Instructional design is relatively a new field. In my journey as an Instructional designer, I have had a difficult time explaining what I do often after I have corrected people that instructional design is not interior design and no I do not design homes! You cannot really blame the people who do not get it. Let me share a personal experience about instructional design.
Sometime ago, before I took a professional dive in Instruction design, I used to think of instruction design as designing eLearning course materials. I really thought how hard could that be? You just need to collect some PowerPoint slides, record voice and publish it, voila! You have a course. Instructional design is not a job title that resonates with most people including the ones in Learning and development, educators and trainers.
For the sake of peace, love and unity I vowed to pioneer the profession and share my Instruction design knowledge with whoever is interested. Let me take you through instruction design, what exactly is it. I promise I will not use a book definition to tell you what it is and for your own sake I humbly ask you to skip instruction design as a topic in your first date.
Here are the four truths you need to know as an instructional designer
- Instruction design is a professional field. Instructional designers are professionals who have systematic skills and tools to understand learners, develop effective standalone instructional materials and conduct evaluation (Cennamo, K., & Kalk, D. 2005).
- Instructional designers are responsible for designing efficient and effective learning content to make learning more meaningful. Instructional designers use their knowledge of learning theories and instructional theories to design learning solutions that help learners learn more effectively.
- Often instruction design is associated with online learning as instructional designers work at the intersection of learning and technology through the use of multimedia and learning management systems, authoring tools.
- Instructional design is versatile and dynamic (Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2013). Every company and every industry needs an expert who can help develop and implement effective training practices. The career path is very promising with possibilities to manage design projects, work with different instructional designers, producers, subject matter experts in a wide range of industries.
- Within the instructional design field, there are specializations e.g. specialists who only conduct formative evaluations or write assessments, there are also instructional designers specialized in corporate personnel.
- Instructional designers (ID) can play a variety of roles. Cennamo, K., & Kalk, D. 2005 identifies three ID roles: staff instructional designer (the classic ID, a person who performs the work of the five elements and five phases of design), a project coordinator, a designer/developer/artist. I have finally been able to identify myself as a staff Instructional designer.
Being in the field, I strongly believe that the most important learning for all Instructional designers should be ‘’to be learners at heart’’. Think in the learner perspective, put yourself in their shoes, imagine how think as they learn and process materials. When you design remember that you have your signature on the design, whatever you have created says a lot about who you are in your learners shoes, says a lot about how you have been able to bring in technology to aid your learners learning process, how your understanding of learning and instruction is effectively assisting the learner and the community as a whole to learn better!
Sources
Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2013). Designing effective instruction (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Chapter 1, “Introduction to the Instructional Design Process”
Cennamo, K., & Kalk, D. (2005). Real world instructional design. Canada: Wadsworth.
Stories from the field retrieved from: http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/Walden/EIDT/6100/CH/mm/eidt6100_instructional_design.html
Sources
Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2013). Designing effective instruction (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Chapter 1, “Introduction to the Instructional Design Process”
Cennamo, K., & Kalk, D. (2005). Real world instructional design. Canada: Wadsworth.
Stories from the field retrieved from: http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/Walden/EIDT/6100/CH/mm/eidt6100_instructional_design.html
