ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a couple of ways that the 'instructional designer' (ID) expertise may be invaluable to faculty in the context of globally networked learning environments or courses (GNCs) model. Networked learning defines the 'pedagogical ecology' of most GNC courses. The instructional designer-faculty course developer relationship is as fraught with challenges and opportunities as any professional practitioner-client relationship. The traditional, systems instructional design model for designing GNCs is thought by some to be too rigid and often contrasted with an approach that advocates a more emergent design process and concomitant 'improvisational' teaching method, or 'Hybrid Pedagogy'. The ID plays a key part in codesigning the course architecture for significant or rich learning to emerge, but the faculty have to be emboldened to improvise in order to take advantage of it and recognize the teachable moments-or, in other terms, know when to improvise.
