5th Grade Art Curriculum:
Color Theory
Fall 2025 | Google Classroom, Camtasia, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign
What is this project?
As part of my graduate studies at the University of Tampa, I co-developed "The Psychology Behind Colors," a blended-learning solution designed to shift 5th-grade learners from intuitive use of color to intentional visual communication through the application of color psychology. I completed this project in the class "Introduction to Instructional Design". The goal of this project was to design and develop an instructional solution based on conceptual content. The project required strong attention to detail, theoretical consideration (both instructional and learning), and data-driven decision-making. My project addressed a specific performance gap: students recognized colors but lacked the conceptual framework to apply them strategically to influence emotion. By leveraging a hybrid delivery model, we transformed a traditional art lesson into a scalable, access-driven instructional experience that uses audience-relevant media, imagery, and examples to help learners construct understanding through constructivist maker-based learning.
How did I prepare?
First, my team and I designed a needs analysis, a document that consolidates our analysis of the current problem at hand, context, and audience, and turns data into active insights. To complete this, our research included information about the audiences, context, and more. To ensure pedagogical alignment, we used our needs analysis insights to define theoretical applications and models. Our team utilized Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction and Constructivist Learning Theory to scaffold the 60-minute curriculum, making it a structured yet engaging design that constantly considered the target audience's learning process and preferences. Additionally, by following this model, we aimed to make the instructor's experience more manageable by breaking content up into strategic modules. We then refined our final instructional objectives, task analysis, and assessment strategy, the final step to ensure alignment across all design decisions.
How did I put my plan into action?
Once we developed a comprehensive understanding of the audience, context, task, knowledge gap, stakeholder preferences, theoretical framework, and application of learning psychology, we felt confident moving from the design phase to the development step. We decided to follow a flipped-classroom model, introducing the learning experience digitally to students for the first 3 modules (30 minutes) in Google Classroom to establish foundational knowledge, and then encouraging maker-based instruction in face-to-face meetings for the final 3 modules (30 minutes). While developing the learning experience, we created digital instructor guides, ensuring clarity and complete transparency. Additionally, we created student-centered guides, knowledge checks, interactive discussion boards, and interactive Camtasia videos. Each piece of student-facing media made special consideration of audience relevance because our research indicated its importance. To do this, we used audience-relevant media, including movies, shows, and characters, to not only increase engagement and attention but also content retention through relatability. This dual-modality approach allowed us to maximize face-to-face time for real-world application, social learning, and gamification. When developing this media, we also considered student accessibility, ensuring each deliverable employed a multimodal approach and met WCAG standards.
What were my results and lessons?
This project was a success and an invaluable learning experience; following my project group's final presentation and delivery of the instructional solution, our team achieved a 100% score. This experience helped me develop an ability to use research across all instructional dimensions to inform my decisions and create a learning experience. Moreover, this experience helped me further develop my collaboration skills, such as providing and receiving feedback, working remotely, and practicing open communication. Although this project offered a wonderful opportunity to practice my ability to follow a strategic design process to create an effective learning experience, the greatest lesson I learned was to always consider the audience experience, including the learners, instructor, and other stakeholders. We approached our project through this intentional lens, allowing our deliverables to resonate with learners, instructor guides to define learning experiences clearly for the teacher, and aligned assessments.