Instructional Design
What is Instructional Design/Technology? Before I define Instructional Design/Technology, let us first look at the following definitions:
Instruction: Facilitating or making learning happen.
Technology: (John Kenneth Galbraith's definition) Technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks. Its most important consequences, at least for purposes of economics, is in forcing the division and subdivision of any such task into its component parts. Thus, and only thus, can organized knowledge be brought to bear on performance.
That being said, I define Instructional Design/Technology as a systematic approach to designing instruction utilizing the best learning principles, techniques, and tools to improve human performance in accordance with a known skill or knowledge deficiency. Criterion-Referenced Instruction (CRI) is a systematic approach to performance and instruction. CRI focuses on human performance because it's a way of helping people learn what they need to perform for their jobs. When analyzing performance problems, we may discover those who don't perform appropriately already know how to perform, therefore their lack of performance is not due to a lack of skill or knowledge, thus instruction won't help them. CRI is a systematic way of designing, developing, and implementing instruction so that each student can perform each objective. This systematic approach guarantees that the instruction is appropriate to the need and will work.
The process is as such:
- Analyze the need and select solutions.
- Design/develop non-training solutions.
- Design Phase: Derive the instructional outcomes/objectives.
- Development Phase: Developing the instruction.
- Pilot Implementation: Formative Evaluation.
- Implementation of the training.
- (Summative) Evaluation.
