It certainly seems like there is a lot more interest in the skill of instructional design these days.
creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by led-maha.weebly.com. Perhaps this interest comes from the increase in modes of learning that are available today. Particularly in the e-learning realm. People can choose anything from MOOC’s which may have 1,000’s of people in them and last a long time, to a micro-credential course that is completed individually and takes only hours, and everything in between.
The development of any of these courses, went through a design process, whether formal or not. Choices are made on: learning objectives; content, assessment, esthetic, and more. Instructional designers are involved at each step, sometimes as project manager, sometimes as hands-on developer.
In this space we’ll explore the ID role.
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts about where that increased interest in instructional design is coming from. There are lots of factors – internal and external, personal and corporate. One that I see is an increasing interest in pushing past mere efficiency. I work with faculty members who have already streamlined their work by digitizing processes, and now they’re ready to go back to their goals and think about different ways to reach them. What do you see?
Joe, I see within the faculty here a varied understanding to the role of ID. However, when we do have the opportunity to work together, I think they gain an appreciation of the questioning and the interconnectedness of all course elements. In many cases this is not new information, but rather a conscious choice as opposed to a gut feeling, or doing something on the fly. In your example, you highlignt the rethinking of goals and different ways to reach them as the trigger for an ID process. I would agree that is one of the basic triggers. When someone asks what does someone need to learn? How do I get them there? And, how do I assess that they’ve learned it? For me, there are just more opportunities to do that within our world today. Whether it be in corporate training, life long learning, academic environments or more. Look at the Udemy site. There are hundreds of course on a plethora of topics. People’s thirst for knowledge is insatiable. Instructional design is a tool to begin to quench some of that thirst. And with more venues to deliver education, there are more opportunities to engage with ID principles and practices.