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Justification Paper

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User assumptions:!

This Unit of Instruction is for Korean university students in their mid twenties whose second language is English. They have a high assumed knowledge of English reading level. Students are in their third and fourth year. There are no second or rst year students in this class." Since the students are learning the subject in their second language (L2) group discussions are usually in Korean. There are 40 students in the class. The students are part of a foreign language university. The majority of students in this particular class are majoring in International Business or Translation and Interpretation (English, French, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic Majors). These students have interest in gaining employment or employment experience/internships overseas. They also may be interested in companies that do business internationally thus needing the training on intercultural competence.!

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Graphic descriptions:!
Here are some representations of the graphics I developed for this Learning Unit. It does not include everything that I attempted to design, but what I decided to use.!

! Website:! ! !

The website, comes from the amazing free service of www.weebly.com. There are some already built design concepts in using this service but I chose it so that I could focus on the objectives of the lesson. Using the service, allowed me to easily use the design concepts of repetition and consistency to help learners increase their comfort level and know where they are on the site (Williams, p145).!

! Unit Introduction:!

This is the nal revision to this graphic. It started out so much more complex, but more complex while may appear visually appealing in some aspects might not be as good for learning. This more simple design is much better for learning. Shapes and emoticons to help learners understand quickly the steps in culture shock.!

Lesson 1:!

Information Source Hofstede, 2010

Information Source Hofstede, 2010

These graphics are used in the powerpoint le for lesson one. Originally line drawings in the picture sparse text, I used gray scale colors to better show differences, as well as added lines to the triangle diagram to help show relationships better. !

! Lesson 2:! !

The graphic reads like a map with the shapes to show which element the learner is reading about, they are present to help convey this idea (Lohr, p.80). The alignment is important so that it is clear where the learner should end up. The colors are consistent with the rest of the graphics produced. In this lesson there is more reading involved, the spacing and alignment of the accompanying text was very important. I had tried some visuals to represent what each cultural dimension meant. But this takes away from the varying degrees of the elements in each culture, such as there are elements of individuality in cultures that are known to be collectivistic. I currently live in a culture that scores low on the INDV, but people here are not robots as the graphic sometimes will portray. This goes with my own culture, while INDV is high, there are aspects of low INDV in certain situations. !

Lesson 3:!

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The header graphic that includes the world map, adds color to the grayscale theme. This is to show how different each culture can be and represents the spectrum of possible interactions.!

Design process:!
I have learned, design is an activity or process that people engage in that improves the quality of their subsequent creations (Smith 2012). I nd that in the design process, I am plagued by a realization that I could always make changes and adjustments to improve or make better the elements that I have chosen to help my students learning. My personal development in this course has revealed to me that beyond nding what is aesthetically pleasing, there are techniques that I can use to evaluate a design or learning material that can align with learning theories that can reduce the cognitive complexity of information (Lohr 2008). It is impossible at this stage for me to be able to

be a designer that can be rough draft as nal draft, I am constantly revising my work. However, now I have learned the research that will help me make better instructional design choices to minimize this. The following explanations are what I consider now for each design element.!

! ! Typography:! ! ! Shape:! !

This unit is very reading intensive and there are many , because it is partially being delivered online. It was important to use a serif font. The template I used for the Weebly site had a default font of Georgia, which is a serif font. Many believe that serif fonts are more legible on computer based presentations or instruction (Lohr, p 221). !

In addition to the puzzle pieces the graphic used for lesson 2. The purpose is to make a visual of the steps one goes through when experiencing culture shock. The shapes chosen are both"provide direction"(Lohr, p. 254) and"show a process"(Lohr, p. 253). Black, white and grays were chosen to symbolize the struggle and the clear shape at the end meaning the process is complete.The display shape chosen is a square because of the balance of the shapes used (Lohr, p256). The circle is easy going, the cloud represents confusion, the triangle represents danger, the curved square moves us back toward understanding, while not perfect and the clear circle is the rarely attained ideal.!

! Selection:! ! !

On this lesson I attempted to create a guided hierarchy so that users would be able to remember the order and acronym for each cultural dimension. I had originally tried to make graphics to illustrate the hierarchal philosophy of chunking to help the learner think about the information in a meaningful way (Lohr p. 125). But, one of the problems with abstract theories is not every situation is necessarily the same and while ! Since the theory behind it ones from research that suggests that sort term memory can only handle small pieces of information at a time, chunking seeks to minimize this and help the mind loose less information (Lohr. p. 25).!

! Color and depth:! !

My use of color is not very prevalent. This is because mostly that color is really unnecessary and that I am colorblind. As Lohr points out, it is important to use color when color is important for the learning task or performance context (p. 266). Color is not necessary for the lesson objectives. !

Organization:!

I also used CARP principles in my development of each of the dimension headers. C is for contrast: Contrast is used for each of the puzzle pieces, by establishing difference of the specic element that is being highlighted, this includes the contrasting puzzle piece of the larger and darker puzzle piece for the dimension the graphic (Lohr, p. 201). A is for alignment: The the text in the graphic is aligned right and consistent thought the graphic to make it easier to read (Lohr, p. 197). R is for repetition: The puzzle pieces are repeated as well as the graphic itself is repeated for each cultural dimension. The content type of describing the sections of uncertainty avoidance, is repeated. Repeating shapes and the direction of text implies relationships (Lohr, p. 203). P is for proximity: When elements are close together they give a sense of relating (Lohr, p. 203). The chosen proximity to these graphic elements shows how taking a section of the puzzle and brining it forward to show what that section of the puzzle means.!

! ! Color and space: ! ! ! ! !

While not using color, I do use the elements of white space to make the lessons easier to read. Space is an important tool for clarifying text (Lohr, 2008). Since this Unit uses mostly text, it was important to use space effectively. Alignment in the website is also consistent to make it easier for the learner to navigate. !

References!
Hofstede, G. (2010). Cultures And Organizations: Software For The Mind, Author: Geert ! Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov.! Hofstede, G. J., Pedersen, P., & Hofstede, G. H. (2002)."Exploring culture: Exercises, stories, and synthetic cultures. Yarmouth, Me: Intercultural Press.! Lohr, L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance, lessons in visual literacy. Prentice Hall. ! Smith, Patricia L. (2012-10-10). Instructional Design, 3rd Edition (Wiley/Jossey-Bass Education) (Page 330). Wiley. Kindle Edition. ! Williams, R., & Tollett, J. (2006)."The Non-designer's web book. (3rd ed.). Berkeley, California: Peachpit Press.