Jason McDonald

I am a native of Provo, UT. Currently I live with my wife and youngest son in Spanish Fork, UT. Professionally, before coming to teach at BYU I worked in the instructional media industry, most recently as the director of digital products for the Deseret Book Company and a media portfolio director for the LDS Church.

I have taught both graduate and undergraduate university students. I have also taught in industry settings, both corporate and non-profit. Topics I have taught include:

• Instructional design processes (introductory and advanced)
• Integrating technology in the classroom
• Product management
• Project management
• The history of instructional design
• Instructional simulations
• Human-computer interactions, user interface design, and usability practices
• Using stories and film for culture change
• Theories of learning
• Theories of design

In my current research I study what I call the instrumentalist and calculative tendencies of contemporary education, particularly as seen in online learning and other educational technologies. By this I mean trends that prioritize the technical values of efficiency, optimization, quantification, standardization, and interchangeability, and that, in large measure, are the reasons why so much education is dull, uninspiring, rigid, and inflexible. I explore the role that many digital technologies and instructional design processes play in why and how this occurs. I also study how we can move beyond such instrumentalist values, and avoid redefining all educational issues in terms of problems that can be solved through the implementation of the right process or product. My goal is to champion an ethos of education where students and teachers together can develop their individual potentials, in contrast to systems where the primary concern is teaching competencies and enforcing standards that are the same for all.