Instructional Design

Student's benefit:
Acquisition of knowledge and skills become more efficient, effective, and appealing.

Teaching enrichment:
Cost effective, efficient, relevant content, customised and current, performance-based objectives

Application:
Multiple teaching and learning applications.
 

Teacher perspective: objectives - ILOs - teaching activities - assessments

Teacher's task: create a learning environment that support the learning activities appropriate to achieving the desired learning outcomes.

1. Defining the intended outcomes ILOs (declarative knowledge, functioning knowledge)
2. Choosing teaching and learning activities likely to lead the ILOs
3. Assessing student's actual learning outcomes to see how well they match what was intended
4. Arriving at final grade

Student perspective: assessment - learning activities - outcome

Student construct meaning through relevant learning activities. Meaning is not something imparted or transmitted from teacher to learner, but is something learners have to create for themselves.

PDF Constructive Alignment (PDF, 60 KB)

A helpful way to design a course:

Identify desired results - Goals

Organize your course around your core learning goals to foster enduring understandings in your students. Adapt your goals according to student feedback and readiness.

Content Goals: What knowledge do you want students to attain? Start with a broad perspective, considering all that you want students to become aware of and then narrow your selection to fit the parameters of your course.

Skill Goals: What are the abilities you want students to attain. What should students be able to do with their learning after your course? How can they apply their new knowledge?

Determine acceptable evidence - Progress

Assess student's ability to meet the learning goals, both at the beginning of the course and throughout the course. Do they understand the topics? What progress are they making? What kind of assessments will enable students to demonstrate that they are making progress toward the course's learning goals?

Formative Assessment: Formative assessments provide students with frequent, informal opportunities to re-think and revise. Learning from mistakes leads to ongoing improvement in understanding.

Fit & Feasibility: Give assignments and tests that both teach and test the learning you value most. Do your tests and assignments fit the learning goals you have set? For example, if you want students to be able to debate both sides of an issue, are your assessments giving them the opportunity to demonstrate that knowledge and skills? Also, are your assessments feasible for both you and your students? Is the workload you are planning reasonable, strategically placed and sustainable?

Plan learning experiences and instruction - Practice

In class sessions and homework assignments, give students a chance to practice their learning - to engage new material and apply it. Adapt your teaching strategies as needed, according to the ongoing assessments you do of student progress. Plan learning activities that support the learning goals of the course:

Point your students to exactly what you want them to learn. Provide them with a strong foundational structure on which to build further learning by presenting content in a well-organized fashion.

What are the best problems or questions for developing your student's ability to meet your learning goals? How can they practice engaging content and skillful using their new learning?

Merrill's First Principles of Instruction
Many current instructional design models suggest that the most effective learning environments are those that are problem-based and involve the student in four distinct phases of learning.

• Activation of prior experience
• Demonstration of skills
• Application of skills
• Integration of these skills into real world activities

ADDIE model
The ADDIE model is at the very core of instructional design and is the basis of instructional systems design.

• Analysis
• Design
• Development
• Implementation
• Evaluation

Dick and Carey
The model addresses instruction as an entire system, focusing on the interrelationship between context, content, learning and instruction. According to Dick and Carey, "Components such as the instructor, learners, materials, instructional activities, delivery system, and learning and performance environments interact with each other and work together to bring about the desired student learning outcomes".

• Identify Instructional Goals
• Conduct Instructional Analysis
• Identify Entry Behaviors and Learner Characteristics
• Write Performance Objectives
• Develop Criterion-Referenced Test Items
• Develop Instructional Strategy
• Develop and Select Instructional Meterials
• Develop and Conduct Formative Evaluation
• Develp and Conduct Summative Evaluation

Kemp's Instructional Design Model
The Jerold Kemp instructional design method and model defines nine different components of an instructional design and at the same time adopts a continuous implementation/evaluation model.

• Identify instructional problems, and specify goals for designing an instructional program
• Examine learner characteristics that should receive attention during planning.
• Identify subject content, and analyze task components related to stated goals and purposes
• State instructional objectives for the learner
• Sequence content within each instructional unit for logical learning
• Design instructional strategies so that each learner can master the objectives
• Plan the instructional message and delivery
• Develop evaluation instruments to assess objectives
• Select resources to support instruction and learning activities

Gagné's 9 Events Instruction
Gagné created a nine-step process called the events of instruction, which correlate to and address the conditions of learning. See the nine events of instruction below:

• Gain attention
• Inform learner of objectives
• Stimulate recall of prior learning
• Present stimulus material
• Provide learner guidance
• Elicit performance
• Provide feedback
• Assess performance
• Enhance retention transfer

ARCS Model

According to John Keller's ARCS Model of Motivational Design, there are four steps for promoting and sustaining motivation in the learning process:

• Attention
• Relevance
• Confidence
• Satisfaction

Motivation Opportunity Ability Model (MOA)

• Motivation
• Opportunity
• Ability