INSTRUCTIONAL SYSTEM DESIGN N.J. Rao
1. Introduction
Learning is part of everyday life. Typically the process of acquiring knowledge in an educational context involves two key elements: one (teacher) who actively imparts knowledge and two (student or the learner) who actively gains knowledge. Each of these elements is equally essential for learning to be successful. In teaching students we hope to engage their minds and passions. The teacher must consider what he has to give and how he hopes to increase the student’s knowledge. The student not only gains new information but also he/she weaves this information into his/her life. For the student, the key is how he/she acquires information and what he/she might do to make this information part of his/her experience.
Teaching and learning are two different processes that take place in the context of an educational system that is determined by the economic and social forces. This note presents basics of some of the education, teaching and learning theories that could be used by the designers of curricula and learning material, and methods of Instructional System Design of courses, particularly in engineering programs.
2. Education, Teaching, Learning and Development
Education: Theories of education deal with the goals and values that educational systems embrace and propagate. Their primary concern is with ends rather than with means, and their importance lies in keeping us aware of the alternate goals of all our educational efforts. In a democratic society the electorate determines the values of the schools and the goals toward which they work. Philosophies of education influence theories of teaching. While many may cherish the belief that theories of learning and teaching can develop in a climate of philosophical and ethical neutrality, we know that such absolute neutrality is not possible, especially when the teachers have the dual and overlapping roles of educators and citizens. There may be considerable folly in professional educators’ fiercely pursuing goals and values that are seriously at odds with those of the lay public, which provides both the students and the money we need to run the educational institutions.
Teaching: Any theory of teaching should answer three questions: how do teachers behave; why do they behave as they do; and what are the effects? It should be a general concept which applies to all teachers, to all students, to all subject matter, and to all situations, both in and out of school, in which teaching may occur. It should consider the behavior of teachers, the cause, and the learning of students, the effect. Further, it should explain, predict, and control ways in which the behavior of the teacher affects the learning of the students. There is no single conception of teaching. Teaching embraces far too many kinds of processes, of behavior, and of activity to be the proper subject of a single theory. We must not be misled by one word, ‘teaching’ into searching for one theory to explain it. Teaching theory and alternative views of teaching derive from many sources. Some of these are (1) the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, (2) different social and political views of the organization and role of the school, (3) alternative
systems of values and social priorities, (4) aspirations for various types of utopias, and (5) favored choices of new life styles.
Learning: Theories of learning describe and explain the conditions under which learning does and does not occur. A theory of learning is a general concept which applies to all organisms, to all learning tasks, and to all situations where learning occurs. It explains, predicts, and controls the way in which environmental conditions affect the learning of the organism.
A theory of learning is much broader and more basic than a theory of teaching. In fact, theories of teaching must be based on theories of learning. The behavior of teachers is only one special category of environmental conditions under which learning occurs. Learning also occurs without teachers. Learning is a more ubiquitous experience than teaching. Theories of learning are much more highly developed than theories of teaching. We have no single theory of learning, and it is unlikely that one such would evolve in near future.
Development: Theories of development describe the biological and psychological changes that occur in people during various stages of their lives. Theories of development apply to all people with similar biological capabilities and similar physical and social background. These theories assume that people experience about the same stages or steps of development approximately in the same sequence and at the same time in their lives. Theories of development are much broader than theories of learning and theories of teaching. Theories of development link behavioral change both to biological inheritance and growth, and to environmental change.
3. Instruction
The purpose of instruction is to help people learn and develop. The kinds of learning and development may include cognitive, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual. Learning can certainly occur without instruction. We are continuously encountering and interpreting our environment and the events in it. Learning is a natural process that leads to changes in what we know, what we can do, and how we behave. However, one function of an educational system is to facilitate intentional learning, in order to accomplish many goals that would take much longer without instruction. Educational institutions teach knowledge and skills that the community feels are desirable, even if they are not of immediate personal interest to the student, and even if they would not be encountered naturally in non-school environments. The government and commercial industries provide both skills and training and continuing refresher training to help employees acquire the skills and learning needed to succeed in a changing workplace (Gagne et. al. 2005). We define instruction as a set of events embedded in purposeful activities that facilitate learning. These events can be external to the learner, for example, events embodied in printed pages, an instructor’s lecture, or the activities of a group of students. There are also internal mental events, such as directing attention, rehearsing, reflecting, and monitoring progress. Educational psychologists hypothesize about the nature of these internal events, and from that research derive principles about the learning process. Instructional designers apply these principles to the design of external events we call instruction. For example, it is generally accepted that the working memory has limited capacity. With this principle in mind, organizing information into clusters or categories has been found to facilitate learning.
