Instructional Design Perspectives

Instructional Design Software

gilluna — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:21:30 +0000

Recently, I was tasked to support the implementation of a ISD learning performance system. At first I was interested in the learning the new software but now that I have had time to play with it and use it I don’t really see the advantage to it. There are several applications out there that will support the development of instructional design and actually point the user in the right direction. But you still have to understand the analysis, design, and development of the course development process. The ISD personnel still have those conversations with the SME. They still collaborate with the course managers and work independently to structure the content as well as the assessments that need to be used to develop training. The message we received was that the software would help us streamline the ISD process and make our product more consistent. Well, from a document orgranization point of view I would have to say , Yes. But, if my organization is looking to cut down on the time it takes to fully develop the course content immediately, then No.

The program allows the developer to create an analysis, objectives, and program flow online to be linked to each other and produce a nice clean course. The problem we have is that our job analysis is old, course managers create objectives based on the task matrix and the program is simply an outline of the course. So really not much instructional development goes into creating our courses its merely a form of revision with a good job of updating references. The implementation of this new software is to support the production side of course development but we are not a production facility. I think in the proper environment a LPSS or EPSS tool would benefit a training staff lacking in ISD experience or personnel, but not a staff that has both. I did not mention the software by name for a particular reason but if you want to know more about similar applications do a search for ‘learning performance support systems and instructional design”.

Distance Education or eLearning?

gilluna — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:20:56 +0000

What is the difference? In the book “Distance Education, A System’s View” co-authored by Moore and Kearsley, we learn about the systems required to facilitate a distance education experience. In distance education the learner is physically at a distant from the learning environment and the instructor. Thus, the use of distance education in the classroom is totally opposite of what eLearning courses are developed for. In distance education the magic is in the instructional facilitation and the creativeness of the learning institution to create that classroom feeling online. Social presence is one of the key elements that makes the learning transfer very successful. Teaching presence and cognitive presence being the other two. Without these elements then the learning experience becomes a struggle throughout the duration of the course. The technology helps to enhance this phenomena but it is still up to the instructor to utilize all the available tools to conduct a successful class.

In eLearning the learning is self-directed and learner centric. In that the individual wanting to learn more on a particular subject/topic will take it upon themselves to do. Then eLearning becomes a viable tool for this type of learner but the development of the course is very critical in that the delivery must create a learning environment within the technology. There is no facilitation and there is no synchronous communication with the instructor or classmates. The key in eLearning is that the course needs to be built (developed) in such a way that the technology drives the learner to the knowledge and guides him through the learning process. There is distance and there is technology but there is no faciliation to drive the learning. That is the major difference in distance education and eLearning in the aspect of using technology to enhance online learning. I am sure there some arguments for both but I favor the distance education platform more because of the enhancement the technology can bring into the classroom. Like integrating Web 2.0 tools to promote interaction and engagement in a more creative manner.

Instructional Designer

gilluna — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:15:50 +0000

I spent close to 20 years in the semiconductor industry working for several competitive memory chip makers and for the world’ largest chip maker. First as a technical operator of the highly engineered equipment that produced the chips then becoming an advanced level equipment engineering technician responsible for leading small dynamic teams in maintaining the availability of these engineering systems. My background consisted of operations, process development, equipment engineering and training. I chose to pursue the Training and Development path because of my background in training, design, development, and technology. What I found out about my less traveled road was that I had a tremendous wealth of knowledge in the industry and enjoyed building successful teams to perform at a high level. As the years passed in the semiconductor industry I became very aware of my background experience and how important it would become for me to utilize that experience to my advantage. I have been asked more than once how I got into Instructional Design from the manufacturing world of semiconductors.

Well, it wasn’t until I was in my first year of graduate school at the University of New Mexico that I could truthfully answer that question with some sense of validity. I had become a self-directed learner and had taken my experience and turned it into a potential career in Training and Development. With the many options that were afforded to me with at my last employer I saw that my interest and career laid in building learning programs for adult learners. As I developed in my career with Intel Corp. I pursued opportunities that would help me learn a new program or some new technology. The combination of these two attributes allowed me the experiences that I would need to complete my degree in Instructional Technology which would include several courses in adult learning and design. So how does all this tie into the title of this post? Well, I am going to tell you just how.

