A Quick Guide to Instructional Design

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What is Instructional Design?

Instructional design is defined as the “Systemic and reflective process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, information, resources, and evaluation” (Smith and Ragan, 2005). Essentially, you can think of it as the process of taking information and framing it in a way that makes it exciting and easy for learners to understand.

Benefits of Instructional Design

  • Supports knowledge retention
  • Promotes student and instructor engagement
  • Decreases cognitive load related to navigating a course so students can focus on content; helps learners and instructors work through extraneous or dense information to get to key material
  • Align learning objectives with content, technology, and assessments

Instructional Planning Questions

  1. Where are we going?
    1. What are the goals, what content do the learners need to know, what prerequisites and prior knowledge are required?
  2. How will we get there?
    1. What information needs to be presented, what materials and activities to be created, what is the sequence of instruction, what is the pace of facilitated learning, what are the feedback mechanisms?
  3. What will we do when we get there?
    1. How do we assess learner performance, in what context and quality?

Brief Overview of Learning Theories

There are many theories that have influenced instructional design. These are some of the most influential. When relevant, the psychologist(s) or theorist(s) most closely associated with the theory has been listed.

  • Emphasizes the influence of the environment on learning
    • Ex: drill and practice memorization, immediate feedback provided to reinforce the response

  • Focus on how information is received, organized, stored, and retrieved by the mind
    • Ex: design learning material that can catch a learner’s attention through sensory memory

  • Learning with an authentic activity, context, and culture
    • Key components are social interaction and collaboration

Contains three components:

  • Taxonomy of learning outcomes (intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, effective ways of thinking and learning, verbal information, motor skills, attitudes (including feelings and beliefs)
  • Conditions of learning (internal conditions and external conditions)
  • Nine events of instruction
    • Gain attention
    • Inform learners of the objective(s)
    • Stimulate recall of prior learning
    • Present the content
    • Provide guidance
    • Practice
    • Provide feedback
    • Assess the performance
    • Enhance retention

  • Learning is a unique product “constructed” as learners combine new information with existing learning/knowledge and experiences
    • Ex: problem-based learning, scenario-based learning, technology-mediated learning environments 

Learning in the digital age, reaching out to gain and share information in a  learning community where each community is part of a larger network

Instructional Design Models

There are a number of models of instructional design. However, ADDIE is the most common and many models are adapted from it.

ADDIE: Analysis, Design, Develop, Implementation, Evaluation

  • Clarify the instructional problem, establish goal and objectives, and identify the learning environment and the learner’s existing knowledge and skills
  • Questions to ask:
    • Who are your learners
    • What are the overall goals you are trying to achieve
    • What are the overall knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors that need to be taught
    • What is the amount and level of necessary content
    • What resources are required and available

  • Systematic and specific approach around learning objectives, assessment instruments, exercises, content, subject matter analysis, lesson planning, and media selection
  • Questions to ask:
    • How will the content and activities be sequenced, presented, and reinforced
    • What are the objectives of each session/unit
    • What skills or outcomes are you looking to achieve for each
    • What methodology will you use to achieve each objective
    • What media/resources will be used in the instruction
    • How will you assess the students’ understanding of the material

  • Creating and assembling the content planned out in the design phase
  • Questions to ask:
    • How do I create a lesson plan
    • How should the content be organized
    • What instructor and student activities should be included
    • How do I provide practice for students
    • WHat media should I be using when teaching
    • How can I present confirming and corrective feedback

  • Creating a procedure for training facilitators and learners. This should cover course curriculum, learning outcomes, methods of delivery, and testing procedures
  • Questions to ask:
    • How do I motivate students
    • How do I introduce the lesson
    • What kinds of questions are best to use
    • How do I use PowerPoint slides or other presentation media
    • How do I summarize and review each lesson or presentation
    • How do I use my time wisely during the lesson

  • Reflecting on discoveries, including objectives and expectations of the learner
  • Questions to ask:
    • How do I know if my course has been successful
    • Which experts should review materials before a course is presented to students
    • Which changes should be made to improve the course after it is presented