Is teaching different from instruction? Teaching is only one part of instruction. The word “teach” infers that a person is lecturing or demonstrating something to the learner. However, the teacher or trainer’s role includes many different tasks, such as selecting materials, gauging student readiness to learn, managing class time, monitoring instructional activities, and finally serving as a content resource and a learning facilitator. “Instruction” puts emphasis on a whole range of activities the teacher uses to engage the students. An instructor who has knowledge of the principles of instruction design has a broader vision of what it takes to help students learn: when it would benefit students to be put into groups, when practice and feedback will be most effective, and the pre-requisites for problem-solving and higher-order learning skills, for example.
Application of principles of instructional design would benefit a number of persons connected with education, including those who are in the business of producing instructional materials, such as textbook writers, curriculum material developers, web-based course designers, and knowledge management system designers.
Instruction is more likely to be effective if it is planned to engage students in those events and activities that facilitate learning. Using principles of instruction design, the teacher can select, or plan and develop activities to best help students learn.
4. Instructional-Design Theories (Reigeluth 1999)
An instructional-design theory is a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop. For example, an instructional-design theory called “Theory One” (Perkins 1992) offers the following guidance for what the instruction should provide:
• Clear information. Descriptions and examples of goals, knowledge needed, and the performances expected.
• Thoughtful practice. Opportunity for learners to engage actively and reflectively whatever is to be learned.
• Informative feedback. Clear, thorough counsel to learners about their performance, helping them to proceed more effectively.
• Strong intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Activities that are amply rewarded, either because they are very interesting and engaging in themselves, or because they feed into other achievements that concern the learner.
Instructional-design theory is a design-oriented (focusing on means to attain given goals of learning or development), rather than description oriented (focusing on the results of given events). Secondly, instructional design theory identifies methods of instruction (ways to support and facilitate learning) and the situations in which those methods should and should not be used. Third, in all instructional-design theories, the methods of instruction can be broken into more detailed component methods. Fourth, the methods are probabilistic rather than deterministic, which means they increase the chances of attaining the goals rather than ensuring attainment of goals.
Theories can be thought of as dealing with cause-and-effect relationships or with flows of events in natural processes, keeping in mind that those effects or events are almost always probabilistic. Most people think of theories as descriptive in nature, meaning that the theory describes the
effects that occur when a given class of causal events occurs, or meaning that it describes the sequence in which certain events occur. Descriptive theories can be used for prediction or for explanation. Design–oriented theories are very different from descriptive theories. Design theories are prescriptive in nature, in the sense that they offer guidelines as to what method(s) to use to best attain a given goal. Simon (1969) referred to the distinction between descriptive theories and design theories as “the natural sciences” and “and the sciences of the artificial”, respectively. Design theories are intended to provide direct guidance to practitioners about what methods to use to attain different goals, whereas descriptive theories attempt to provide a deeper understanding of effects that result from phenomena. Descriptive theories, therefore, are also useful to practitioners, because they provide an understanding of why a design theory works and because they can help practitioners to generate their own theories for those many situations for which no adequate ones exist. The major concern for people developing and testing descriptive theories is validity, whereas for design theories it is preferability.
Instruction design theory requires at least two components: methods for facilitating human learning and development (which are also called instructional methods), and indications as to when and when not use those methods (which may be called situations). An essential feature of instructional-design theories is that the methods they offer are situational rather than universal. There are two major aspects of any instructional situation: the conditions under which the instruction will take place and the desired outcomes of the instruction. Instructional conditions include:
• The nature of what is to be learned (e.g., understandings are learned differently from the way skills are learned)
• The nature of the learner (e.g., prior knowledge, learning strategies, and motivation)
• The nature of learning environment (e.g., independently at home, in a group, in a classroom, a team in business)
• The nature of the instructional development constraints (e.g., resources available for planning and developing instruction)
The second major aspect of any instructional situation is the desired instructional outcomes, which are different from learning goals. They do not include the specific learnings that are desired. Instead, desired instructional outcomes include the levels of effectiveness, efficiency, and engagement you want or need from the instruction. Some trade-offs are necessary, among the desired outcomes.
