Shamara Madrid - Instructional Design Strategies

Given the limited about of time for this facilitation exercise and the small number of “live participants” who will be attending the session, break-out groups did not seem efficient. Problem-based learning also did not seem appropriate because this course is intended for novice wine drinkers. Instead, I decided to focus on a video and direct instruction.

The wine-making process involves lots of machinery, large facilities, and occurs over long periods of time. It would be ideal to take students to a winery to see the process in action but this is simply not feasible in a distance course where participants might be located throughout the country. Therefore, a video that is able to condense elapsed time and show the intricacies of the machines is a practical alternative. Another benefit is that multiple facilities can be shown in one video. If students visited a winery they might only see wine aged in stainless steel barrels or only see machine riddling. But by showing a video, oak barrel aging and hand riddling can also be demonstrated. The video is directed at helping students achieve the first objective, identifying the steps in the wine-making process.

Identifying the steps in the wine-making process is an enabling objective for the lesson’s terminal objective, understanding how production techniques impact a wine’s flavor. With the aid of the PowerPoint slides, the instructor-led portion of the lesson will focus on which flavors result from wine-making methods. The instructor will ask students in the class if they have flavor preferences, such as dry over sweet or light-bodied over full-bodied. Based upon their answers, the instructor will tell the students which kinds of production methods would be likely to produce a wine that matches their taste preferences.