We have a large body of literature that describes and prescribes how to design instruction but a poor understanding of what expert instructional designers actually do in practice. This paper describes a study in which expert and novice designers were asked to think aloud as they solved a design problem. The resulting protocols were analyzed and compared. Important differences were identified between experts and novices and between apparent characteristics of expertise and descriptions of instructional design in the literature. The implications of these differences for assisting and training instructional designers are discussed.
Management experts claim that organizational learning, knowledge management, intellectual capital, and related concepts are more important to today's organizations than traditional assets such as natural resources and skilled labor. Management thus enters domains more typically studied by those in training, education, and human performance technology, and fundamental questions asked by philosophers are now asked by CEOs; for example, What is knowledge? and How do people learn? Cook and Brown (1999) responded with an attractive metaphor. They claimed that a "generative dance" of knowledge and knowing results in new knowledge and new knowing. However, they portrayed this dance as if it happens automatically. In this article, it is argued that human intentions play a major role, and that when intentions are added, the dance is accurately described as designing. Design, then, provides alternative answers to the fundamental questions about knowledge and learning, as well as different competencies for professional practice and different directions for enhancing organizational success. An attempt at such answers, competencies, and directions is made by linking literatures on learning and performance with design and by articulating what is essentially a design epistemology.
At the 2012 AECT Research Symposium for which chapters in this volume were drafted, I began my presentation with a poll regarding current circumstances in education. I asked participants to raise their hands if they felt the following statements were true: (1) There has been adequate innovation in education to meet current and future challenges. No hands were raised. (2) Educational innovation is guided sufficiently by research. No hands were raised. (3) Design has great potential for contributing to educational innovation. All hands were raised.
Instructional Design and Powerful LearningI (the fi rst author) have been teaching instructional design (ID) for a decade, and I often start by focusing students' attention on their own learningon what has been very eff ective, what has not, and why. In one exercise, I ask students to refl ect on the nature and causes of their very best and very worst learn ing experiences. In doing this exer cise, I've grown more and more curi ous about the fact that I have been unable in ten years to see a direct link between what any single stu dent identifi ed as a best learning experience and a designer or teacher's preparation of that experi ence using a formal method such as instructional systems development.In a recent semester, I used a simi lar activity with 25 graduate stu dents and asked them to refl ect on the most powerful learning experiences they had ever had. Th e experiences were varied, but again no link to formal designing could be made. What struck me most, and what prompted the present study, was the over whelming support given to a single factor-the importance of a personal relationship with a mentor. Th e fi eld of instructional design was founded at least in part on the belief that such personal relationships with a mentor or subject matter expert were costly and ineffi cient. Technology-based in struction was given equal footing, if not preference, and this has in creased with the proliferation of microcomputing and the construc tion of the Internet. For example, try to fi nd a current position advertise ment for an instructional designer that does not refer to authoring dis tance learning courseware.Skillfully executed, instructional design can result in eff ective and effi cient means to meet learning goals. However, more powerful learning ex periences seem to go beyond eff ective ness, efficiency, appeal, and even pre determined goals. This study sought to identify the key features of instruc tional design, to determine the nature of powerful learning experiences, and to explore how the two might relate. A survey of experts and a series of inter views with adult learners revealed overlap in some areas, for example, in the perceived importance of active en gagement in authentic situations, and clear diff erences in others, most sig nifi cantly the importance placed by learners on continual face-toface per sonal interaction with a mentor/ expert teacher. Speculations are off ered on what similar results from additional studies might imply with regard to de sign actions and choices, and questions for further research are posed."Instructional Design and Powerful Learning" by G. Rowland and T. DiVasto is reprinted from Performance Improvement Quarterly, 14(2), 2001Quarterly, 14(2), , pp. 7-36. doi:10.1111Quarterly, 14(2), /j.1937Quarterly, 14(2), -8327.2001 10 DOI: 10.1002/piqPerformance Improvement QuarterlyAre learners saying that techno logical solutions are inherently less powerful? Are our current concep tions of ID hindering designers who try to eff ect powerful learning? In this study, we essent...
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