If I could do all over again...

The environment was ripe for learning as I began to read the next assignment: Reiser and Dempsey, Chapters 4-6. My eyes were focused, my highlighter was working, I was actually comprehending the concepts until I got to Chapter 5. That is when I began to think about the project that gave me so many nightmares last semester in Instructional Design. My group's goal: 12th grade students will be able to construct a college application essay. Unbeknownst to us, we were designing instruction from an objectivist perspective...which I have to say was probably better for our first project. As I read about Design Research, however, I tried to imagine what would have changed about our process, our design, and our result if we had used the design research method instead. Instead of using formative assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction, "design researchers use formative experiments (pg. 48)" Although we thought that our process was quite iterative, I wonder what would have been different if we would have been able to make adjustments during the design process. One of the advantages might have been that we would have been able to make changes based on learner feedback, adjusting the design appropriately and therefore increasing its effectiveness. Of course a drawback would have been the time commitment to this type of design strategy. Whereas we were able to perform task analysis quite quickly, planning stages of design research and process between each macrocycle would have prevented us from actually completing the assignment.
So, which design practice would have worked best for learners? In Chapter 6, I tried to envision the changes to the product. What would our website have looked like if it was more constructivist? We probably would have focused on creating an environment of discovery rather than an environment of instruction. We would have had to construct an environment that was more process based rather than end-product based. For example, we could have posed the question, "How do admissions counselors determine which essays qualify for admission into a university?" Picture this: the home page is set up like an office. A counselor sits at her desk with a stack of applications. On the bookshelf behind her are her resources, similar to the ones we provided (dictionary, thesaurus, etc.) Students could explore the environment rather than being forced to create the essay step by step. Of course, the construction and explanation could have its own blog...so I will stop here for now.
Although it seems like the authors go back and forth between which approach (constructivist or objectivist) is best, I believe that both of these perspectives have the potential to effect education in a positive way.