Binder1

ARTICLE 1
INTRODUCTION TO INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
What is Instructional Design?
Instructional design is defined as a systematic
process of translating principles of learning and
instruction into plans for instructional materials and
activities. Instructional designers try to design
things that are not only functional but also
attractive to the user of the product. They
established strong problem solving and critical
thinking skills while making decisions about their
designs.
By adopting the systematic process, instructional
designers tend to envision what the final products
will be look like. They write plans for the product,
but they do not necessarily translate into an actual
product. Often, they will hand their plans to
someone who specializes in production, such as
media developer and programmer. However, in
some instances, some instructional designers
acquire production skills, like computer
programming, video production, print materials,
etc. In any event, the designer has to ensure the
plans are completed before working on the
productions.
In order to understand the term instructional
design more clearly, we will review the meanings of
instruction and design.
What is Instructional Design?
Instructional design is defined as a systematic
process of translating principles of learning and
instruction into plans for instructional materials and
activities. Instructional designers try to design
things that are not only functional but also
attractive to the user of the product. They
established strong problem solving and critical
thinking skills while making decisions about their
designs.
By adopting the systematic process, instructional
designers tend to envision what the final products
will be look like. They write plans for the product,
but they do not necessarily translate into an actual
product. Often, they will hand their plans to
someone who specializes in production, such as
media developer and programmer. However, in
some instances, some instructional designers
acquire production skills, like computer
programming, video production, print materials,
etc. In any event, the designer has to ensure the
plans are completed before working on the
productions.
In order to understand the term instructional
design more clearly, we will review the meanings of
instruction and design.
What is Instruction?
Instruction is a method of transferring information
and activities that facilitate learners’ attainment of
specific learning outcomes. In other words,
instruction is the conduct of activities that focused
on learners’ ability on learning specific things. For
example, a trainer wishes to help learners to use
specific computer software to solve a certain set of
problems. The instructional designer will develop
materials and activities to prepare learners to use
the software effectively. Every learning experience
is designed to achieve a particular goal. Other than
achieving goals through instruction, instructional
designer aims to deliver efficient instruction, which
requires cost and time to make it more appealing.
What is Design?
There are many fields that use the term ‘design’ as
part of their field such as interior design,
architectural design, and industrial design. Design

is defined as a systematic planning process to solve
a complex problem before developing something
or executing the plans. Design requires high level of
precision, care, expertise that employed
throughout the planning process. This is crucial for
the designers to prevent serious circumstances
such as misuse of time and other resources. In the
case of instructional designer, the biggest fear is
designing poor and inefficient instructional
planning that affect the learners’ motivation.
Therefore, designers have to consider the factors
that can contribute to the success of instruction.
instructional or training designers when creating
learning experiences. ADDIE is an acronym for
Analyze, Develop, Design, Implement, and
Evaluate.
Evaluate
Analyze
Develop
Creativity has a role in design. Imaginative and
ingenious structures may inspire awe, while
mundane structure may be totally forgettable. For
an instructional designer, there is a critical need for
imagination and ingenuity in the design of
instruction. There are rules for designing
instruction that will “work”. Instructional designers
are always encouraged to make instruction more
inspiring and memorable by adopting imagination
and ingenuity.
How can instructional designers become more
creative in their work? There are some common
characteristics of ingenious students and
practitioners in the field. First, highly creative
designers are the voracious consumers of examples
of learning environment and instructional
materials. Second, they have conducted a thorough
analysis of learning objectives, and third, designers
use message design techniques, such as
metaphors, narratives, or visual images to build the
sense of continuity and interest to the instruction.
What is Instructional Design
Process?
Another way to define instructional design is to
describe the process involved in the systematic
planning of instruction. ADDIE is the most
commonly used instructional design model for
Fig 1: ADDIE model
Implement
Design
The application of ADDIE to instructional systems
design monitors the complexities of the intentional
learning environments by responding to diverse
situations, interactions within and between
contexts. An effective instructional design focuses
on performing authentic tasks, complex knowledge
and genuine problems. Therefore, it promotes high
commitment between learning environments and
actual work settings.
However, instruction should be regarded as a
potential intervention when the needs are validated
as the main cause of performance gap. Here,
ADDIE can be used when instructions is an
appropriate solution to the performance
discrepancy. Technically, instructional designers
are providing a service to clients and other primary
stakeholders, whereas subject matter experts and
other content specialists are known as
collaborating partners within the design and
development team.
The reason why this model has been very successful
is because it is simple: The ADDIE model provides a

