the whole trick with all this. No, but that's awesome
Ian August (27:04)
We could pull it up and maybe end the episode with that. Although, I'm afraid I don't know.
Luke Hobson (27:15)
Yes, as it gets I was gonna say copyright strike immediately from YouTube and Apple podcasts, but it's fine You know what? It's all it's all good. It's all good. That's cool. I will gonna file right away
Ian August (27:24)
You asked about faculty two recommendations. One thing that really came up was about the hierarchy at universities and how like the perception usually is that faculty at a higher level on that. And this faculty member is really stressing to me to other faculty, like don't come into that meeting, like throwing your weight around and power around. And for instructional designers also to not let them do that.
Luke Hobson (27:29)
Yeah.
Ian August (27:51)
Because again, this idea of we both have this expertise that adds value to this project. And if we feel like hierarchy's at play, instructional designers may play a backseat and not always express or bring that expertise out. And again, it just could be like a relationship thing or I'm comfortable doing that. don't have the, I could be known for doing that as well. But at the end of the day, the course is gonna suffer. At the end of the day, the student experience is gonna suffer. And that's kind of like my driving motivation a lot of the work I do to students.
Luke Hobson (28:22)
Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you were taking a course before where you can clearly tell it was developed in a way that either there was too much in the ID side or too much on, the faculty side. And cause I have, and it's so if you, and here's what I talk about making assumptions in the past, you know, a couple of minutes, one assumption I have is that if it is a content dump, it's just all that faculty side.
Ian August (28:34)
Oh, I don't know if I ever noticed that.
Luke Hobson (28:49)
because of course the faculty, they love to be able to teach. That's what they know. So they do. So they're like, want to share my lectures. I want to create the videos. I want to be able to do these articles and have them to read my past public works and blah, blah. And you're like, and your book. Yeah. Right. And you're like, awesome, but where's the activity? Where are the assessments and everything? And they're like, you know, and you can kind of get that. Whereas for what's saving, it's only on the ID side and it's on the ID side because the faculty don't have time to work with you.
Luke Hobson (29:20)
They give you like a few little snippets here and there, and then it's up to the ID to unfortunately say like, all right, what am I going to do? And you try to expand upon it by doing more from like, well, now there is a ton of assessments. You're like, whoa, like this is, I need something to support this. So it's the balance that when you clearly have both the ID and the faculty on the same page, then that to me is now it's just like, now we have a cohesive course that flows from start to finish.
Ian August (29:48)
It's so interesting. So you're making me think about the course I teach and how it might be ID heavy I might have like a five-part homework every week
Luke Hobson (29:57)
Yeah, it's, it's tough because the courses that I teach, I still have my videos are inside of there. And there's probably anywhere from five to 10 videos per module. And then you have what you think about for like the reflection activities, the discussions, the practices, the scenarios, the case studies, and those are all, dispersed, you know, throughout the different types of modules and stuff. But I try to have that blend.
and to not just like hammer you with, and especially teaching in a doctoral program, where I know everyone's just like, no, I'm gonna have to read my five books before the next module. And they're like, no, like, yeah, I want you to read, you're gonna become a doctor. Yeah, you need to do this, but not to that extent. Yeah, no. So you mentioned, well you didn't mention, I should say, is that there was one quote in there.
that I really liked and I highlighted it because I could 100 % relate to it as the instructional designer. It was the importance of getting an easy and early win. And we've all been there before where you find out you're going to be working with this person who's known for really being difficult to work with. And you're like, I just need the first win. And then I can build momentum and it will eventually snowball from there. Tell us more about this, though, from this perspective and what they were sharing with you.
Ian August (31:18)
Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with our misunderstood role or just unknown role of what we do at universities, how we can help. Like the lit review will talk about faculty designing courses on their own a lot, right? Like you said, when you started teaching, you might get a syllabus, you might not, you're on your own. So the research will say faculty design courses from their experience being students.
but not a lot of them are online students. they have, in our view, they would struggle designing online courses, in their view, maybe not so much.
