Instructional design (“ID”, also known as
instructional systems design or “ISD”) is a tested and proven
methodology for developing instruction. It first gained popularity in
World War II, where the Instructional design approach fared so well that it
was quickly co-opted into corporate training. In the fifty years that
followed, ID has become the standard for producing excellent training in
both the military and corporate realms, as well as textbook authoring and
development of computer-based learning materials.
Instructional design is interdisciplinary and
reflects a synthesis of work from a wide range of fields. Here are
a few of those fields:
1)
Industrial efficiency movement: through the process of Task Analysis,
efficiency experts like Fred Taylor and Frank & Lillian Gilbreth
analyzed work procedures and streamlined them to save money (albeit at
the expense of sometimes dehumanizing the work).
2) Educational theory
Behavioral objectives: pioneers such as Tyler,
Robert Mager, & Ivaar Davies stressed the importance of deciding exactly
what should be taught early in the instructional process and letting
subsequent steps in the instructional process emanate from those objectives.
Bloom’s Taxonomy: a committee appointed to
create taxonomies in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor realms tackled
the breakdown of cognitive skills first, in 1956 (and Ben Bloom was lucky
enough to be first author on the first publication, thereby forever linking
the committee’s work to his name in the public mind).
3) Military Training: World War II presented
two unique training problems: scope and technicality. Scope, in
that recruits and volunteers flooded all branches of the armed services to
an unprecedented degree; technicality in that war was becoming mechanized
and soldiers had to be quickly trained to perform a variety of new and
highly technical jobs. In the manner of other military procedures, a
formal methodology of Instructional Design was developed and proved
a great success.
4) Cybernetics: systems theorist Norbert Weiner was an
important figure in the movement to view human endeavor from a bigger
perspective, where instead of individual parts, the interactions of those
parts in complex systems were the primary focus.
5) Psychology
Behavioral: B.F. Skinner, in his “Programmed
Instruction”, was an early proponent of breaking educational content down
into small chunks, testing whether the information was learned immediately
after presentation, and reinforcing or remediating answers before continuing
to the next chunk.
The field of Ergonomics (aka “Human
Factors”) applies the cybernetics systems view to the interactions between
persons and machines, arguing that work environments designed to
work with humans rather than against them reduce errors and the need for
training.
Cognitive: several ideas from cognitive
psychology have been incorporated into ID: the “computer analogy”
whereby humans are viewed as information processors, George Miller’s
description of how “chunking” information into fewer units helps circumvent human memory
limitations, and the idea of errors as being classifiable, through “error
analysis”, into distinct types that can be anticipated and prevented
through training.
|
Well, it is used in higher education; just not
much! ID is used to develop textbooks and ancillaries, but it still
hasn’t penetrated college and university instruction to the extent that it
has military and corporate training. Why? Several reasons:
Tradition: universities are slow to change
(much instruction is still delivered the way it was 500 years ago)
Perceptions of Academic Freedom: it is
considered an imposition for anyone to intrude upon professors’ classrooms
without invitation or presume to tell them how to teach.
Lack of training in how to teach: the graduate
school model supplies content expertise without corresponding training in
the process of instruction.
Emphasis on research: the most prestigious
universities are still research universities, perhaps because research
grants infuse huge sums of money into universities. Despite lip
service purporting to value teaching, publication for peers still far
outranks teaching excellence.
Heavy class loads: most professors are only
given a fraction of the instructional development hours meted to corporate
or military designers.
Dependence Upon Part-Time Instructors:
cost-cutting has led to roughly half of instruction being
performed by part-time instructors, many of whom are non-tenure-track
“Road Scholars” who teach at several universities. Freed from
research and service duties, they presumably have more time to devote to
instruction. However, poor pay, lack of benefits and lack of schedule
coordination often forces
them to teach large class loads (often 6-7 classes per term with 3-4
different "preps") which reduces
time for instructional development.
-
Rigorous
analysis identifies the most critical material and makes it a priority
of the course.
-
The
course is tailored to a specific audience.
-
Course
content is derived from learning objectives that specifically state what
a student is to learn.
-
Course
content is delivered in a variety of methods and carefully scripted to
evoke maximum learning and retention.
-
Evaluation
is varied and frequent.
-
Evaluations
are keyed to the learning objectives (i.e., are criterion-referenced)
-
Evaluations
are used both as a teaching tool (via prompt and remedial feedback of
results) and a feedback tool for professors to constantly improve the
course.
The
name “FREDDIE” is our mnemonic (memory aid) for the five major steps
in the instructional design process.
-
FRE
= FRont-End analysis
-
D
= Design
-
D
= Development
-
I
= Implementation
-
E
= Evaluation
We
know it’s silly, but trust us, it makes it easier to remember!
|
It’s
formal:
instead of relying on the effectiveness of a haphazard collection
of instructional development methods reinvented by each professor, ID
presents a single formalized model.
It’s
proven:
in over 50 years of use, ID has proven to be an extremely
effective method of teaching and training as well as an excellent return
on investment.
It’s
fair:
a leading student complaint is that some professors fail to test
over the material they teach. In
the ID approach, testing follows directly from the learning objectives
and course content, ensuring that testing reflects teaching.
It’s
modular:
the nature of the ID process produces “chunks” of content
that are easier to maintain and upgrade.
It’s
portable: chunks of content
facilitate reusing relevant material in another course as well as moving
material to other delivery formats such as print or the web.
It
provides data for evaluation:
feedback is built into the ID model at every stage, and a consistent methodology allows for easier comparison across
courses and disciplines.
|
For
our purposes, the word “system” has at least four different
meanings:
Standardized
methodology: like having a
“system” to bet on the ponies, a system implies that you’ve got a
structured method.
Multiple
components: a system implies that
you have more than one component.
Interactive
components: a system
implies that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”; that is,
the relationship among system components is not merely additive but interactive.
Incremental
improvement: a systems view holds
that improving any single component will fractionally improve the entire
system, and numerous small improvements to individual components can
produce a large improvement in the overall system.
In
summary: a systems view is a big view:
hopefully, as you learn more about ID,
activities that you previously thought were separate will come to be
viewed as integral parts
in the overall system of your teaching effectiveness.
|
