The other day, I saw a post on LinkedIn from Whitney Kilgore about iDesigns new LXPathways program. Most of the courses offered are a small cost, and are intended to fill a gap in continuing ed for folks in learning and development (if I recall, it’s framed as instructional tech and learning architecture). There was one freebie course, Learning Architect, and as I’m always curious to see how others in our field design continuing ed I enrolled. This post is not a review of their course, and it’s also not a critique of the terminology of the course title (although I think I’ve made my position on that job title clear). In one of the modules they point to an opentextbook which I thought was an interesting, and new to me, resource:
R. West (Ed.), Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology (1st ed.). Available at https://lidtfoundations.pressbooks.com/.
Chapter 2, by Ellen Wagner, introduces four definitions of ID (Applied Research Lab, Penn State U; and Berger & Kam, 1996). Following these definitions, one of the reflection activities presented was “Write a brief description of a real-world example of instructional design as a process, a discipline, a science, and/or a reality.” I thought this was interesting, and I encourage you to take on one of these, or all of them, and please share your responses. (After writing them, I realize that I have varying levels of clarity in writing. I guess that’s what I have for now.)
ID as a Process
[quote cite=”Applied Research Laboratory, Penn State University” url=”https://web.archive.org/web/19990202185425/http://quark.arl.psu.edu/training/def-inst.html”]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.[/quote]Just one brief example might be a seminar course in the area of OH&S I worked on a few years ago. I suppose you could frame the whole thing within the ADDIE model and that model used as a process, although the timeline was short. At the beginning, stakeholders such as the program leads, instructional designer, and SME met to discuss the current status of the course, what was changing, and what the needs were for the program. Context and simple learner analysis were completed at this early stage, and a timeline set forth. The primary resource learners were to use for this course were being replaced, and therefore all course materials, including assessments and activities, needed to be analyzed. Documentation of learning objectives, course content, and assessments was created to map the alignment of the course. The SME reviewed the learning objectives of the course and provided updates and changes reflective of the current state of their discipline. The ID remapped the course elements to identify gaps where new content and assessments would be needed, and provided samples, criteria, and feedback for each of the newly developed materials. Through collaborating, the SME and ID developed module overviews for the course, sourced learning materials, created activities and assessments, and planned teaching strategies. Upon completing the documents required, these course elements were provided to an eLearning Specialist to build the materials into the LMS and the course was offered. Upon completion of the course, the same stakeholders that met at the beginning of the project met again to discuss the first implementation of this redeveloped course, as well as future revisions.
ID as a Discipline
[quote cite=”Applied Research Laboratory, Penn State University” url=”https://web.archive.org/web/19990202185425/http://quark.arl.psu.edu/training/def-inst.html”]Instructional Design is that branch of knowledge concerned with research and theory about instructional strategies and the process for developing and implementing those strategies.[/quote]Generally, I have not been a producer of peer-reviewed instructional designer research. However, reading research and applying it I believe is central to the ID’s role even if not producing new research. What I find interesting about this statement is that it’s not just limited to strategies for people to learn, but also about process. Even with several projects on the go, depending on their nature, I might use a process as described by Smith & Ragan (or a process that’s reflective of that). With another project, I may employ the ABC Learning Design method to plan a course or series of courses. For another project I may use the Delft Design method (those of you that took the Designers for Learning MOOC would be familiar with that process as that’s the one we used there). Each of these processes has a way to plan for instructional strategies. SMEs respond differently to different approaches, and so being active in the discipline is important to be able to adjust to your design context. As an ID, one cannot simply have only one approach for every single problem, not only because of different contexts, but also because of human responses to varied approaches. The mountain can be summited using a variety of paths, so to say.
ID as a Science
[quote cite=”Applied Research Laboratory, Penn State University” url=”https://web.archive.org/web/19990202185425/http://quark.arl.psu.edu/training/def-inst.html”]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.[/quote]Here I’ll focus on the “detailed specifications” part of this. Currently I’m working on courses within a program (so about 10 courses in total that need to be a cohesive program). When you’re not creating boutique instructional products, then having design specs in place is really helpful. So for this particular program we are creating all of the course materials with the SMEs and instructors, but in addition to that we are creating specifications for multiple artifacts. For example, we have a module template that we will use to structure content within the courses. Each portion of the template comes with recommendations that adhere to teaching and learning principles relevant to the discipline and the assessment types that will be used throughout the program. We have a framework guide that all SMEs and IDs will have access to for guidance on the underpinning philosophy behind the program (for example, there’s a strong focus on case-teaching in this program). There is a style guide which I’ve been working on that defines specs for the authoring tool, visual guide, LMS, and customization for the developer to have on hand to ensure consistency across courses. These specs are at the course level, but also right down to how to create specific activities. In elearning contexts, storyboards could be used instead. The main point here, is that the specification documents are nothing that the learner would ever see explicitly, but guide the development team in creating an experience for learners which is consistent and in alignment with the overall design for the program.
ID as a Reality
[quote cite=”Berger, C., & Kam, R. (1996)” url=”http://www.umich.edu/~ed626/define.html”]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.[/quote]There might not be a truer statement about ID than that it “…can start at any point in the design process”. Most often when ID is taught as a process, lets take ADDIE as an example of that, it leads one to believe that nothing is done and that you get to start by looking at the learners, the context, and the goals. Having worked on a number of online and blended courses in higher ed, in my experience there are many instances where you do not get to start at “the beginning”. I can think of one such course where all of the course materials (readings, videos, and all) were developed, as well as the assessments. The materials were developed for one specific context, and then all of a sudden the department wanted to offer a 200 level course and deliver it online. Working through the project in weekly meetings we were able to online-ify the course. The conversations in those meetings were sometimes preplanned, and other times something urgent came up that needed to be addressed. Being able to zoom in and out from course level to activity level was important to keep the project moving forward. However, presenting the development after the fact of course clusters things into themes which gives the illusion that a happened and was completed and then b happened, etc. Even if not presented as an “ADDIE” process, the very nature of writing or presenting about the project collapses the reality of months of work into a linear narrative piece.
I was recently preparing a presentation about instructional design for a colleague’s class and was tracking down some citations and resources. In doing so I came around to these four definitions of instructional design again and realized that the ebook actually draws on prior work for the definitions. The definitions for ID as Process, Discipline, and Science come from Penn State University’s Applied Research Laboratory’s website from the late 90s. Berger & Kam (1996) drew on that work and added the definition of ID as Reality. I’ve updated the citations to reflect the original sources as best I could.
Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash