Select Page
Hello!

I’m Mohamad ali

Instructional designer
Learning System Design & Technology

mohamadalibaba@gmail.com

Carbondale, Illinois

“Designing learning experiences that inspire and empower!”

About me

Theory & Data Driven Learning Designer & Strategist
Carbondale, IL
by Ali

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNER WITH A PASSION TO IMPROVE LEARNING

I am an experienced instructional designer and strategist with over 20 years in educational technology. My expertise includes curriculum development, online/hybrid course design, and learning analytics. I’ve served as a Lead Instructional Designer and Curriculum Specialist, where I collaborated with faculty to develop impactful courses using various LMS platforms. I emphasize data-driven design and am dedicated to fostering Universal Design for Learning in education. My work on learning outcomes assessment has been recognized across various academic institutions.

Experience

Lead Instructional Designer, Producer, & Curriculum specialist

Alpha Genesis Group

01/2023 – Present

  • Collaborate and support the development of learner analyses to determine appropriate content for the Leadership Challenge Workshop.
  • Design and develop content and evaluate training objectives, materials, and activities in consultation with the lead trainers for the Leadership Challenge Workshop.
  • Producer of Leadership Challenge Virtual training via Zoom and MS Teams platforms. 
  • Collaborate with the trainers in designing great learning experiences and effectively use multimedia, instructional methods, technology, and software.

Instructional Designer

Southern Illinois University Carbondale

09/2017 – 12/2022

  • Planned, designed, and developed courses in LMS using technologies as needed.
  • Collaborated and supported the development of learner analyses to determine appropriate assessment and course activities with faculty and subject matter experts
  • Lead the design, development, writing, editing, and evaluation of learning objectives, assessment plans, rubrics, course materials and learning activities in consultation with faculty and subject matter experts 
  • Provided pedagogical guidance in alignment with instructional design theories, as well as practical guidance on teaching and learning
  • Collaborated with faculty to design great learning experiences and effectively use multimedia, instructional methods, technology, and software; advocate for and influence faculty adoption of the same to support learner outcomes

Curriculum Developer

College of Applied Engineering and Technology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

08/2016 – 08/2017

  • Coordinated with faculty regarding program development
  • Designed a minor program in STEM Leadership for the School of Applied Engineering and Technology
  • Designed and developed learning outcomes for the program
  • Designed and developed syllabi, lesson plans, and assignments for instructors to use in class
  • Designed and developed assessment tools to measure student progress in the program
  • Consulted faculty in creating lesson plans and materials for each subject area, including textbooks and other instructional materials
  • Coordinated with the Office of Academic Provost for program review and changes

Instructional Designer

College of Applied Engineering and Technology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

01/2012 – 05/2016

    • Planned, designed, and developed courses in LMS using technologies as needed.
    • Collaborated and supported the development of learner analyses to determine appropriate assessment and course activities with faculty and subject matter experts
    • Lead the design, development, writing, editing, and evaluation of learning objectives, assessment plans, rubrics, course materials and learning activities in consultation with faculty and subject matter experts 
    • Provided pedagogical guidance in alignment with instructional design theories, as well as practical guidance on teaching and learning
    • Collaborated with faculty to design great learning experiences and effectively use multimedia, instructional methods, technology, and software; advocate for and influence faculty adoption of the same to support learner outcomes

Head of Department, Professional Development

Continuing Education Center, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

01/2008 – 12/2010

  • Coordinated with faculty and subject matter experts to teach off-campus and distance education programs.
  • Developed a Memorandum of Understanding with distance education partners throughout the country.
  • Developed INSEP (Industrial Skills Enhancement Program) for unemployed graduates.
  • Designed and implemented the INSEP curriculum.
  • Provided report of tracer study to the Ministry of Finance.
  • Lead university community service program

LECTURER

Faculty of Technical & Vocational Education, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

08/2007 – 12/2010

  • Taught educational psychology, educational technology, and microteaching for graduate and undergraduate teacher preparation program (BSc and Master in Technical and Vocational Education)
  • Supervised graduate and undergraduate instructional design projects
  • Supervised master thesis for graduate students

Head of Department

Center of Instructional Development and Multimedia, Polytechnic Premier Ibrahim Sultan Malaysia

01/2006 – 07/2007

  • Managed resources for instructional multimedia development
  • Designed and developed interactive learning materials
  • Developed audio visual materials and equipment specifications
  • Provided training for instructors
  • Technical director for graduation ceremonies and other special events which required me to manage audio and visual equipment, multi-camera production, and multimedia presentations

instructor

Department of Design and Visual Communications, Polytechnic Premier Ibrahim Sultan Malaysia

01/1999 – 07/2007

Taught Multimedia & Graphic Design
Developed Course Curriculum

Education & SKills

Skills

N

Instructional Design

N

Online & Hybrid Course Development

N

Learning Management System

N

Learning Outcomes Assessment

N

Course Authoring

N

Task Analysis

N

Video Production

N

Photography

N

Project Management

N

Authoring Tools - Captivate, Camtasia, Articulate

N

Web Design

N

Machine Learning - Supervised & Unsupervised Learning

N

Learning Analytics

N

Graphic Design - Canva, Adobe Creative Suite

Southern Illinois University Carbondale

ABD in Curriculum & Instruction (Learning System Design & Technology)

Expected Graduation – Dec 2024

Instructional Gaming, Systematic Approach to Instruction, Seminar in Behavioral & Cognitive Foundation, Instructional Development, Instructional Theory, Principle, & Practice, Learning Models for Instruction, Task Analysis, Digital Video Production, Instructional Development Studio, Inferential Statistics, Multiple Regression, Content & Learning Management System, Utilization of Educational Media

Southern Illinois University Carbondale

M.Sc. Curriculum & Instruction

2019

Advanced Child Development, Design of E-Learning, Action Research, System Approach to Instruction, Foundation of IDT, Interactive Multimedia, Curriculum Design & Development, Data Mining/Big Data Analysis, Cultural Diversity

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Master in Education

1999

Educational Psychology, Educational Technology, Educational Philosophy, Educational Sociology, Pedagogy, Assessment, Curriculum Development

The Ohio State University

B.Sc in Human Ecology

1997

Psychology, Clothing & Humanity, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Business Writing, Professional Development, Human Ecology Foundations, Health & Behavior

certificates

Instructional Design: Needs Analysis

Elearning Essentials: Instructional Design

Project Management Essentials

Ethics Training

AECT Convention Paper Reviewer

Data Driven Learning Design

ID: Working with SMEs

Cyber Security Training

Consent & Respect

MS Planner

Portfolio

Summary of my recent works in a slideshow

Previous Works

A Storyboard for a Scenario Based Learning Tutorial

Backward Design in Curriculum

Project: Improving Social Presence in Online Learning

Universal Design of Learning

Webinar: Active Learning in E-Learning

An example of my Instructional Design Journal – Click for audio narration

Mohamad Ali Design Journal

Fundamental of Leadership online

My initial proposal for this project was to design a course that can be run in both on-demand and cohort mode. However, based on the feedback, I realized it is better for the course to be designed for one mode only, and for that reason, I choose to make an online cohort mode for the Fundamental of Leadership course. However, I also keep the option to convert this course into an on-demand mode in the future. Currently, this course is only offered in a face-to-face mode. I have to redesign this traditional face-to-face course into an online mode, which can be a challenging task, as the current course is based on due dates and most of the instructions are given during the face to face sessions. The instructor is also not a fan of virtual or synchronous mode. Therefore, I cannot make a prerecorded lecture for this course. As a result, the course should be able to be delivered in asynchronous mode. One of the positive sides of this is that it allows this course to be utilized in a blended mode to support current face-to-face classroom.

Informal reflection on design and activities

For this course, I reused the readily available materials and focus on the designing process. I structured each weekly lesson into lecture, assignment, and quizzes. For contents, there are also resources from text-book publishers.

The course structures are totally different if viewed from instructor view versus students view. This is because I populate the course with additional materials just for the instructor. I stored additional materials for as guidance for the instructor to teach the course. To avoid the confusion, I made 2 different folders, one for the instructor only, and one for students only. I put the instructor resources folder in a draft mode, so the students will not able to see them. Therefore, students can only view the student resources folder, as it is published for students to view. There are also some additional folders for the students, which give specific instructions about Respondus Lockdown Browser, information about the textbook, and instructions about the two main projects in this course. I created these folders outside the normal weekly lesson, so that students can easily access them, and these folders can be directly viewed from the content menu of the D2L homepage.

As part of the design, I use D2L checklist tool as a way to help the students in accessing the course and focus on the required and the deliverables. The checklist tool allows students to record their progress throughout the course by ticking the activity that they have accomplished. It also provides a direct link to the contents and activities so that the students do not have to scroll down the menu to find the content. From a design perspective, the checklist tool can provide a lighter front end design for certain learners who do not favor a highly structured interface. From my experience, adult learners prefer checklist tool as they want a clear and easy way to navigate the Learning Management System (LMS).

Another important component that I use to redesign this course is called Condition Release. In condition release, learners will only see the next content or activity after he or she has completed the previous content or activity that we set the condition. This tool will allow instructor to set a custom learning path for students. This tool is essential for both online and on demand course. Instead of going through the course randomly, we can set a learning path and sequence thst requires students to meet all the prerequisite conditions before they can participate in the next task. For example, we can ensure that learners have mastered certain contents and submit an assignment for that content before they can take the quiz for that lesson. In an on-demand course where the learning is mostly unguided, this tool can be very effective to ensure that learners follow the proper learning sequence. In this course, one of the important prerequisite for learners in order to submit the Leadership Profile Paper is to complete the weekly reflection and actions assignments. Therefore, all of these weekly assignments are sequenced using the release condition tool. The same goes to the quizzes. Learners are required to visit the content of that particular lesson and submit the weekly assignment before they can take the quiz. In my opinion, condition release is a very important tool in online learning.

Interface Design

I customized the D2L homepage with a customized banner specifically to reflect the course. I created widgets to post important information such as for release conditions and provided the link to the checklist tool. I used a simple interface with only important information such as calendar, textbook, and course announcement.  I provided an external link at the bottom for students to access external resources.

One of the hidden but critical tool in this course is the competencies tool. With the competencies tool, I can map the course learning objectives to the learning activities and assessment tool. For example, a learning objective can be tied to the rubric that assess whether or not a student has accomplished the particular learning objective. A threshold is also set to inform the system the minimum requirement for a student to achieve the particular objective. D2L system will automatically measure the competencies achievement for each student. At the end of the day, instructor can create a report for his/her class.

Beside the tools mentioned above, the pedagogical approach for this course includes communication tools, content tools, assessment tools, and gradebook.  For this course, the contents were mostly acquired from the textbook publisher. I tried to get the instructor to record his voice over the PowerPoint but due to time constraint, this was not achieved on time. I l also added some glossary of term for the course. As a communication tool, I setup a discussion board that require student to discuss some of the topics in leadership and the lesson. The first forum is created for learners to introduce themselves to the class. There is also another forum that is dedicated for learners to post questions about the course. Based on my experience, many online students like to use this forum, especially when they were faced with difficulties in the course. This forum acts as a course support tool for the students. For the assessment, quizzes are setup for each lesson. Other assignments include weekly assignments and two term papers. The first paper is called leadership profile paper and the other one is called ethics assignment. Each paper is designed in its own folder. For example, the ethics paper folder includes the instructions, resources, URL link for external resources, and the assignment submission folder all inside the same d2l folder. This is to make sure students can navigate all the required information easily without having to scroll back and forth from one location to another in d2l. Finally, online rubrics are setup for both the assignment so that instructor can provide timely feedback to the students. The rubrics also included in the course syllabus, so that students can use them as guidelines for the term papers.

 Feedback

From the feedback from peer, I can see some improvements that can be done to the course. For example, adding small but important things such as instructor contact in the welcome announcement cannot be taken for granted. I also receive feedback of how structures the course is and can be confusing for someone who has not used D2L before. I think the use of checklist can aide in the navigating the course for new users. I can see that the checklist tool is important for learners to navigate the course. Since the course is structured for both instructor and students, it is important to see the course in a student mode. Otherwise it can be overwhelming to navigate.