So, Again, showing how we can help them solve a challenge that they might have and not be able to solve. So this instructional designer talked about solving a challenge early on just to show them your value and how you could be helpful in this collaborative project.
You talked about how this could break down barriers, changes in faculty mindset to something like, if the instructional designer can solve this challenge that has bothered me for years, what else might they be able to help with?
Luke Hobson (32:25)
Mm, that is something that is interesting. And when you get, so that's like not just an easy and early win, but that's like a super win. When you get someone to kind of say like, where have you been all my life? Kind of a thing. Then you're like, I know I did it right. That's, and I could take that to the bank and say like, yep, from now until forever, this person will sing the praises of an instructional designer where via the flip side, we are like, this person will now forever hate instructional designers.
Cause they had a very bad experience. So trying to be able to do that is, it's it's a balancing act to make sure that as you said before, from being on the same page and not throwing your weight around and everything too about that one. But man, when you have a great idea and you know, it's going to make their life so much easier and just trying to get them to buy into that. And then when they do like life is good.
Ian August (33:21)
Yeah, yeah, and you spoke about some challenges, how it can go the reverse, right? I had a story from an instructional designer who was dropped on a project that was failing. A few faculty on it, they had worked hard, the faculty, for months and saw no progress. So again, this instructional designer's coming in. I think she might have used the word alligator pit. I was thrown into an alligator pit. But at the end of it, she used the phrase, faculty told me I made magic. And just like she was able to analyze where things were right away, she gave each of the faculty members
has to do, do this little thing to move it forward. And one of the first things she did again was to build out the course that they've been mapping out for months to show them progress. And she said once they saw like something was coming off their work, their mindset completely changed and they were totally on board.
Luke Hobson (34:12)
Getting thrown in the alligator pit. Not fun by the way. Been there. Never a good time. Whenever, cause certainly I can absolutely understand where this person is coming from. have you ever been given a project before and it was called actually a dumpster fire from the start?
Luke Hobson (34:31)
it's not great. No, I've so when you when you get brought in because you are going to be the superhero to fix things and that is also fantastic because it's just like your leadership team acknowledges that you're the one to fix stuff when it's broken. That makes me feel good. But at the same time, you're like, now, like, like this project is going to be rough.
Luke Hobson (35:00)
Okay, here we go. Time to like roll up the sleeves and get these people to really get on board. And it's hard. So credit to that person, because it is not easy to do. And if they saw progress and momentum and they felt like they were actually contributing to the real product, like that's, that's an incredible job well done by that person.
Ian August (35:19)
Yeah, heck yeah. And I was like, it just felt like a rocky moment when I was listening to the story too. And I'm working with a professor right now, the project is turning into a little bit of a dumpster fire. And again, such an outlier professor from all the ones I've worked for, very like chaotic energy and trying to get a handle on it. Every time we try to lead and say, hey, we're setting the path, let's follow this path. It's like the path gets torn up, thrown around and we're like,
where are we, what happened? And I have one of my new instructional designers leading it, one of her first projects leading, and she's getting a little frustrated with it too, trying to tell her like, we're doing everything by the book we're supposed to do, but still trying to figure that one out.
Luke Hobson (35:52)
Yeah.
it happens because it's the science and the magic of working with people. And you can't learn that in an instructional design course. You can prepare for it. You can try to do as much as you can. But until you have that moment happen where someone comes in, they're like, ah, let's just scrap all the module four. What do you mean? I don't like it anymore. OK, now what do we do?
Ian August (36:28)
We signed off on that like two months ago.
Luke Hobson (36:38)
Right, yeah, like
it's done. It's literally built in the LMS. Like, nah, well, we're just now, we're not gonna do it anymore. wow, huh, huh, okay, okay. And I've been there before. That's a real life thing where I'm sure you have to. And it's like, uh-oh, we gotta really figure out how to be able to turn this ship around or else we are really gonna be sinking faster and trying to do that.
Ian August (36:49)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (37:07)
Did anyone give you some suggestions about like their most favorites courses on experiences of working with faculty or vice versa?
