Microsoft Press: Academic Learning Series Instructional
Design and Author Guidelines
Task
To create a sound instructional model for Microsoft networking
textbooks used in community and trade colleges
To create and present a guideline for the authors of these titles
Goals
To redesign the series to be more appropriate for classroom
use (rather than self-paced instruction)
To increase transfer of student learning both to the
workplace and to certification exams, if applicable
To offer instructors flexibility to customize their courses
without changing textbooks
To develop a test bank with more useful questions
Challenges and Limitations
Had to be usable in classes with combined or separate
lectures and labs.
Instructors differ in teaching style, class format and
duration, and preference for hands-on learning
Most people agree step-by-step instructions aren't very useful
teaching tools, but some step-by-step instruction is necessary
Solutions
The series contains enough exercises that instructors may
choose if and when to use them all
Reduced the number of "busy work" and "follow-the-directions"
activities and increased the number of hands-on application
activities by 75%
Added three new laboratory activities to enhance student recall
and transfer:
Lab review questions - assess what students learned from
the lab exercises
Lab challenges - require students to apply knowledge learned
in lab exercises
Troubleshooting review labs - give students an opportunity
to review several chapters' worth of lab procedures, including
troubleshooting malfunctioning computer systems
Developed a method of analyzing test bank questions according
to the depth of information assessed, rather than the question
format. This means the test questions can be sorted by difficulty
and used for quizzes, tests, or final exams.
As per client request, close-ups and details of the contents of
this project are not available. However, read an article
about the series at Microsoft Press Online.
Results
Project completed in under eight weeks
Microsoft Press was exceptionally pleased
with the new guidelines from both educational and marketing
standpoints. They expect the books to be both useful and to
sell well.
Authors were excited to have a detailed
guideline that explained not only what types of
contents and exercises they needed to write, but why.
Six ALS titles will be written to this
spec and published in late 2003.
