Determining structural considerations

Determining the structural considerations of an educational product is a procedure that helps designers identify the structural and technical guidelines that will dictate what kinds of learning activities and technologies can be used based on the duration, setting, and timing expectations of the product.

This procedure will guide designers through identifying each of the primary structural components of a design. These primary structural components are fundamental to a product's scope as they determine the ways that participants are expected to interact throughout their participation with the product. Thus, the structural considerations set the stage for what kinds of activities can be designed for the participants to engage in.

About this procedure

In this procedure, designers can follow steps to critically think about and define the primary structural elements that describe their product and the types of interactions that it will feature. In most cases, the real-life situation in which the product will be deployed dictates many of the structural aspects. For example, the amount of money available for the project will often relate to how much time a person can teach or what kinds of advanced technologies can be used, which will influence the duration and setting of the product. Similarly, a design with an audience that is separated geographically and unable to meet in a physical location will likely automatically have to adopt an online setting for the product.

Figure 1. Basic Structural Elements of an Educational Product. The basic structural considerations (the gray box) of an educational product primarily define the product's composition. The three structural elements of duration (i.e., for how long), setting (where), and timing (when) largely determine what kinds of activities, technologies, and interfaces can be designed for the project (how learning will happen). Furthermore, the audience considerations (who) and the learning objectives (what) also shape the structural elements. As such, these three structural considerations substantially define a project's scope.

As seen in Figure 1, this procedure helps instructional designers think about the structural elements considerations of their product. The structural considerations are the primary defining categories of how a product is shaped and what types of activities or interactions it can have. The structural considerations (or elements) can be determined in any order, but they need to each be defined before designing interactions so that the design matches with the expected level of interaction.

First, a design will need to consider its duration, or for how long it will be used (Step 1). The expected amount of time that will be spent with the learning product will determine the depth of activities and content that will be explored with the product. Second, a design needs to have its setting defined, or where the activity will be located, to know where the learning experience will take place or where the learning environment is located (Step 2). This will determine the range of possible activities based on whether the activities will take place in a physical environment (such as a classroom or outdoors), online or on a device (such as through an online course or video game), or as a hybrid mix of the two settings.

Third, a designer needs to consider the expected timing of the interactions from participants, or when people are expected to participate (Step 3) to ensure that activities match the level of expectation of whether a person will interact in real time (i.e., synchronously), or at different times (i.e., asynchronously). A designer should also determine the frequency or number of times that people are expected to participate over the duration.

Finally, in Step 4, designers should review the three structural elements of duration, setting, and timing to make sure that they align, as well as being realistic and feasible with each other.

If determining the audience identifies who is using an educational product, and the learning objectives define what will be learned and why, then the structural components identify when, where, and for how long the people will use the product. These are defined so that the designers can make sure that they work within this scope of the product before they design the activities, technologies, and media for learning. This saves a bunch of time, stress, and resources by identifying these key structural features early in the planning and design process.

Instructions

For this procedure, you can complete the steps in any order, as long as each step is considered. You may need to revise these steps as you discover more information about your audience, design constraints, and learning objectives of the project's scope. The goal is to get each of these four elements of the project scope to align.

In the following steps, you can find additional links to sub-steps and tasks. The tasks that first-time instructional designers should focus on are marked with the ✳️ green star emoji. An orange star emoji ✴️ is a more advanced task that will give you a more robust plan and consider more of the aspects that will lead to a stronger product, but beginners can pass on the advanced tasks to keep their planning simpler.

Any ❔ Questions to answer sections provide you with prompts and ideas to help you work through and think about each step. If you need inspiration or ideas, consider the questions to answer section and work through each item.

When something says to 📓 Document, be sure to jot down your notes, make lists, and document your work so that you will have a record of your decisions. You will use your notes to specifically develop your design specifications, but the notes may also be useful for any reports, proposals, or other documents that you may need to create that describe your design. Don't forget to include the current date on your notes!

