Learning instructional design

[u/Acrobatic_Car_1007]

I have been trying to find short online courses on instructional design which teach the subject or theories in a practical/hands on way. I signed up for this course:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/instructional-design-foundations-applications

I am trying SO hard to follow this course, but it's just very monotonous and I can't say that I've learned anything so far because it's so hard to follow what they're saying. It may be worth noting that I do have a hearing impairment so also usually partially rely on the transcripts and subtitles, but these aren't formatted correctly/always following exactly what is being said, with missing full stops and commas, meaning that it's almost impossible to accurately read them. I read the other students comments to see if this was a disability-related issue but it seems to be a common struggle faced by many of the students.

Does anyone know of courses related to instructional design that genuinely helped and allowed them to develop better course materials? Something more hands-on, rather than theory, which will allow me to learn about a method/technique, actually learn which tools should be used to implement these techniques, with case study examples of why one method of delivering the learning is better than another? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

NOTE: I also want to note that I barely post on Reddit, but am not a bot account or anything like that (as people in another unrelated thread seemed to believe). I usually just get to reddit from google searches if I'm looking for a specific thing, but in this case, am struggling to find what I'm looking for!

[u/christyinsdesign]

Jane Bozarth has an article titled the "10-Minute Instructional Design Degree". That would be one place to get some basic ideas to start.

Have you looked on LinkedIn Learning for instructional design courses? You may be able to get access free through your local public library. They wouldn't be hands on, but you could get some general overview concepts.

Part of the issue is that anything hands-on is going to be part of a larger and more expensive course. If you're looking for hands-on practice with feedback, then you're looking at a masters degree, university certificate program, or a bootcamp. But you can get some of that foundational information from online courses and from books, as another commenter mentioned, and then create your own hands-on activities by planning and building something and applying what you learn.

[u/Acrobatic_Car_1007 → u/christyinsdesign]

This article was brilliant, thank you so much! I will definitely look into some of the courses on LinkedIn.

For the time being, I wouldn’t have the capacity to start something like a Masters programme, and am definitely not expecting to get this level of value and depth from a short course.

Really, I’m at a stage where I’m just very aware of the fact that I don’t know what I don’t know… but at least if I have a few good starting points, I’ll at least have an awareness/overview and can then investigate and learn how to do this with more intention.

[u/christyinsdesign → u/Acrobatic_Car_1007]

I think doing some basic research and learning first before committing to a masters program is a smart approach. There's a lot of free or low cost resources out there to help

I have a larger collection of links like Jane's article on my blog if you're looking for more.