Instructional strategies for online learning: Designing for brain hemispheric dominance

Experiential learning is an instructional strategy where learners gain knowledge by the experiences they encounter during the learning process. One of the premises of experiential learning theory, when incorporated into instructional designs, is that the experiential learning experience can actually shorten learning time. A mixed methods study was conducted that placed novice instructional designers into an online experiential learning module, which was focused on instructional strategies that promoted whole-brain learning and how this would influence the knowledge of and attitude toward designing instruction. This study further examined how novice instructional designers' knowledge of their own dominant brain hemisphericity affected their whole-brain instructional strategy choices when designing an online course. A sample of 31 community college faculty members teaching online or preparing a course to teach online volunteered to participate in this study. Data collection consisted of the McCarthy Hemispheric Mode Indicator (HMI) Score results, preevent/postevent questionnaire results, and participant reflection discussion forum comments. The principle findings of the dependent paired two-tailed t test revealed that there was a significant difference in the novice instructional designers' knowledge of designing an online course that enables whole-brain learning between the administration of the preevent/postevent Whole-Brain Learning Questionnaires with a small to medium effect size. The participant's strong desire for more professional development related to whole-brain instructional strategies and the many free text comments requesting continuous access to the experiential learning course materials after the study ended demonstrated that the experiential learning experience positively influenced their attitudes toward designing or modifying online courses using whole-brain instructional strategies. The results of the dependent paired, two-tailed t test between the preevent/postevent Instructional Strategies Questionnaires revealed that there was a significant difference in the participants' choices of whole-brain instructional strategies between the preevent and the postevent Instructional Strategies Questionnaires with a medium effect size.