Lesson 2: The Role of Instructional Design
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Workshop Scenario:
Please think of yourself in the following scenario as you complete this workshop.
You’ve recently applied for an instructional design position with 24/7 Teach and are going through the interview process. The organization likes you and is moving forward in the interview process.
- Before an offer can be made, the company will need you to design a project, a short lesson that can teach people about the instructional design process and its importance, to evaluate your skill level.
- To complete the project, you will need to go through the entire instructional design process from beginning to end, complete your design, and be able to explain your design process in detail.
Your objective for today is to understand the importance of instructional design and its different professional roles.
Important Questions to Answer While Reading:
In order to be successful in this lesson, you must be able to answer these important questions.
- What makes instructional design so important?
- What is ADDIE and why is it important to the instructional design process?
- What aspects of online learning make instructional design absolutely necessary?
Lesson 2: The Role of Instructional Design
You may not have been familiar with the concept of instructional design, but if you need to convey information, guaranteeing a high retention rate by your audience, then this is very important technical knowledge that should not be put aside.
As a review, Instructional Design is the process by which learning resources and experiences are developed, created, and delivered. Also known as instructional systems design (ISD), this discipline follows a multi-step approach that aims to effectively design successful curricula.
Instructional design is the practical application of teaching and learning through a systematic educational program.
Some sources describe instructional designers as the ‘architects’ of the learning experience and the ‘directors’ of the instructional systems design process.
It is common to use the terms instructional design, instructional technology, learning experience design, and instructional systems design interchangeably. This multitude of designations reveals how important these models have become during the last decades.
Even though instructional design is historically and traditionally rooted in cognitive and behavioral psychology — and goes back to the 1950s — constructivism and systems engineering have more recently influenced developments in this field. The most current branch of instructional design focuses on technology, the internet, and human-computer interaction in state-of-the-art methods of designing and delivering education.
There are many instructional design models, and most follow a five-stage system of assessing needs, designing a process, developing materials, rolling them out, and then evaluating their effectiveness. This is called the ADDIE procedure, as an acronym for its different phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.
It is also important to understand that learning resources include online courses, instruction manuals, videos, simulations, and any other format in which education takes place.
One might be tempted to associate instructional design with more complex training projects, but something as simple as a sofa-bed assembly instructions manual will probably have gone through a thorough instructional design process.
How does instructional design impact eLearning (Online Learning)?
Following the principles and steps of an instructional design model will force you to identify the purpose of your training endeavors — the ‘why you’re doing this — before you jump into action with all the ‘how will you do this.
There is a fair amount of critical thinking that needs to happen before you can successfully launch a training project otherwise, you run the risk of missing your target and wasting precious time and money.
An instructional design strategy is, in fact, a high-level approach to how something will be taught. This method will encompass the methods, techniques, and devices you will choose to instruct, and it will be deeply tied to the needs of your audience and your objectives.
There are a few specificities in online training that make instructional design indispensable to online learning:
Online learning lacks a physical trainer:
In online courses, there is no physical classroom where a trainer can gauge their learners’ involvement and tailor their delivery style according to that. Even when the online experience includes synchronous sessions, it is hard to reproduce the sensorial ambiance. Online learning aims to facilitate the same learning experience, so it is essential to design your resources in a way that they overcome the trainer’s absence.
Online learning needs to be efficient:
Nowadays, the challenge does not lie in accessing information: most of the time, information is only one search engine away. But accessing information and being able to understand it in a way that helps someone do their job is not the same. If we learn something on our own, we spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant information and extracting the important bits. It is the instructional designers’ task to help streamline and structure information to make it easy to learn and bring it to our day-to-day lives.
Online learning needs to be engaging:
Online courses have fierce competition. Different browser windows, live notifications, the lure of social media… Implementing an instructional design approach will help you avoid creating those boring ‘click next’ courses, which are not interactive at all. Because it focuses on the learners’ experience, the instructional design will make sure you create stimulating, memorable, and accurately representative experiences for your audience.
Online learners have to work hard:
In online learning, instructors assume the role of facilitators. The onus of learning lies with the learners themselves, which means the medium must help them use the learning environment and all the available resources as effectively as possible.
Given these factors, there is no denying the need to incorporate instructional design strategies in the development of online courses.
What are the typical job responsibilities of an instructional designer?
These might include working with faculty members to create and revise/recreate courses, consulting with leading companies to develop employee training materials, leading training programs, and teaching in an ID program. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some key responsibilities of instructional designers are:
- Develop and coordinate the implementation of curricula
- Assess student needs and discuss the implementation of appropriate pedagogical strategies with teachers or clients
- Review and recommend textbooks, guides, and other educational materials
- Recommend teaching techniques and the use of various technologies
- Plan, organize, and conduct client or employee trainings
- Analyze student data and test scores to assess learning
- Train teachers and other instructional staff in new content or programs
- Mentor or coach teachers to improve their skills
What are the job prospects for someone with an ID certification or degree?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment outlook for instructional designers is strong, with an 11 percent increase in positions expected between 2016 and 2026.
The recent movement towards online teaching and training due to COVID 19 has given a tremendous boost to this field, and currently Inside Higher Ed considers instructional designing to be the ‘hottest job’ in Education.
There are multiple prospects for a graduate of ID, in terms of industry and roles. These include, but are not limited to, education, corporate, healthcare and insurance, technology, and government agencies (including National Guard, Army, NASA, Border Security and NSA) with roles involving leadership, teaching, coordinating, consulting, facilitating, and service (providing design services). Some of the popular job titles affiliated with instructional design are:
- Chair of the Department of Instructional Design
- Chief Academic Officer
- Chief Learning Officer
- Clinical or Tenure Tracked Professor
- Consultant
- Course Design Manager
- Curriculum Developer
- Dean of Regional Campus
- Director of Center for Teaching & Learning
- Director of Instructional Design Librarian
- Director of Instructional Technology
- Director of Learning & Performance
- Director of Learning Design Operations
- Director of Training & Development
- Distance Education Specialist
- EdTech Curriculum Developer
- Education Program Manager
- Employee Trainer
- Human Performance Specialist
- Instructional Design Coordinator
- Instructional Technology Director
- Learning Architect
- Lead or Senior Instructional Designer
- Learning Development Manager
- Senior Researcher & Designer
- Faculty Trainer within the Field (Instructional Design, Instructional Technology, e-learning, Adult Education, Curriculum & Instruction)
- Technology Innovation Specialist
- Training Manager
Closing Assessment:
Please respond to the lesson email with answers to the following questions, and one of our instructional design mentors will respond with feedback.
- What makes instructional design so important?
- What is ADDIE, and why is it important to the instructional design process?
- What aspects of online learning make instructional design absolutely necessary?
Advance your understanding by participating in the 24/7 Discussion Forum:
1. Please answer the following question in the comment section below and interact with learners from around the world.
- In your opinion, what phase of the ADDIE design process is the most important to learning and why?
2. Please read and reply to other learners’ answers in the forum by stating if you agree or disagree with their answers and why. Your replies should offer new substantiated ideas or thoughtful questions.