Ian August (37:16)
well one story stands out actually. And it was like, the lesson for me is assigning a specific instructional designer purposefully to work with a specific faculty. So it was a woman faculty member. She was designing a course about like women's issues, women's struggles maybe. And she was assigned a woman instructional designer.
And the faculty member just spoke about how easy it to talk with openly about the topic, which I could see some challenges maybe if they were not partnered with a woman.
Luke Hobson (37:53)
base, of sense to be able to do. And I've done that too with, you know, members of my team where it makes sense to be able to pair up other people with more of like a, let's say that I have a person who is more of like the, the kind of like chaotic mind, who is this? Like their, their heads are in, like they're having a thousand things going over their heads right now. Like you could tell you could literally see like all these different ideas coming out of them and to be able to then pair up that person with the instructional designer who's analytical, who's detailed, who is super organized. Like
that's gonna be the right combination of a team to put that together. Because if you are already the crazy big thinker kind of a person, and then I'm gonna be your instructional designer, who is also the crazy creative big thinker, it's really hard for me to be able to say, all right, I need to bring both of us down to make sure I'm on task, because if not, I will also share with you about how this course is going to change the world.
And we're gonna make things for the better. And it has a core selling has nothing to do with thinking about society. Even though we can do it like I know we can and yeah, so trying to pair up the right people together that makes a lot of sense of being able to do. Have you had the flip side of the opposite before of that? Because I've also experienced that Maria, you pair up the wrong people.
Ian August (39:08)
Um, I don't know.
I don't know if I have personally, I feel like I try to like work hard to work with everybody and just mold myself to their energy. But again, another one of my new instructional designers has, I would say high, maybe a little slightly anxious energy. And she is currently paired with a faculty who has the same. And like the fact that we'll come in, the meetings are so fast, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it's like, what just happened? And so both of them together, I feel like, yeah, maybe I wouldn't do that again.
Luke Hobson (39:40)
There. Yeah, it's, it's tricky because like, maybe that could also pair well together. Cause like, if you're on like the same page of things, then maybe you're like, okay, maybe we'll go a different direction kind of a thing. So it's, it's tough to be able to do. And of course as instructional designers, like we adapt, like that's what we do. So we have to be able to figure out how to be flexible. And even if we don't necessarily jive with that person, you figure out a way to drive with them.
Might not be easy and you have no clue how you're going to do it, but you got to figure it out for the sake of the project.
Ian August (40:13)
Yeah, I mean I'm a jokester. I mentioned to you that I like comedy and I'll be in meetings with people that make non-stop jokes and I'm like, okay, we can't have two jokers in this meeting. I've worked with professors who don't want to joke at all. I make a joke the first meeting, they don't laugh and I'm like, okay, they're all business. Leave the jokes at the door.
Luke Hobson (40:32)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to have two class clowns design. it's going to be a little bit tough to be able to do from that perspective. the everything, Ian, that you touched upon in the paper that I really want to ask you more about, because as someone who works at a traditional university, I really understood where this was coming from is the topic pertaining to culture.
Ian August (40:50)
Mmm.
Luke Hobson (40:58)
with the value of teaching versus research. Tell us more about what you learned about this part.
Ian August (41:07)
Yeah, so formally one faculty did tell me that because of this culture where a focus is on research at a lot of these R1 institutions, she is not sending her kids to one of these institutions. She was thinking more of a community college model where she knows more of the professors have a teaching priority.
and I thought that was super interesting. I never thought about it like that before. She talked about like the tenure and promotion process and how she would love to see more focus on teaching as part of that process. It's kind of like the leadership tells you what the priorities should be through things like that, which are really valued by the professors.
