A Practitioner Guide on Backward Design Application for Online Aviation Training in Higher Education

Abstract

The aviation industry experienced a significant growth over the years. Such growth was supported by a highly knowledgeable workforce, which presented various skills, including problem-solving and decision-making. The need for a highly skilled workforce led an aviation-focused university located in southeast USA to provide students with learning opportunities to hone those skills to succeed in the industry. This chapter explains the process through which those learning opportunities are created. It presents a practitioner's guide on how that university is designing online courses for the aviation industry. The entire design and development process and the theories supporting it, such as Backward Design and authentic learning, are thoroughly discussed. The chapter also presents several challenges negatively impacting the successful design of those courses and how those challenges can be mitigated so instructionally-sound online courses are created.