Instructional Design

What is Instructional Design?

Richards and Schmidt (2013) describe the term ‘instructional framework’ or ‘instructional design’ as “the overall conceptual plan and organization used to design a lesson or a unit of instructional materials or to analyze teaching.” Furthermore, Seel and Dijkstra (2004) explain that “instruction is the com munication between a student and a teacher (expert), and instructional design refers to the rules for how to design and develop this communication”. Thus, Instructional Design can be interpreted as sets of systems in designing, planning, organizing, and evaluating teaching and learning process, which are done by educators, curriculum developers or designers, to achieve particular goals related to education. To be more specific and clearer, Instructional Design can be explicitly described as these following points:

Who does it?

Particular people dealing with Instructional Design are educators, teachers, librarians, distance educators, instructional designers, content or curriculum developers, trainers. In addition, there are also associations  dealing with this; American Society for Training and Development, International Society for Performance Improvement, Association for Educational Communications and Technology, and Sections within Education Associations.

What does it do?

It is concerned with needs analysis, needs assessment, goals and objectives, audience (students) and setting analysis, content development, delivery development, assessment, evaluation, and redesign.

Where does it happen?

It can happen wherever we get our evaluation: office, e-mail, classroom, etc.

When does it occur?

It occurs before, during, and after the teaching and learning process.

Why does it happen?

It is needed because we have to meet the required objectives, anticipate needs, see needs of particular audiences (students), clarify our intention, set certain time; make it faster, demonstrate continued improvement.

Additional Information:

There are several models of instructional design that are used in designing components of teaching. Those models describe how the designers use information from analyzing what is to be taught to formulate a plan for connecting learners with the instruction being developed based on the model. Basically, the sets of the process are planning, development, implementation, and revision; those happen all at the same time. (Dick & Carey, 2015) Still, different model represents sets of theories, procedures, and techniques used by instructional designer. 

Examples of Instructional Design Model: System Approach Model by Dick and Carey, ADDIE Model, ASSURE Model, and many others.

In this semester, we are going to learn about these. We are going to understand, analyze, and create components of Instructional Design. Hopefully, we can use it for our teaching process.

References

Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2015). The systematic design of instruction.

Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. W. (2013). Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. Routledge.

Seel, N. M., & Dijkstra, S. (2004). Curriculum, plans, and processes in instructional design: international perspectives. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates. Retrieved from http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=234245