Luke Hobson (41:48)
if I can like jump in for a moment, like one of the things that I was thinking about is that I have seen all too often of someone who was a brilliant researcher and then the school then says, fantastic, now go teach that. And it's just like, once again, going back to the whole, do I have training on how to do this? Like, do I, is this actually a part of my job or not? Cause I know from some people have kind of got like thrown on them of like, you actually want to become
a tenured faculty member, this is a part of that. You can't just do your research and have fun in your lab. it's like, OK, it's a part of the job. I'm going to have to kind of do it. So it's interesting to be able to see how people will take on that challenge. And then, of course, for others who are like the as we talk about having like some form of a magical unicorn of an instructional design space, you have that magical unicorn of a faculty member who could do it all. Well, they're brilliant at teaching. They're amazing at their own research and everything. And you're like, wow, you are good.
like you are, like what makes this institution special?
Ian August (42:49)
Yeah, I'm just blown away by faculty who really are dedicated to this craft of teaching. They're inspired by it. They can't do the same thing like year to year or even semester to semester. They get bored and they need to liven it up by new ways of teaching and new approaches. I just love that.
Luke Hobson (43:06)
Yeah, when you don't use the same slides over and over again, because you had to update them around like, that's pretty awesome. Like thank you for not just rehashing the same material that you did four years ago, but you're still updating it. Still trying to make it better. Even like a slight tweaker or tuning of things like makes it all, you know, makes it all the better.
Ian August (43:26)
Yeah, and informally, a faculty was telling me a story about a past collaboration with another professor. They were co-teaching a course. And she said something like that really stuck out to me about we had a shared goal of almost seeing how we could be efficient in the teaching so we could focus more on our research.
And my lesson for that was, that her priority was not teaching at all. How could she free up time to do more research? And I had this idea rolling around my head for a while about how K through 12 teachers are required to do regular professional development. My mom is a dental hygienist. She has to do professional development every three years to certify and renew her license. And teaching changes. The demographic of our student changes. So it really surprises me that higher ed does not.
require professional development for professors to stay up to date on these things or the idea that like you're required to do research on your teaching and learning matches your academic discipline. To me those are things that could add value to this field.
Luke Hobson (44:34)
would love your last comment if they had to do research on how their own learning experiences went to be able to figure that out more, to figure out what sticks, what doesn't, how people found things helpful, maybe not so much as well, and to see the impact and to measure that. That if there was more of a type of a long form research project of being able to follow students with what they learned in your course and then being able to see like year over year what they continue to learn about, like that'd be amazing.
Ian August (45:02)
I agree and I feel like it would maybe build that connection with like, I never thought about how I teach. I never thought about how the students learn. Like I had this professor, I talked about her a little bit today, where she had a lot of challenges and resistance. She told me like, I like to perform when I teach. And again, like a light bulb went on my head, like it's not about you though. Like I guess we should enjoy our jobs in one sense, but at the same time, we also need to give students what they need to learn.
Luke Hobson (45:32)
That's, man, that's tough because I definitely understand where she's coming from because I also think about my classes as like a performance. That's not, would, I would actually use that word as well because it's almost like when the class starts, it's like, it's go time. Like you got to really, and maybe it's because of how I have sat through so many courses that were monotone.
that people didn't look at me. They just looked at their slides or the board behind them the whole time. And like there's talking like at me and it's just like, man, like you gotta really make someone care. Like that's the whole thing about that. So I wonder from that person's perspective, if that was just like, it's going to be that yes, it's about my accomplishments and research and such, but also in a way that really gets them to want to participate and to come back, you know, which is like the, the big thing, especially from a online.
learning perspective as someone who has courses where there are optional webinars each week that like, I don't want to do it alone. I hope you come back. I hope you find it entertaining, but also educational. So that way you're, you're interested kind of a thing. So it's tough. I had something recent that happened that actually changed how I changed, some of my great wording, Luke change how it changed, but
True. Truthfully, a recent development that made me want to modify how I did my webinars because of how I always send my students into breakout rooms. So there'll be a lecture. There's always a Q and a part, and there will be some form of an activity or folks work on things together. And I had one that happened the other day where I told people, all right, like here, class, here's the activity. We're going to put you inside of the breakout rooms. Now I want you to work together. Come back. Let's share, break things down.
the minute I said we're going into breakout rooms, half of the class logged off. And I was like, that's a big number. And when they came, I could see like the people tab on Zoom. And when they came back, I was like, wow, so hey, half of you really didn't wanna be in a breakout room. And like, they, know, they laugh kind of a thing, or the ones who are still there. And of course, there are different types of circumstances. Some people were clearly calling in from like their phones.