✳️ Step 1: Determine the duration

In this step, you will determine what the duration of your product will be. In other words, you will determine for how long a person or a group is expected to participate with the product. The amount of time that someone spends on a learning task is certainly related to whether they learn or not, especially if the content being learned is complex or potentially confusing. Much research has been done that shows the longer that someone participates in learning activities, the more likely they will learn.

However, the luxury of long-term participation is not always possible for many designers. For museum exhibits, the amount of time spent by a person to learn may be measured in just a few mere seconds. For classroom learning, participation in activities can span multiple days, but also likely competes with other school schedules and subject studies. Therefore, a designer should seriously consider for how long a person can reasonably be expected to use the product or participate in the activities.

Consider the audience that you defined in previous procedures to think about how long your product may be used. If you are aiming to have the product be used in a classroom setting, how long should the interaction be? If it is a lesson, it may only last a few minutes to a day, but if you are designing a unit or a long-term course, it could span over multiple days. Some educational games can be played repeatedly over a course of weeks, months, or even years. Some educational programs like college degrees span 2 to 6 years or more, depending on the degree.

Determine the duration for your product and critically think about how much time your audience reasonably has to participate with the activities.

❔ Questions to answer. To help you in this step, answer the following questions:

1. What duration is commonly used for products similar to that which I'm making? This can help determine what an appropriate duration might be.
2. How much time does a person from my audience typically have to learn new things? How much time can I reasonably expect from them before they either lose interest, move on, or become disengaged?
3. If the product will be used in a school or classroom setting, how much time can you realistically allocate to the activity that is proportional to the learning objectives that you determined?
4. What, then, will be the duration range for the product? How long should it be expected to last.
5. Can some people participate for longer or shorter durations if they desire - is this feasible? If the product is implemented by a teacher in a classroom and the activity is over, this is not likely possible. Similarly, for a museum, a person can spend more time than average at an exhibit learning about something, but can't stay at the museum past closing time. On the other hand, a person can play an educational game on their device for as long as they desire (although there will be an average amount of time that people play).

📓 Document the duration for a typical participant's use of the product. If the product is a course or class, document the duration for the course. If the product is an activity, game, or app, document the expected amount of time that an average person would use it. Also document any possible range in the duration based on people's interests and how they might individually use it.

✳️ Step 2: Determine the location setting

In this step, you will define the location, or setting, of where people will interact in the learning activities. The setting of the learning experience is concerned with where learning takes place, be it in a physical location or on a computer screen.

You will need to determine whether the activities and product will require participants to interact face-to-face, digitally via a device, online, or through a hybrid mix of these settings.

Consider the types of interactions that you desire for your product and whether people will use any technologies while participating.

In face-to-face settings, determine the locations where learning will occur. This could be in a classroom setting, but could also be in the outdoors, in a museum, in a business meeting, or at a conference.

In online settings, consider the types of devices that people might interact with. If people will interact with other people digitally, this will involve online spaces for communication, collaboration, and sharing. Begin to think about where online interactions could occur (on a website, on an app, on social media, etc.)

In hybrid settings, you can take advantage of the opportunities that both face-to-face and digital/online settings have to offer by mixing up the types of interactions for different times during the learning experience. For instance, some classroom activities can occur, but learning activities can be extended outside of the classroom by encouraging participants to have conversations and collaborate in online spaces as well.

❔ Questions to answer. To help you in this step, answer the following questions:

1. Where are the places that your participants will interact? These are the location settings for your product. Face-to-face and online interactions come with different abilities and constraints, so this needs to be decided as early as possible so that the activity design can match with the scope of the project.
2. Sometimes it can help to think of the location settings as a scene from a movie or play - unique locations that people interact in. What are the different locations or scenes that people will participate in? Are there different screens, apps, or physical spaces that people will interact in? What kinds of different scenes can you think of that you might use with your learning environment, both online and face-to-face?

📓 Document the location setting(s) that your product will use. If your product will be in a face-to-face or physical setting, also try to document ideas of where the people will participate (e.g., in a classroom, a museum exhibit, in the outdoors). If your product is in an online setting, try to document ideas of where a person will interact (e.g., via a website or via an app).

