Is this instructional design?
January 6, 2010
A reader named Michaela recently emailed to ask what an instructional designer does. She will be receiving a technical degree soon and thinks she might be interested in this field. This is a good question to answer at the start of the year for all of those readers who are curious about this career.
There are lots of debates online regarding the value of instructional designers. My real-world experience points to this as a great and growing field. Sure, instructional designers need to get unstuck, grow and shift things around. But that’s the fun part!
For those of you who are experienced at design, please add your comments below so we can give Michaela and other newbies a broad perspective. Here’s mine.
What is instructional design?
Instructional design is the process of identifying the skills, knowledge, information and attitude gaps of a targeted audience and creating or selecting learning experiences that close this gap, based on instructional theory and best practices from the field. Ideally, workplace learning improves employee productivity and value and enhances self-directed learning. As social media technologies for learning become increasingly important to organizations and to individuals, instructional designers will need to focus on broad learning events and strategies that incorporate many approaches rather than on individual courses.
What is the process for implementing instructional design?
Although the approaches people use to design and develop online instructional events vary widely, the common denominator is that the process is systematic and iterative. The process typically starts with some type of analysis to define the requirements and specifications, goes through a design/prototyping phase, follows along with development and production and “ends” with Quality Assurance, evaluation and more fine-tuning. (It never really ends.) Generally, the instructional design process results in a set of one or more learning events or experiences.
What does an instructional designer do?
The tasks that an eLearning designer conducts are so varied that it would be difficult to list them all. Instead, I’d like to list the Instructional Design competencies identified by the IBSPI (International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction). These competencies are brief and obviously do not include everything, but it will give you a sense of what instructional designers might do.
Professional Foundations
- Communicate effectively in visual, oral and written form. (Essential)
- Apply current research and theory to the practice of instructional design. (Advanced)
- Update and improve one’s knowledge, skills and attitudes pertaining to instructional design and related fields. (Essential)
- Apply fundamental research skills to instructional design projects.(Advanced)
- Identify and resolve ethical and legal implications of design in the work place. (Advanced)
Planning and Analysis
- Conduct a needs assessment. (Essential)
- Design a curriculum or program. (Essential)
- Select and use a variety of techniques for determining instructional content. (Essential)
- Identify and describe target population characteristics. (Essential)
- Analyze the characteristics of the environment. (Essential)
- Analyze the characteristics of existing and emerging technologies and their use in an instructional environment. (Essential)
- Reflect upon the elements of a situation before finalizing design solutions and strategies. (Essential)
Design and Development
- Select, modify, or create a design and development model appropriate for a given project. (Advanced)
- Select and use a variety of techniques to define and sequence the instructional content and strategies. (Essential)
- Select or modify existing instructional materials. (Essential)
- Develop instructional materials. (Essential)
- Design instruction that reflects an understanding of the diversity of learners and groups of learners. (Essential)
- Evaluate and assess instruction and its impact. (Essential)
Implementation and Management
- Plan and manage instructional design projects. (Advanced)
- Promote collaboration, partnerships and relationships among the participants in a design project. (Advanced)
- Apply business skills to managing instructional design. (Advanced)
- Design instructional management systems. (Advanced)
- Provide for the effective implementation of instructional products and programs. (Essential)
Related Articles:
35 More Qualities of the Ideal Instructional Designer
10 Qualities of the Ideal Instructional Designer
The Instructional Design Life
Okay readers, start your engines and add your comments below.
Hi Connie! Great post, as usual. The field is open for social learning instructional design. The broad type design you mention may need to take some cues from serious games, particularly scaffolded tasks (group and individual quests) within boundaries (“you are now leaving the battlefield” is my fav example from Star Wars PS2 game). This type of design almost requires that students learn from/with each other and develop critical thinking skills along the way. Your thoughts?
Take care,
April
Hi April,
I think you bring up a good point. I’d like to see the game you’re referring to but I can see how some structure, some boundaries could be needed when thinking in terms of broad strategies. The idea of designers setting up scenarios where people NEED to learn from each other to proceed, possibly through a social technology or a real-time game, sounds like an infinitely exciting approach to learning (at least for some people). Thanks for your insightful comment.
Best,
Connie
p.s. Congrats on moving your blog to a new space. I like that you said “instructional design” is too bland to describe what you do. We do need a more exciting term, don’t we?
Hi Connie!
You mentioned: setting up scenarios where people NEED to learn from each other to proceed…
Are there situations where people do not need to learn from one another? Feedback and discussion is an integral part of learning as is leveraging prior knowledge. I’m not saying that all ID needs to be story-based but I think that social learning definitely has its merits. Thoughts?
Take care,
April
PS I was thinking we could rename ourselves SuperDesigners and capes would be part of the uniform.
Dear SuperDesigner with cape,
Oh yes, feedback and discussion is such an important part of elaborating on and refining concepts. All of this will help people construct more accurate schemas. And this can be implemented through social technologies as well as other approaches. I was just kind of excited about the idea of creating scenarios where people need info from each other. But that’s because I live a boring life.
Best,
Connie
What is the going rate for instructional design?
Thanks! (Love your site.)
Love your one-sentence definition of ID–simple yet not simplistic:
Instructional design is the process of identifying the skills, knowledge, information and attitude gaps of a targeted audience and creating or selecting learning experiences that close this gap, based on instructional theory and best practices from the field.
Thanks, Cathy. It probably took me 12 hours to come up with it =)