Communication Skills

• Communicate effectively in written, oral, and visual formats.

• Produce clear, concise, and grammatically correct messages.

• Produce visuals that adhere to the principles of message design

As an instructional designer, it's essential to learn and utilize tools that will help with clear communication and enable the development of instruction tailored to the specific requirements of the learner audience. Chess is appealing to all ages and skill levels, but it requires knowledge of maneuvering multiple pieces, intricate game rules, setup, and a variety of possible outcomes that ends a game. This complexity may deter or confuse a novice player, unlike learning a less complicated game like checkers. This microlesson targets anyone aspiring to learn chess fundamentals, which can be a broad target audience. To accommodate for this larger target audience of diverse learners, I applied message design principles of keeping the critical information simple, memorable, and easily understood ensuring more meaningful learning material. Effective communication was used throughout the microlesson in both written and visual formats enabling novices to start playing the game or providing a refresher for intermediate players.

Design Skills

• Generate appropriate instructional strategies and activities.

• Apply interaction design principles.

• Design assessments to measure learning and performance.

• Use visual design principles appropriately.

When creating a micro-lesson, instructional designers should develop content that is relevant, engaging, concise, and tailored to the learning objectives of the target audience. They must have familiarity with instructional design principles to provide guidance and maximize the learning outcomes. The overall design of the micro-lesson, from content to assessments, was to facilitate participants achieving the learning objectives laid out in the beginning of the course. Design choices for this microlesson followed Richard Mayer’s principles to enhance instructional goals: reducing extraneous processing, managing essential processing, and fostering generative processing. For example, following the coherence principle, I minimized distractions by omitting non-essential material. Adhering to the segmenting principle, lessons were chunked down into learner paced segments. The personalization principle was employed, using a conversational tone throughout the course to promote learner engagement. The graphics and illustrations that were provided on screen with corresponding words (e.g., the full chessboard set up with labeled pieces slide, Rook special movements castling diagram) were placed near each other following the spatial contiguity principle. 

Designing effective assessments, including quizzes, activities, and knowledge checks, enables instructional designers to evaluate learner comprehension and reinforce learning outcomes within the microlesson. The lesson includes assessments at the beginning and end. The initial assessment introduces topics and evaluates prior knowledge. At the lesson's conclusion, another quiz assesses learning. Quizzes feature multiple-choice questions, drag-and-drop tasks, and organization exercises. Feedback is provided for incorrect responses, allowing learners to review correct answers.