There have been many questions and descriptions of what an Instructional Designer is or does. So, these are some of the roles or tasks that I have had to support in the last couple of years of participating as an Instructional Technologist. Clearly, the main responsibility that I have had to support is the development of either course content, curriculum design, or instructor resources for either classroom training or education instruction. ADDIE has been the development model of choice with Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation as a support tool for measuring feedback. Understanding the five phases of course development has been the most important since this is where the projects begin and are structured. But you have to understand that this process takes months to finalize and long hours of collaboration with course managers and SME’s. So interpersonal skills in communication, listening, leadership, and time management are very important to the partnership with the development team and the success of the project itself.

The most important skill that I have been able to rely on recently has been my experience with using technology tools. Anything from office tools to advanced knowledge of authoring tools has helped me support a couple of extensive projects where I was the project coordinator. Being able to have a background with the use of LMS’s or Knowledge Management Systems is a plus to support more than the daily routine of working on design, development, or analysis tasks to build a course. So, my opinion in defining the requirements of an Instructional Designer is to become adaptive to the needs of your team and capitalize on opportunities that go beyond the ID role in training and development. I guess I am still learning and creating a newer path for my own career development.

Course Managers or Training Instructors

gilluna — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 04:19:28 +0000

Is there a difference in these two positions? I believe there is a huge difference in these two people and I would like to share some insight as to why. For instance a Training Instructor would develop and teach curriculum, maintain a certification or equivalent level of knowledge of content, responsible for safety requirements, develop performance-based initial and continuing training programs, develop and implement academic programs in support of training programs by classroom instruction and on-the-job training using lesson plans, OJT checklists, training checklists, and other training materials, procedures, and programs; Develop, schedule, administer, grade, and evaluate written and oral examinations. Ensure assigned training programs are in compliance with the requirements of program documents, company procedures, training implementation matrices, and training program plans. Evaluate training programs to ascertain that requirements are met and that the programs are vigorous and are accomplishing the goals established for delivery of training that prepares employees to perform their jobs. Conduct self-assessment activities required by company procedures, using results to improve the training programs. Track deficiencies and provide timely completion of actions that correct/mitigate deficiencies. Review technical procedures, reports, proposals, and other appropriate documents in order to determine their impact on the training programs and to make recommendations for implementation or revision based in needs or problems observed during operational or training evolutions. Implement approved recommendations. Develop innovative approaches, concepts, and strategies for training program.

Now someone has to manage all of these instructor requirements and who better to do that than the Course Manager. The CM owns the success of the course therefore is owner of all of these steps that it takes to conduct a succesful course. The CM collaborates with several resources to help him or her gather important information needed to build this course. From the smallest of details and valid data to support the beginning lesson to the final exam. This individuals course material and its significance depends on the contribution of Subject Matter Experts, Instructional System Designers, and their own experience in designing the course content. I believe that Course Managers should have the background knowledge of Adult Learning to be able to produce a competent learning environment in the classroom. Two very contrasting positions within Training and Development with two differing objectives in creating a succesful learning experience.

Manage the Project

gilluna — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:21:41 +0000

Well, it looks like it has been some time since I was last on this site. Better get to writing and sharing about my ISD experience. Usually when I post I like to interweave information from the web and link into my experiences. What I am going to do today is just write what I have done and learned in the last couple of months. I recently made a career change and without going into too much detail I was rewarded for my hard work and past experiences. My background lies in semiconductor manufacturing but I always liked Training and Development. So I steered to positions within my company that would allow me the time and experience to fulfill those talents. What I found out about myself was that I had a good skill at meshing talents and created a learning environment for my peers to succeed in. I think it comes from the fact that I was a good athlete while growing up and being on competitive teams just seemed natural.

Just like putting a good team on the field in the business world Human Resources groups should aspire to do the same. This is where people in Training and Development can help in identifying that talent and matching them up to good teams. If you are a good manager then your role as the leader (Coach) should be seemless from one position to another. Being able to identify good talent is one task but then getting that talent to perform as a good team is another. Stroking egos is not so hard its the coaching, mentoring, training and career development of those egos that gets murky. What I mean by that is some individuals feel like they don’t any kind of devleopment so they stagnate and don’t progress with the times.