Additional Resource: ISFET Addie Model

Other Models

  • Dick & Carey: a systems view of instruction, begins with identifying instructional goals, followed by identifying entry behaviors and conducting instructional analysis 
  • Smith and Ragan: 3 components – analysis, strategy, evaluation 
  • SAM (Successive Approximation Model) – preparation phase, iterative design phase, iterative development phase (repeated attempts to achieve closer proximity to perfection)
  • UbD (Understanding by Design): also called Backwards Design, starts with identifying the desired results then determining what evidence of learning is needed before planning learning experiences and instruction
  • Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction: states that most effective learning environments are problem-centered and learning is promoted when:
    • Learners are engaged in solving real-world problems
    • Existing knowledge and skills are activated as a foundation for new knowledge and skills
    • New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner
    • New knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world

Learning Objectives and Strategies

Components of a learning object (3 parts)

  1. The condition under which the learner will perform or demonstrate
  2. The skill or behavior to be performed
  3. The criteria used to measure performance

How to Write Learning Objectives

  • Specific: precise, explicit, and direct – stated simply and concisely, often revolves around as specific verb
  • Measurable: stated in terms of what students will be able to do, in terms of something that can be measured, seen, or heard
  • Student-Focused: objectives stated in terms of student action (not instructor’s action). Based on how a student demonstrates their learning
  • Realistic: Realistic for students to achieve with their zone of proximal development (definition: skills a learner can do only when guided by someone with greater knowledge or expertise), with appropriate scaffolding, or within understood prerequisite skills and knowledge

Bloom’s Taxonomy

  • Used by educators to help define and visualize the kinds of learning students will achieve
  • Identifies fundamental learning levels (remember, understand) application levels (apply, analyze)  and integration levels (evaluate, create)
  • Taxonomy visuals and handouts:

Tried and True Design and Instructional Strategies

Dynamic stability: the necessity that the materials used are both strong and flexible, planning for and embracing potential disruption while maintaining a strategic direction (aka: stay the course)

Equitable Design

  1. Equitable design accounts for student differences in race, gender, identity, age, background, ability, and individual experience. The design explicitly works to provide opportunities for success. 
  2. Equitable course design encompasses considerations including technology, the students as individuals, and pedagogy. 

Designing for Equity and Accessibility

  1. Universal Design – ensures maximum broad accessibility and benefits for all students – not just those requiring accommodations
  2. Americans with Disabilities Act – all learners legally entitled to accessible courses and course materials

Five tips for increasing accessibility in digital courses or course materials:

  1. Use descriptive hyperlinks
  2. Include transcripts for audio content
  3. Include transcripts and closed captions for all video content
  4. Include alternative text for graphics and images
  5. Use only accessible PDF documents 

Resource: Universal Design Guidelines

Instructional Design Principles and Strategies

  1. Use measurable learning objectives/outcomes
  2. Align content and assessments to learning objectives/outcomes
  3. Consider how your course elements can be developed to be culturally responsive and affirming to your students
  4. Utilize backward design and map out your course to ensure effective learning outcomes

Evidence-based instructional strategies

  1. Active learning
  2. Intentionally scaffolding collaborative learning (especially peer-to-peer learning)
  3. Learning mode relevant by triggering student curiosity 
  4. Provision of more formative practice of skills in ways that provide timely feedback and targeted feedback to nudge them towards mastery
  5. Limiting cognitive overload
  6. Transparency to provide students with clear understanding of course’s content, learning outcomes, and assessment criteria
  7. Meta-cognition, self-regulation, and agency through practices that help students learn to be better learners and take control of the learning process

Additional Strategies

  1. Sense of belonging and inclusive environment
  2. Individual, on-demand support
  3. Peer learning supports
  4. Structural supports that ensure student engagement progress

Resources

An Introduction to Instructional Design

STELAR Minneapolis: The Instructional Design Process

Every Learner Everywhere: Optimizing High-Quality Digital Learning Experiences

University of Washington: ADDIE Model

Sterns Center GMUU: Blooms Taxonomy