Friday, April 4, 2014

Pick a tool...Any tool!

I recently came across a social media posting where the head of a university Masters program in Instructional Design sought recommendations for essential software that would be useful for aspiring Instructional Designers. The degree program was characterized as having a heavy emphasis on tools, while bringing in ID theory through the use of those tools.

The posted question made me step back and wonder, should graduate programs in Instructional Design be primarily focusing on tools? Is that the prevailing trend? If so, maybe it's time to advise some caution and suggest that the primary focus be around solid Instructional Design theory and practice. To do otherwise may cause us to end up with graduate level technicians, who know how to manipulate a few tools to create programs that may or may not result in learning. The analogy that comes to mind here is teaching creative writing by teaching students to use Microsoft Word. Now Word probably is the most commonly used tool around, so learning to use it ensures, at the least, that students would be in sync with writing tools but not that they will be able to write creatively. Unfortunately for Instructional Design, there aren't many, if any, commonly accepted tools among organizations and potential employers of Instructional Designers. Of course that doesn't mean that you can't learn a new tool more easily because of experience with another similar tool. But again, primarily knowing a tool really well doesn't ensure good Instructional Design as an outcome.

A suggestion for graduate Instructional Design programs is to focus heavily on preparing their students to be able to design highly effective instruction ( the kind that results in real learning and improved performance ). That's where the true need exists for Instructional Designers. During my career I often hired instructional designers, but to my disappointment many did not demonstrate much in depth knowledge of or skill with Instructional Design itself. I often asked candidates to tell me how and why they'd used behaviorist models as well as the results they achieved. I did the same for constructivist models or any common model. In response, I often got sort of a blank stare or attempt to craft an answer that maybe told me something that candidates thought I wanted to hear, which were usually pretty far off the mark. Others routinely gave responses such as "I know we covered that in grad school, but I'd have to go back and dig out some of my old books". In other words many practicing and 'experienced' candidates may have been creating programs ostensibly for training, but maybe not designing effective interventions that enabled learning to happen. In many cases they may have been good expository writers or media creators, which is also desirable in an Instructional Design, but not enough in and of itself. Once in a while, I did get a candidate who truly understood that Instructional Design is about thoughtfully and strategically designing learning experiences while using a variety of models and techniques. Those were the folks who I couldn't hire fast enough, even if they had not used the same tools as we did. From where I sat, it was more important to be a true Instructional Designer first, and a tool manipulator second.

Don't get me wrong, tools are necessary in order to translate strong designs into tangible instructional products, particularly while learning to design, and in organizations that may not provide instructional programming support. My advice for graduate Instructional Design programs is to pick a tool...any tool that can produce a viable instructional product based on a comprehensively effective Instructional Design. At the proverbial end of the day, it probably doesn't really matter which specific tool is selected to educate IDs as long as design is the central focus. To do otherwise may all too often end up with training that presents content, but may miss the mark for making learning happen. It really comes down to the old saw of 'training ain't telling', no matter how technologically slick a presentation may be. Take it from one who has coached many designers over the years.

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