A so-called `SME: or Subject Matter Expert, for helping course design thinking, is not always the one who knows most.
Keep a ‘crazy ideas list’. It will help you in many subtle ways.
Keep in mind what every sensitive teacher and designer intuitively keeps in mind: that each of us (Kiibler-Ross, 1981) has four quadrants in our make-up; the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. If we use the stimulus-response (S-R) paradigm without bearing this truth in mind, we will be using the paradigm in a mechanistic and invalid way. All four quadrants in any design decision must be respected and cared for. We ignore them, as designers, at our peril!
If your design doesn’t work, don’t blame the student who is willing to learn. Blame yourself!
Write ‘effective’, `valued’, liked’ and ‘efficient’ in your mind before you go to sleep tonight.
Do you like curious reflections? If so you might like this one from Spike Milligan (1973): ‘A lot of learning can be a little thing’. It has a lot of relevance for the decision-making of course and lesson designers.