Some were driving, some were about to have dinner with their families. Like once again, optional webinar. I understand and anyone being there at all is wonderful, but that wording alone made people say, uh-uh. So the next session was like, well, I'm going to do it differently. I'm going to see what happens if I experiment and try to make sure that there's still, as I said, entertained yet. Of course it's educational at the same time for things. So it's, it's a balancing act stuff.
Ian August (47:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and I have a few quotes if can read them about from faculty who were really driven to be great in the classroom.
Luke Hobson (48:22)
Please.
Ian August (48:29)
So one professor was working in a, science department, and only one faculty ever asked me how to get the students more engaged. The rest were okay just standing up there and regurgitating the book and giving them tests. I had a problem with students paying a lot of tuition to have faculty regurgitate material and have students figure it out. Tough one. Here's one from an instructional designer along the same...
Luke Hobson (48:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ian August (48:56)
kind of theme, you cannot expect students to memorize a 600-page textbook in 16 weeks. It's not realistic. One of the major things you want students to walk away with, think about what your students will be asked to do in the real world. They'll be asked to solve problems. So that is how I like to design learning. Love it.
Luke Hobson (49:16)
Love it. Give that person a trophy. Gold star. Raise.
Ian August (49:19)
Yeah.
And I feel like things change so much in the world where like content is unlimited online. People don't go to college to receive content dumps. And it's still happening. You know, I teach a three hour course one day a week, tons of activities, because I just can't hear myself talk that long. And they tell me to students how refreshing it is because some professors will talk for three hours straight. And it's like, what do they expect?
to happen with that.
Luke Hobson (49:50)
I don't know, but also three hours is a long time to talk, period. No one should want to do that ever. It's really hard to be able to do. It's even tough to give like a half an hour to an hour long lecture. It's not, it's really tough. And of course, the more you can have the class interaction for things too, it just makes it better. Like it changes to how you take the direction.
of that presentation as well, because if you are making assumptions about where people are coming from and their prior levels of knowledge and their backgrounds, you're not really asking them. Well, then you're not really addressing their needs in real time. And that's the best part that you can ask a group of students to be able to say, you know, like, have you heard of this before? Give me a yes or give me a no. And what you think is going to be all yeses. And then they come to find out they tell you all no. And you're like, well, then I need to expand upon this area more because
We haven't covered this clearly or a past course hasn't covered it. We're on the flip side. You know, if you're going into the think you're going to be like going into the nitty gritty and the weeds of everything and then they're like, we already literally took the course on this like just last semester. You're like, okay then moving on to another topic. So yeah, yeah.
Ian August (51:05)
Yeah,
one of my favorite authors in instructional design, Sean Michael Morris, you ever read his work? And he has this idea, which I struggle with, I haven't done yet, about like, you shouldn't map out the learning objectives for the entire course ahead of time. Because it's like going for a hike in every step you plan ahead of time. Like some of the best hikes or journeys happen when you go off that beaten path. And I kind of love that idea, but haven't implemented it yet. It seems a little scary.
Luke Hobson (51:10)
Yes. Yes.
It's, one of those things too, that like I, so as someone who has done that before, but by accident, man, it was terrifying. It was, it was a course that I was going to be teaching, but I inherited from another person. I didn't get access into the course until like two weeks before the course started and come to find out I'm looking at it. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was, it was my nightmare. And as someone who teaches
Ian August (51:52)
you
Luke Hobson (52:01)
courses on instructional design. I like, I literally can't do this. I have to tear it down. So I did. So I tore down the entire course and I had to build it week by week. So the learning objectives were still mapped out because in the syllabus, because that was like the only thing that the students saw was the syllabus. So not exactly going in the way of your quote. But other than that, the students were also asking too, like, why couldn't they see the other weeks? Because they're like, no, like Dr. Hobson, I want to see week two. And I'm like, you can't see week two. I'm building it.