So create those workshops during slow times, come up with webinars that present new technologies, facilitate conversations among team members for input, and create that Personal Development Plan for the upcoming year. The easy part is getting the team involved the hard part is not doing it. Don’t let your team down. Develop their skills and get them ready to play.

Design Document

gilluna — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 05:13:50 +0000

The one critical document that is required to promote the development of ones course is the design document. In the Instructional Design process the design document will cover the analysis of the course, identify goals, will guide the learning objectives, and help the development of the course content. In theory, the design document is created by the Design Team which collaborates in identifying the preceding elements. The course manager, instructor, SME’s, and Instructional Designer will meet to create the design document. The main sections of the design document will consider the target audience, the training needs, materials, assessment, and standard elements that will be used to instruct the course.

My experience as an instructional Designer has been to become a coach and support the project owners process. I feel it’s better to support the course manager and invoke confidence to establish an open link for communication. What is more important than the design process its the partnership it takes to work collaboratively together to create a productive document. If you have a good working environment then the design process becomes second nature to those involved. Learning to allow the owner to create the content for the course is easier than guessing as to what should be covered. When I say owner I mean the course manager or course instructor that will be presenting their version of the course structure. Designing and developing the course should be as easy as having the instructor walk the ID specialist through the course as if he would be teaching it to his students. Then you and the course manager capture that in a document that will outline and state exactly what the instructor has just presented to you. Sounds simple but time-consuming and very tedious but in the end a very productive training course will be created.

eLearning and the development process

gilluna — Wed, 18 May 2011 04:37:11 +0000

In ISD we have the ADDIE model which most developers adhere to as well as most training personnel. With eLearning becoming more prevalent in learning departments I would like to know what the process model for creating online courses would be. I am currently supporting an eLearning Department that is fairly new and ADDIE is the model of choice. But that is the model for converting the content into script then into a eLearning course. Not in so few words but the majority of the work is developed following the ADDIE model. What I would like to know is what are some of the processes in which developers follow to get to the development part.

Is there a Planning Team that decides which courses get to be put online?Is there a Design Team that works with the SME’s and course developers that collaborate to come up with the course material? How about a eLearning Supervisor that leads all these process teams into the development process and gets everyone to buy into the course. All these gray areas that I consider relevant have not been identified for me so I am having to research and develop some of these steps in the process. If I had to come up with a working process that would help me develop such a model it would go like this.

Customer request sa course to be created into an eLearning course. The first step that I would want to take is to identify all the stakeholders that will contribute to the course material and its development . Meet with all these individuals to contract an agreement for developing the online course. I would expect them to have done all the analysis modeling upfront to eliminate the mystery of who the learner will be. The most important step would be to estimate the time ti will take in he development process. The more accurate the project can be predicted the more attainable the timeline for delivery. This is very critical because of the many resources that will be used to create all the interaction and assessments that go into creating an engaging online course.

Then I would choose a very reliable tracking program that would capture all the tasks involved in creating the development of the course. This is more for research and cost effectiveness practices more than creating a tracking record. Being able to estimate the amount of time it takes for each step in the process will give the Manager a better understanding of how many courses he can build on a yearly basis. The better you get at this the better you can manage your yearly schedule which determines your next year’s budget.

Communicate on a daily basis the status of all your eLearning courses being developed to help determine deliverables that will be met or missed. This is very important as well for monitoring the development schedule. So far we have agreeing on the project upfront, creating a solid tracking system to measure time to delivery, and reporting on the project as it moves along to manage the commitments for the year. The last thing I would look at is the evaluation program to measure the process. Being able to come full circle once the course is online and running then revisiting the game plan will only make the process that more robust for the next course. Simple I think now just to put it down on paper as it sounds. This is going to take awhile.

eLearning and Instructional Design

gilluna — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:02:12 +0000

What I wanted to write about today has to do with ISD and eLearning. Not on what it is or how it works but how much more analysis needs to occur before putting a course or training online. When doing an analysis for training in the classroom the majority of the time not too much attention is put on the “learner’s persona”. Most of the time the learner has already been identified either through a development program or they are new hires. But never the less in the analysis process the justification for training has already been identified. The learner either needs the course to complete a performance objective or is learning their way around the organization.