✳️ Step 3: Determine the expected timing of interactions

In this step, you will determine how quickly participants will be expected to interact with each other, with teachers, and with computers. In this structural element, the focus is on determining when interactions are expected to occur and how much interaction is expected over the duration of the activity (i.e., frequency).

In face-to-face settings, interactions are almost always synchronous, or that they occur in real time.

In online and other technology-based settings, interactions can indeed be synchronous and live, but also asynchronous where people interact at different times and at staggered schedules. There can be wait times in between asynchronous interactions, and that is expected and acceptable if this is a part of the design.

Examples of synchronous interaction include real-time conversation, instant messaging, video calls, webinars, and real-time collaboration among groups. Conversely, asynchronous interaction examples include email, message forums, letter writing, taking turns in games, and making collaborative edits to documents or projects but not in real time simultaneously.

Synchronous, real-time interactions are rich and increases social presence, but it can be difficult to require all the participants to participate at the exact same time. Similarly, real-time interactions, especially in digital settings, can be overwhelming with too much information being taken in at one time (such as too many people on an instant messenger chat or a video call).

Asynchronous interactions help alleviate some of these challenges, but they can conversely feel more distant and people do not seem as "present" as in the synchronous mode. However, asynchronous interactions allow for greater schedule flexibility and perhaps a greater degree of participation and learning potential if live, real-time interactions are otherwise not possible.

Choosing between synchronous and asynchronous communications always involves tradeoffs, but this should be determined before the design phase as this structural element significantly determines what kinds of activities can be done in the learning environment.

Also related to timing of interactions, designers should consider how frequently, or how much a person should be expected to participate over the duration of the activities. If activities are asynchronous, is once a day, once a week, or even once a month a sufficient frequency of participation? This question is up to designers to decide, as it will set the tone for what kinds of activities that can be planned during the design phase. To consider the frequency of participation, the audience should be considered as to how much time they reasonably have available for participation in the learning activity and determine frequency from there.

❔ Questions to answer. To help you in this step, answer the following questions:

1. Think about the differences between real-time and asynchronous interactions. Both come with their own benefits, but also challenges.
2. Decide whether you will use synchronous or asynchronous interactions between people in the activities. These interactions include participants interacting with other participants, as well as teachers interacting with participants. If you create a solo activity in which a person just interacts with media or computer devices, then there is no need for synchronous or asynchronous interaction.
3. Determine how frequently a person might be expected to participate and engage with the activities over the duration of their use of the product. If the product will be used in a classroom setting, how frequently should a person be expected to engage with other participants and the teacher? If it will be in an online, asynchronous setting, what are some of the expectations for how much a person should interact to have a satisfactory level of participation?

📓 Document whether you will have synchronous or asynchronous interactions in your product among participants, or both. Also document the frequency that you expect both participants and instructors to interact in the activities (which is related to the duration defined in Step 1, and the audience that is defined in another process).

✳️ Step 4: Make sure that everything is aligned

For each of the above elements of duration, you need to determine whether they are aligned with each other and "flow well." Flowing well with each other means that each of the elements do not contradict the other elements, creating an impossible situation for designing activities that will work for learning.

For instance, if you are doing a face-to-face museum exhibit, it might be difficult to do a long-term duration learning activity or focus on a learning objective that requires a substantial amount of effort to learn.

Similarly, in classroom settings, it is difficult to study a complex topic in a short duration, especially if the participation among people is asynchronous and low frequency in an online setting.

Critically consider whether each of the structural elements "fit" with each other, as well as the audience and learning objectives that you have defined.

❔ Questions to answer. To help you in this step, answer the following questions:

1. In what ways do the three elements of duration, setting, and timing flow well together?
2. Are any of the three elements at odds or present a tension with each other?
3. Revise your three structural elements until they flow well and are aligned with each other.
   

📓 Document any notes about why the three elements of duration, setting, and timing are aligned with each other, as well as why they are aligned with the learning objectives and audience that you defined in earlier procedures.

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