Ian August (52:31)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (52:31)
I don't
know what's in week two. I'm literally building it in real time with you based on your feedback and how this is going and what we're doing. And it was, it was crazy to do. It was, it was nuts because that course then became my life. That was the, it's, there's seven week courses. So it was just like, all right, I am, I am so in this with you week by week, step by step. Like we are going through this journey together, but man, that was stressful. Talk about anxiety. That was, that was nuts.
Ian August (53:00)
And it's interesting because it's like, feel like the reverse stresses out faculty when we ask them to map out your entire course ahead of time. Let's build it out ahead of time. They like to work on the fly like that.
Luke Hobson (53:12)
Yes.
Yes. I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? We should be thinking about the next week. But of course, also in-person teaching too is so different. I will say too from a college perspective, in-person teaching from K through 12 is rigid and oriented and such. I have 100 % have had some faculty members come in and they're like, no, I'm not using this textbook. I hate it. going to throw it away. But I just bought it. Like, nah.
We're switching gears. You're like, okay. Yep. Good times. Good times. I don't want to think of how much money I spent on textbooks in college that I'd never used. So, so with that said, the value of open educational resources, something everyone should look into. They're very valuable for instructional designers and faculty. At the same time, Ian.
Ian August (53:41)
you
Absolutely.
Luke Hobson (54:04)
I loved reading everything that you wrote about. there anything that I did not ask you that you wanted to dive into more?
Ian August (54:10)
You know, just one story again, like one of my favorite stories, again, I share it all the time. Instructional designer working with a faculty member. Faculty member loved to lecture and had to have hour long lectures in the class. Instructional designer tells them.
It's not a great idea, it's not gonna work, attention spans, all the research and reason why was not getting anywhere with the faculty. So the instructional designer said, let's make one and I'll show you why it's not gonna work well. As she's watching this video in her cubicle office, she sees the other instructional designers are slowly walking over because the lecture was so enthralling. They were like the top 1 % of lecturers out there.
So the ID was like, okay, you can lecture in your course for an hour. And to me, the lesson is like, we have these structures, we have quality matters, we have our theories, but there are outliers that we have to be open for and ready for to just break the mold and saying, we don't have to follow the rules.
Luke Hobson (55:11)
Dude, I love that. I love that. When you have an instructor who's like a Ted talk speaker, go just, just let them go. They got it. And you see that you'll clearly see that from the audience's reaction. We had, reminds me that we had one professor who we were working with and we wanted to be able to get him to think more about his, he had a videos, he had so many videos he was going to do. So we had the topics already outlined and we were asking, can you send us
Ian August (55:19)
Yeah.
Luke Hobson (55:38)
slides, bullet points, anything for us to be able to like kind of follow along with. And he's like, no, I got it. They're like, okay, that doesn't make me feel good. But like we showed up to the filming session, no idea. And as soon as it this like, go for it. And he just went and it was like that, that it just was awesome. It was amazing. It was like, wow, I would, I would listen to you talk for three hours, man. It's talking about three hour sessions. Like
You are the person I would absolutely listen to because you were that interesting and that compelling of a speaker. So, yep.
Ian August (56:13)
Outliers, outliers.
Yeah, and the last thing I'd like to say, nothing to do with my, while I'm continuing to do studies, I love this stuff, so even when I graduate, I still want to interview instructional designers from around the country and maybe the world, so if I could plug if anybody's interested in being part of my research study, if any instructional designers want to collaborate with me and do some work together, yeah, reach out, I'd love to collaborate with you.
Luke Hobson (56:36)
Amazing.
I said, I reached out to you via LinkedIn, email, work for you.
Ian August (56:40)
Yeah, that one works.
Luke Hobson (56:41)
Okay. All right. I'll make sure that your everything is inside of a show notes for LinkedIn. Ian, thank you so much for your time for coming on the podcast. This has been awesome,
Ian August (56:50)
Yeah, thank you for having me. It was great catching up and look forward to future conversations with you.
Luke Hobson (56:54)
Of course, of course.