Self-Evaluation

One of the tools that I use to evaluate the course is through the QM rubric. Specifically, there are rooms for improvement for all the criteria. Generally, I tried to follow the standards stated in the rubric. Some of the standards are addressed in the course syllabus. For example, some of instructions and descriptions about course overview, assessment, learning objectives, and learner support are already addressed in the course syllabus. Some of the standards are also addressed in the course delivery. For example, for the Learning Objectives, the competencies tool is used to describe and measure course learning objectives. Another rubric, quality check for online courses also provide good guidelines for designing online courses. For example, there are standards for course design, engagement, communication, assessment, and course improvement. Based on these criteria, I believe that I have to work out the engagement and course improvement criteria for this course.   For example, the online instructor and course evaluation survey can be added to the course to get feedback for continous improvement. Further improvement can be done to the content area. Adding more instructor presence such using screencast can improve course engagement especially to an online course. However, this will require commitment from the course instructor.

Overall, I think that this course follows the instructional design requirement for a cohort based online course. It is a challenging task to convert a face-to-face to an online course, as there are many factors that need to be considered. However, with feedbacks and rubrics, the processes are made easy and systematic.

 

Promotional Video for An Online Course

The Exposure Triangle Tutorial Storyboard

Guidelines for Managing Asynchronous Discussion

Presentation at AECT 2020

Testimonials

In addition to his instructional design and curriculum development expertise, he has become known across campus for his expertise in learning outcomes assessment using the D2L platform. He has been invited to present twice at the SIU Assessment Conference and led a competencies assessment workshop. Currently, he has implemented a plan to achieve an integrated school-wide competencies assessment program and report that spans our on-campus, off-campus and online programs. He also assists our school director in preparing the annual accreditation report. In the process, he has developed a competencies assessment template for the school, which could also be used across the entire university. His dependability and willingness to take initiative played an integral role in the rapid growth of our school’s online and blended learning system. In that time, he has helped us launch both of our undergraduate degrees and our master’s degree online through D2L; making our school’s online programs one of the most successful, profitable and admired on campus.

Bruce DeRuntz, Ph.D

Professor & Director of Leadership Development , Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Mr. Ali has impressed me in consulting with faculty on translating traditional college courses into online courses. He knows the area and has fine people skills.

Peter J. Fadde, Ph.D

Professor & Chief Science, Southern Illinois University & gameSense Sports

Mohamad Ali depth of knowledge of distance education and its related technologies using Desire2learn and Adobe Connect was fantastic in assisting me to create this totally new course. He went beyond his time with me to then create a Youtube video that explains the course ! He was a pleasure to work with and I already miss our weekly meetings discussing how to structure an on-line course ! Thank you Mohamad

Shannon McDonald

Associate Professor, Southern Illinois University

My Diversity Statement

“Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness.” – Ola Joseph

My commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in academia is grounded in my years of teaching, leadership, and service to the community. Diversity and equal opportunities can empower people to improve their lives, and education plays an essential role in preparing learners to meet the needs of diverse communities. Growing up as a minority in my home country inspired me to help others. Studying and working in Malaysia and the United States has made me more appreciative, respectful, understanding, and accepting of differences, both inside and outside the classroom. I have seen how a diverse team can make academia stronger and more creative. At Southern Illinois University, I was involved in PRIDE (Promoting Respect through Inclusiveness and Diversity Excellence), a registered student organization aiming to help students and faculty understand and learn about each other. These multicultural experiences have provided me with valuable skills and informed my approach to implementing diversity and inclusion in the classroom, where I try to understand and accommodate the uniqueness and strengths of each learner. I value, for example, that some second language learners are more reflective and can contribute more through asynchronous discussion. Therefore, I am a proponent of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, which provides a flexible learning environment that offers learners multiple ways of representation, engagement, action, and expression. Through engagement, understanding, and respect, I believe I can contribute to the process of embracing diversity and inclusion.

mohamadalibaba@gmail.com

ali@mohamad-ali.com