Transforming Online Courses from Topic-Centered to Task-Centered: Applying M. David Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction

Session Description

Are you looking for impactful, transformative design guidelines you can use today to improve learning outcomes? Have you ever reflected on how to prioritize recommendations? Attend this workshop to see examples of how to redesign an online course or professional development session with Merrill’s First Principles (FPI) – guidelines that generalize to almost any content. This is a practitioner presentation geared towards best practices that reliably impact learning. Leave with a useful list of best practices to transform your own online instruction. 

Arrive at the session with a course, workshop, or training session that you facilitate online and want to transform from topic-centered to task-centered. Presenters will first share the results of their research, presented recently at AECT’s conference in October 2023, regarding the application of Merrill’s FPI to their online courses. Then, you, the participant, will start to transform your instruction using Merrill's FPI Diagram and Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA). This is a workshop held in two parts.

Presenter(s)

Rebecca Meeder
Full Sail University
Winter Park, FL, USA

Dr. Rebecca Meeder is currently a Course Director at Full Sail University’s Instructional Design and Technology Master's program and teaches online courses in Corporate Training & Motivational Development and Digital Media & Learning Applications. She has worked at various companies and organizations including University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Nintendo, Ellucian, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, Northwest University, and the Bellevue School District.

 

Reo McBride
Full Sail University
Winter Park, FL, USA

Dr. Reo McBride started teaching at Full Sail University in 2010. Currently, he is a Course Director in the Instructional Design and Technology Master's program. He has over 20 years experience in the field of Education and enjoys providing hands-on experiences for his students using project-centered methodologies in facilitating both teaching and training in synchronous and asynchronous learning environments.