What is the History of the Field? What Jobs Can I Get as an Instructional Designer?
What Skills are Required of an Instructional
Designer?
What are UND's IDT Students and Alumni Doing?
There are many different definitions of instructional design, and the history
of our field goes back 60 years. Instructional
design lies at the intersection of three disciplines:
Education, Psychology, and Communication. It
arose from the necessity of developing effective
training for large
numbers of soldiers during and after World
War II. The military was concerned that they
were risking lives and equipment because they
had
no way of ensuring consistent, effective training
for soldiers. They turned to experts in these
disciplines to find a solution, which became
known as Instructional Systems Design, or ISD.
By drawing from the
known body of established research and theory
in these disciplines, these experts developed
a model for ensuring effective training and
learning, regardless of discipline, learners,
or environment. From
Psychology, they drew the best of what is known
about how humans learn and develop (e.g., cognition,
behaviorism, constructivism).
From Communications, they drew from all that
is known about message design and communication
(e.g., readability, screen and page design).
From Education, they pulled from all that
is known about how people learn in formal and
informal settings (e.g., instructional strategies,
objectives, assessment). Instructional design
(ID) grew out of this process, and while there
are at least 40
different ID models, all
share the same underlying process of Analysis,
Design, Development, Implementation, and
Evaluation, also known as the ADDIE process.
We tend to focus primarily on one model,
the Gagne, Wager, Golas, & Keller model.
Robert Gagne is widely considered the founder
of our field, and this model is arguably
one of the best known, along with the Dick & Carey
and Smith & Ragan models.
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What can you do with a degree
in ID? There are many different career paths
that instructional designers follow, including
performance improvement consulting,
multimedia development, program evaluation, and
technology specialist. In general, however,
there are two main areas IDers work in:
corporate/organizational,
and public education. Those who focus on the
corporate sector are training designers and/or
developers in the military, government, healthcare,
banking, or any business or organization
which requires systematic and frequent training.
Of course, training is a part of virtually
every organization, but some are large enough
to have their own human resources department
and training program. IDers are generally a
part of a design and development team in these
environments, working with graphic artists,
programmers, and subject-matter experts. They
may be "pure" designers, or also develop
and/or implement the training they design.
Those
who work in the public education environment
focus either on K12 or higher education.
In K12, they may be teachers who are seeking additional
training in the use of technology to support
learning in the classroom. As such, they
become technology facilitators capable of designing
meaningful learning environments that make
intelligent use of technology and problem
solving. They may also develop and deliver professional
development training for other teachers in
their school, or at the district, state,
or national levels. They may also work as curriculum
designers at all levels of the education
system, focusing exclusively the design of large scale
curricula. Those who work in higher education
may work with faculty to develop technology-assisted
learning in a variety of ways, including
distance education and multimedia development labs.
Likewise, they may work as curriculum designers
in a similar fashion. in all cases, IDers
may develop learning and performance support material
using the web, computer, print, video, and
human delivery systems.
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Who
Makes a Good Instructional Designer?
The first thing you should know is that there are no
undergraduate degrees in instructional design.
Accordingly, instructional designers come from
all disciplines and domains. The field itself
is rooted in Education, Psychology,
Communications, so students with backgrounds
in these areas will recognize much of what
they have done already in the work they will
do as instructional designers. More important
than prior educational area are the skills
and dispositions required of instructional
designers. First, you should not be averse
to the process of writing, as a large portion
of what is done in ID is the creation of design
documents and instructional materials. An interest
in many areas is also helpful, as IDers are
regularly called upon to develop instruction
in a wide variety of areas by working with
subject-matter experts in different domains.
Creativity is also a good trait to have as
an instructional designer because development of
effective training and instruction requires
as much creativity as science. Finally, you
should enjoy working with people to solve problems
and improve human performance and experience.
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What are UND's IDT Students and Alumni Doing?
If you would like to see where some of our current students and alumni use their degrees, click here.
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