| | JANUARY 20258Dr Samuel Mormando is the director of Technology, Innovation, and Online learning for the Garnet Valley School District in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. Sam earned his doctorate in educational leadership from Widener University and was honoured by the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) as the 2020 K­12 Innovation Award Winner. Under his leadership, Garnet Valley has become nationally recognized for innovative teaching practices, including its adoption of open education resources (OER) and the development of a student-centred course design process that allows students to take courses in the traditional face-to-face, online, or blended formats.The difficulties educators experienced during and after the pandemic is a failure of our educational system-- not schools, not principals, and certainly not teachers. Inequitable access to technology, inconsistent funding, and the lack of federal and state support during the pandemic left many schools treading water.Even before the pandemic, we saw teachers overwhelmed at balancing the federal and state mandates, district initiatives, and school-specific goals landing squarely on their shoulders. We sometimes forget that teachers have full-time jobs teaching students in their classrooms. Adding more things to their plates, as good and as well-meaning as they may be, only adds more weight to an incredibly difficult job. Seeing that, we created the effectively designed instruction (EDI) professional learning framework to help tie those mandates and initiatives together and to help support teachers with what we believe is good teaching. The four themes of EDI are Building Student Interactions, Designing Learning Experiences, Presenting Content, and being mindful of accessibility as we work to personalize the learning experience for all students. The EDI Professional Learning Framework is not intended to be all-encompassing, and it is certainly not the panacea for all the complexities that go into educating students. This professional learning structure is intended to provide a sturdy foundation for what good teaching and intentional instructional design should look like in classrooms today. Why the focus on intentional design? When reduced to its simplest form, great instruction is the result of brilliant design and great delivery. Design and delivery go hand in hand; we cannot have one without the other. A well-designed lesson will go nowhere without great delivery, and a well-delivered lesson will inevitably be met with questions and confusion if not designed well.Many schools spent the pandemic emphasizing the importance of using common nomenclature and folder structures in their school's learning management system (LMS) to help students access their work. These items were critical to ensuring students could easily navigate the digital classroom. Coming out of the pandemic, it is not enough to just focus on LMS organization. If schools are to meet the needs of every student and allow learning to take place in any format, we must focus on being intentional about instructional design. There are many instructional design models teachers can follow when creating their digital lessons. The components are similar, whether using the ADDIE model, Kemp Design, ASSURE, or something else. These components often include analysis, design, development, and evaluation, to intentionally design resources for students that are easy to locate, engaging, and can be accessible to all students. Intentional design is learner-centered; and a way of thinking, developing, and implementing quality instruction to improve the learning experience for the end user. Put more simply; the intentional design is the focus on user experiences. Intentional design encompasses all the components of excellent teaching. It defines what and how teachers deliver their instruction, how they facilitate interactions with and IN MY OPINION Dr Samuel MormandoFOCUS ON USER EXPERIENCES BY FOCUSING ON INTENTIONAL DESIGNBy Dr Samuel Mormando, Director of Technology, Innovation, and Online Learning, Garnet Valley School District
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