 Instructional design methodology is really helpful in trying to plan out an online course. What's really interesting is that it maps on really nicely to some of the ideas about constructive alignment in course design and the idea of putting a lot of thought into the structure of a course. When you're designing an online course, a lot of that work, I would say in face-to-face courses also a lot of work is done up front, but that's even more important in the online environment because it has to be up there and ready to go right at the start of a course. When I'm teaching a face-to-face component, there might be certain things that I didn't get a chance to get ready by September, but in October during the fall reading week, I can spend some time getting those things ready and have them ready to go for the second half of the semester. In an online environment, you really have to have it all done in advance and so we're talking about instructional design methodology and the methodology component is really important because it's really about being methodical and it's really about planning and designing and doing all of these things in advance to make sure that everything is aligned. The other really important element of instructional design methodology is the idea that you want to make sure that you build into a course a lot of opportunity for formative assessment and feedback and a lot of opportunities for students to be interacting with the material and getting feedback on their understanding of it as they go along. That's just really good pedagogy in general. In an online environment, one of the nice things is that you can often develop that in ways where that feedback loop can be automated to a certain degree, which will help with some of the workload further down the line. So I think one of the things that happens with designing online courses is that a lot of the work gets moved up front and that's not to say it's not a lot of work as you go through. It's still teaching, it's still a lot of work, it still requires you to communicate with students to make sure that they're on track, that their understanding of the material well. But the front end of the work is a lot more heightened in an online setting. Applying an effective design methodology can really save the instructor a lot of time in the long run. If they invest some time in the careful planning, thinking through the alignment processes, the likelihood of them saving time in the long run by not wasting efforts or going down pathways where others have gone before and perhaps learned can be a great time saver for them. The design methodology really impacted the design of my course. First, in the format I had to break apart the knowledge I wanted to convey to the students in a digestible portion. So the format really impacted my teaching. So usually the lesson plan was followed, meaning a very simple, easy format, repetitive, intuitive, creating a safe space for learning and a very comfortable space for teaching as well. So for instance I would have every week an introduction video followed up by a knowledge section so slides that I narrated over. And then there was a little break, a wrap-up activity such as a quiz and or access to an archival clip and then another portion of lecture followed up by another activity and then ending with a final summary of the course. So every week were kind of the same format and not necessarily the same activities though. So the designer helped me find activities that would fit my goals but that would also be easy to assess for the students to understand the outcomes of these activities and really reach the full potential of their skills. Having a good design methodology can help to create a more balanced course. We use the community inquiry model and the outcome is often more balanced than it might otherwise be. Instructors give consideration to developing components of their course that will enhance instructor presence. They also will think more about how they're facilitating social presence for peer-to-peer interaction and of course cognitive presence. Without the design methodology as a framework they often default to considering content as the primary content delivery as the primary goal of the course but through some coaching and provision of a good design methodology they will have a picture of a course that includes all of those components.