Fall 2019 4:30

Often friends and family ask me what instructional desgin is about, and until recently I didn’t have a great answer. Something along the lines of designing training materials was usually the explanation that sufficed. Still, people usually tossed me in the basket of some technology degree. To be fair, I was an instructional technology major prior to enrolling at the M.S. ID here at Georgia State.

Fast forward four weeks, and while my explanation isn’t very smooth, I feel it is most certainly better. I now include learning objectives, determining goals and deliverables in my explanation. Yet I pair it with an example because it’s easier. I’m taking three courses this semester, and I like and appreciate how they interweave content. Behaviorism and constructivism theories can be applied when targeting the audience of instruction. There are many models and approaches (ADDIE and the like) that support this approach.

I learned that instructional design is a process that is not always linear in nature. The ADDIE model, which is friendly and linear, contains the major phases in instructional design: analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. Although due to this straight-forward layout, it is not very applicable to most situations. I think it is great for students of instructional design to begin with this because it illustrates the fundamentals of design. Most likely the Dick, Carey, and Carey model and the essential triangle of instructional design are more applicable to real world designing.

Reading chapters and watching course videos made me reflect on the needs of modification. I arrived at the notion that flexibility is key. I also draw upon my twelve years as an educator that support the needs of different learners. A lot of times, teacher adjust lessons that on paper may drip with excellence but may not connect with a particular set of students/learners. It’s the job of the instructor of course to find something that better coincides with the students/learner. I think instructional designers do the same thing. The parallel between teaching and designing is that it is learner centric.

I’m a hands-on learner and a proponent of the constructivist learning theory. Because of this, it is not a surprise that I find the case studies very beneficial. In a pivot away from summarizing chapter content, the case studies have us use problem-solving skills and applying the knowledge we gained to solve an instructional design conundrum. I need to process models and course content to better understand the intricacies of each situation. For example, in case study two, we had to deal with the sensitivity involved with workers and manufacturers handling harmful compounds. This fact alone greatly influenced the contrived audience analysis. This helped me gain a new perspective on the importance of understanding learner characteristics beyond school-aged kids. I have never taught or designed curriculum for adults and I think it’s easy (at least for me it is) to assume that because they are adults they can deal and do not need special considerations for instruction. This case study destroyed that inherent thought. I feel I have learned a great deal so far this semester and am excited about my next steps within the program.

References

Cennamo, K. (2005). Real World Instructional Design. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth/Thomson.