Reading Brown & Green’s third edition of The essentials of instructional design: Connecting fundamental principles with process and practice has been an interesting experience. I’m currently in the final semester of my MS in Instructional Design and Technology at Georgia State University; this has served as both a review and a confirmation of all that I have learned across the breadth and depth of my degree. 

Without a doubt, this book provides any reader curious about the concerns and duties of an instructional designer with an excellent overview. However, if this is your first (and potentially only) foray into the field of instructional design, I fear it may take on the tone of a tsunami of names and models. Be that as it may, The essentials of instructional design is much more than that. It is an exhaustive but not exhausting introduction and provides a beginner with excellent points of departure. 

The beginning point of departure is the four-faceted definition of instructional design:

Instructional Design as a Process:

Instructional design is the systematic development of instructional specifications using learning and instructional theory to ensure the quality of instruction. It is the entire process of analysis of learning needs and goals and the development of a delivery system to meet those needs. It includes development of instructional materials and activities; and tryout and evaluation of all instruction and learner activities.

Instructional Design as a Discipline:

Instructional Design is that branch of knowledge concerned with research and theory about instructional strategies and the process for developing and implementing those strategies.

Instructional Design as a Science:

Instructional design is the science of creating detailed specifications for the development, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of situations that facilitate the learning of both large and small units of subject matter at all levels of complexity.

Instructional Design as Reality:

Instructional design can start at any point in the design process. Often a glimmer of an idea is developed to give the core of an instruction situation. By the time the entire process is done the designer looks back and she or he checks to see that all parts of the “science” have been taken into account. Then the entire process is written up as if it occurred in a systematic fashion.

Brown and Green then conduct the experienced or novice reader through topics including evaluation, creating innovative instruction, evaluation, and media production. Since the authors don’t definitively come down on the side of any particular model or theory, it allows the reader to discern what may work best in their specific situations. As an informed reader, it was wonderful to be reintroduced to concepts I have been living with over the past three years. I now have a list of original works I want to read to expand my current knowledge. It has also allowed me to reassess and think more positively about some classes that I did not enjoy or see the point of at the time I was enrolled.