I know what your thinking but please allow me to explain. Within the ADDIE model we have analysis that will identify the learner, the delivery, instructional methods, and whatever it take to measure knowledge, skills, and attributes. Yeah, ok but how is that different for eLearning? Well for starters when creating courses for eLearning the concentration of how much knowledge you will transfer is critical because you don’t want to build online courses just to build them. How can we successfully measure this type of learning? We really can’t!

The eLearning Developer or design team has to be real cognizant of identifying the psychology aspect of how to deliver the content online. For example, you can put tons of content online and have the learner just “click next” until they reach the end of the course. Now how effective and efficient would that be if we created all our courses in this manner. For me this is the type of online learning courses that I have heard nightmares about. Students asked to sit in front of a computer and read text to no end then answer questions at the end to measure competency. What I mean about psychology is the Learning Theories that we read and study about that helped us identify the types of learning theories that make all of us fall into one or another. I believe that this aspect of designing online is very key in being able to design and deliver effective online courses. Just remember your ISD standards.

Evaluation

gilluna — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:39:08 +0000

Alas my contract has run out and its off to a new adventure. I wanted to share some interesting facts about evaluation and how it impacts most programs. Evaluation by definition is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards. Simple enough but is it worth implementing or even doing? Probably one of the most recognized programs, Donald Kirkpatrick’s Four Level Evaluation Model is of the highly regarded models still used today. The following text summarized the concept of the evaluation process regarding training and performance.

The four-levels of evaluation consist of (Kirkpatrick, 1994):

Reaction – how the learners react to the learning process
Learning – the extent to which the learners gain knowledge and skills
Behavior – capability to perform the learned skills while on the job
Results – includes such items as monetary, efficiency, moral, etc.

This data will be quantified to each level of the program being evaluated and measures will be taken to address the needs of each level. But interestingly enough the majority of the organizations that use this model will not follow up with new directives to address the qualitative data that is collected. Instead most programs will be recycled and reused to generate the same stagnant data which will no doubt overlook the actual evaluation of the program. This the time that a true Training and Development leader or manager will recognize the need for true cost benefit change. Whether at the beginning or during or at the end evaluation is a valuable tool to use to measure the success of any program. Until next time.

Instructional Design?

gilluna — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 05:17:23 +0000

Property of AEldata

I want to take some time to define what I feel Instructional Design is and how it relates any organization. The definition that I have come to use for ID is the overall process that it takes to build curriculum and course material to create learning either through blended or online instruction. What I mean in process is the structure the organization has established as the working model to accomplish instructional design and the resources identified in which this will be accomplished with. Of course this assumes that one will understand the pieces to the process and how they function as a working model.

What is Instructional Design Theory ?

According to Reigeluth (1999: 6-7) a “grand old man” in this field, Instructional Design-Theory is:

design-oriented (focusing on means to attain given goals for learning or development) and
identifies methods of instruction (ways to support and facilitate learning) and the situation in which these methods should and should not be used.
Methods of instruction can be broken down into more detailed component methods
Methods are probabilistic, rather than deterministic…

This process in the development of course content and curriculum design becomes very apparent in the overall process of instructional design. The process dictates the flow of the content as well as the chunking and sequencing. In instructional design this is very important because it will structure the course in a way that the student will make sense of the course objectives and will see the learning outcomes as they are developed. The design process is akin to Blooms Taxonomy in that the lower levels of applications are building steps towards the big picture. You wouldn’t want a student to enroll in a Math program and go straight to Calculus without having to learn algebra or geometry. Chunking and sequencing are kind of the same in theory. The course should be designed within a framework that introduces the subject at the beginning and gets into the meat of the course with building blocks. Kind of like holding their hand but without the contact. This article on Instructional Strategic Design has a good illustration of the process in action.

So before you begin that project make sure your ducks are all lined up before you get started. It is a set back once you get going and you have to back track to address a critical step after the development process has begun.