step-by-step procedures for building training that
ensures learners will be able to meet the desired
learning outcomes. Each steps are critical to
develop training module, hence, it is not advisable
to skip any steps. Let’s take a look at what each
phase of ADDIE entails.
Analyze
The purpose of the Analyze phase is to identify the
causes for performance gap. There are few most
critical analyses that carried out by instructional
designers are:
Fig 2: Analysis areas
Task Analysis
Audience
Analysis
Training
Needs
Analysis
At the most basic level, the instructional designer’s
job is to find out three major analyses:
o Training Needs Analysis
This should be the first type of analysis that
instructional designer needs to complete in
order to find out if training is needed at all.
It identifies types of performance need to
expect and how they will be measured. This
needs analysis answers some important
questions like, is training the right solution
for the problem at hand? Because
sometimes, non-training solution is more
effective than a training course. Therefore,
instructional designers need to look at both
training and non-training solutions.
o Audience Analysis:
After validating the needs of conducting
the training, instructional designers needs
o
to analyze their learners. They need to
gather information on learners’ key
demographics, existing knowledge and
experience, technical considerations, and
expectation management. So, instructional
designers know whom they are training,
what learners already know, and how to
communicate with learner.
Task Analysis:
Then, it is time to take a closer look at the
specific processes and tasks that
instructional designers will be training
learners on by breaking them down into
step-by-step procedures. In other words,
instructional designers create training to
teach learner how to DO something. Task
analysis is all about hands on experience.
Once instructional designers have understood
about who, what, where, and why of training
through this stage, they will move into design
phase.
Design
Instructional designers start with a clear plan of
how everything in the course will be laid out and
how the text or multimedia will fit together. There
are two types of design deliverables:
o
Storyboard
This document portrays the elements of
the course that will appear on each slide,
including the text, imagery, and narration
script. If instructional designers are
collaborating with other developers, they
are required to make detailed notes on the
storyboard. In some cases, a storyboard
might be visually rich and look very similar
to the final output. While, in other cases, it
can be a simple text document with limited
clues to what the visual product will look
like. This is because there is no set template
or content required to make one. It is
depending on who is on the team and what

o
the course includes.
Prototype:
Instructional designers create a model or
sample of a course to test and identify the
functionality of specific features or
concept. It also lets stakeholders to
understand the layout of the course and
functions before investing time and effort
on developing the entire course with all of
its features.
Once the blueprint of the course is ready,
instructional designers start developing the course.
Develop
This is the phase where instructional designers start
building out the course by using an authoring tool
(if required). There are two sub-tasks at
development phase:
o Content creation:
Instructional designers determine ways on
making the course look polished and
professional by adding graphics,
multimedia, colors, and fonts. In some
cases, instructional designers use authoring
tools to create learning interactions, such
as quizzes, games, mix and match,
functional navigation, etc. to make the
learning experience more engaging.
o
Testing:
After creating the content, instructional
designers need to test it. There are few
things need to be tested and reviewed such
as spelling, grammar, learning objectives,
navigation, and flow. This process is
normally being done after the development
process in order to identify problem areas.
If project involves other developers, it
provides time for developers to make
changes to the final product. So, it is
pertinent to keep an issue log to ensure
that instructional designers and developer
implement the requested changes from
one version to the next.
Implement
Once the course is fully developed and tested, it is
ready to share with learners. There are few ways of
sharing the materials. However, it depends on
whether instructor needs to track and report on
learner behavior.
o Web:
If there is no need on tracking learner
behavior, instructional designers can
upload the content directly to the web by
providing a URL link for learners to access
the course. The disadvantage of doing this
is instructor will not be able to know if
learners have completed the course, how
long it took them to do so, or if they went
wrong somewhere.
o
Learning management system (LMS):
If there is a need to track learners and their
progress, it is advisable to share content
through an LMS. There are different kinds
of LMS that offer variety of features and
functionalities. However, they share the
some tracking capabilities, such as if
learners have completed the course and
how long it took them.
Evaluate
At evaluation phase, instructional designers need
to go back to the very first step of ADDIE process,
in which they completed a training needs analysis.
During the step, instructional designers need to
identify specific performance improvements that
the training would address as well as how to
measure those improvements. This helps
instructional designers to gather information about
how the learners felt about the course, and how
much they feel they learned. With the collected
data through the evaluation, instructional
designers should be able to improve the course and
future course designs.

Summary
Ultimately, if the instructions are not carefully
planned, it will cause poor quality of instructional
material. Instructional design activities offer a
process for the systematic planning of instruction
that may improve the effectiveness of the
materials. Although the process may often portray
as linear, in fact it is frequently iterative, moving
back and forth between stages as the project
develops. In next article, we will be looking at
instructional analysis on the learners.
Reference
Morrison G.R., Ross S.M. & Kemp J.E. (2004).
Designing effective instruction. Hoboken, Nj: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.