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dlgdesigns.io

Instructional Design:
​Helping a Small Business Extend Their Reach
Summary
Through a detailed front-end analysis, design, development, and evaluation process, DLGDesigns expanded the reach of an educational consulting business to include online students.

Backstory
CollegeHelp4You is a small business in Houston, Texas that provides premier educational consulting services to high school age students and their parents to ensure they receive accurate information regarding their college investment. Consultants assist with the entire college application process including essay writing, financial aid forms, scholarship applications, and tutoring for exams. 

Opportunity
Traditionally CollegeHelp4You's services take place in a face-to-face classroom environment and convenient scheduling and constant support of multiple clients proves to be difficult. Students need an online component to provide targeted and flexible support with the drafting and proofing of their college essays. 

DLGDesigns was hired to expand the reach of CollegeHelp4You's writing services through a blended and/or fully online module addressing common problems in admissions essay construction.

Design Process

Goal Analysis

Baseline data regarding current essay process was collected through
  • Brainstorming sessions 
  • Focus groups
  • Work samples
  • Surveys​ & Interviews

Task Analysis

A topic analysis defined the facts, concepts, principles, and rules of essay construction. 
  • Interviews with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) 
  • Observation of F2F practices, attitudes & behaviors of the students

 Objective Construction

We determined terminal objectives for the online module and designed instructional strategies offering a challenge in addition to a consideration of the learner's prior knowledge. 

  • Grid of learning objectives with aligned activities and assessments 

Storyboarding

Storyboards were used to assemble the audio and visual components of the module and sequence instruction.

  • Storyboards provide guidelines for Subject Matter Experts to assist in content development, serve as a blueprint for module technical development, and act as a tool to analyze cognitive load

Development

eLearning authoring tool, Udutu, was used to develop the interactive course with text content, knowledge checks, images, audio and video. 

Evaluation

Formative evaluation with pre and post testing provided insight on the success of the training module. Students and instructors provided additional feedback through surveys.  

  • Content revision
  • Strategic planning for future training

Excerpts from "Finding Your Story" eLearning Module

(Demo) http://publish.myudutu.com/published/launcheval/47740/Course99826/Launch.html