Modern forms of education (technology-mediated education, online learning, etc.) still tend to be flat, thin, and dull, despite researchers’ attempts to develop strategies and techniques to make them richer, more engaging, and more effective. This is true even when they have been intentionally designed using contemporary design thinking practices. But what if the problem isn’t the strategies we use?
In my research I study instructional design and educational technology in higher education. I worry they haven’t lived up to the promises they’ve made, and in my research I’ve shown how instead of transforming the university for the better they’ve offered us a “plastic” facsimile of education that’s lifeless and uninspiring. Along with this, I’m also studying if there’s anything we can do to reverse this trend. We live in a world where technology and design are deeply embedded in our lives. We can’t eliminate them, nor do we really want to. But are there at least things we can do to withstand their downward gravity, and rehear the call to experience education as a place of awe and wonder, that draws us into higher and nobler forms of life?
This is what I study. Some of the specific topics this includes are:
- The place of instructional designers’ practical, embodied know-how, and the risks of designers over-relying on detached, instrumental knowledge.
- The field’s tendency to reduce and flatten all issues to technological problems/solutions, and what’s left behind in the translation.
- How instructional designers can resist the field’s hyper-rationalization and technologization, and come into their own as designers committed to sensitively responding to the demands of unique situations.
- Understanding instructional design practice as it is lived and experienced by designers, along with how designers become the kinds of people they are.
- How instructional designers cope with tensions that arise between the realities of work situations and the pursuit of high ideals.
- What do various moral issues look like in the context of instructional design (e.g., drawing distinctions of worth, conscience of craft, taking stands and making wholehearted commitments).
You can get a hold of me through email: jason (at) byu (dot) edu