Instructional methods are also componential, meaning that each can be done in different ways and therefore made up of different components (or features). For example, group discussion can be viewed as a method of instruction. But group discussion is made up of many smaller methods, such as forming groups, presenting an issue for discussion, rules to be followed for discussions, and evaluating group’s as well as individuals’ efforts and so forth. In addition, there are usually many different ways in which a method can be performed. The discussion topic can be presented in many ways; the rules for discussions can be made differently, and so forth. More details can be provided for a method by offering criteria that the method should meet. An instructional-design theory is easier to apply if it describes methods on a relatively detailed level.
Another characteristic of methods of instruction is that they are probabilistic. This means that methods do not guarantee the desired instructional and learning outcomes. They only increase the probability that the desired results will occur. This is because there are so many factors that influence how well a method of instruction works.
So, instructional-design theories can vary greatly in terms of the level of guidance they provide, ranging from very general theories to highly dedicated theories. Instructional-design theories differ in important ways from learning theories, curriculum theories, and instruction-design processes. Learning theories are often confused with instruction-design theories. Learning theories are descriptive. They describe how learning occurs. For example, one kind of theory, called schema theory, proposes that new knowledge is acquired by accretion into an existing schema, by tuning that schema when minor inconsistencies emerge, and restructuring that schema when major inconsistencies arise. If I am able to successfully identify useful methods for a particular situation, I have created an instructional-design theory. In contrast to learning theories, instructional-design theories are more directly and easily applied to education problems, for they describe specific events outside of the learner that facilitate learning (i.e., methods of instruction), rather than describing what goes on inside a learner’s head when learning occurs. The same kind of analysis applies to theories of human development.
Curriculum theories are concerned with what to teach, whereas decisions about how to teach constitute the province of instruction-design theories. However, the interrelationships between these two kinds of decisions are so strong that it often makes sense to combine the two. Regarding what to teach (goals), the Instructional System Design (ISD) process has traditionally looked at only what works, through the process of needs analysis. But many curriculum theories are based on a philosophy (a set of values). In fact both empirics (data about what is needed) and values (opinions about what is important) are relevant and should be addressed in the ISD process for deciding what to teach, perhaps with different degrees of emphasis for different situations. Decisions regarding how to teach need also to take into consideration how one situation differs from another, because people differ in their values about what outcomes are important. Thus, both values and empirics are important for making decisions about how to teach as well as what to teach, so elements of curriculum theory and the ISD process should be combined.
Instructional-Design Process or Instructional System Development (ISD) is the process a teacher or instructional designer should use to plan and prepare for instruction, while instructional-design theory concerns what the instruction should be like (i.e., what methods of instruction should be used). However, instructional-design theories and instructional-design processes are closely related. Different theories require differences in the process used to apply those theories to particular situations.
Instructional practice is a subsystem that is part of different kinds of systems, such as public education system, higher education systems, corporate training systems, health agencies, the armed forces, museums, informal learning systems, and many others. Systems thinkers know that, when a human-activity system (or societal system) changes in significant ways, its subsystems must change in equally significant ways to survive. This is because each subsystem
must meet one or more needs of its super-system in order for the super-system to continue to support it.
The super-system of instruction, consisting of all public, private and nonprofit organizations, has been changing significantly as the world is fast moving from industrial age to information age. Some of the markers that characterize these two ages are shown in following table.
INDUSTRIAL AGE INOFRMATION AGE
Standardization Customization
Bureaucratic organization Team-based organization Centralized control Autonomy with accountability Adversarial relationship Cooperative relationships Autocratic decision making Share decision making
Compliance Initiative
Conformity Diversity
One-way communications Networking Compartmentalization Holism
Parts oriented Process oriented Planned obsolescence Total quality CEO or boss as “king” Customer as “king
These fundamental changes in instruction’s super-systems have important implications for instruction. Employees need to be able to think about and solve problems, work in teams, communicate, take initiative, and bring diverse perspectives to their work. Also, people need to learn more, yet they have less time to learn it, and they need to demonstrate an impact on the organization’s strategic objectives.
Our current paradigm in education and training is based on standardization. We know that different learners learn at different rates and have different learning needs. Yet our current paradigm of education and training entails teaching a large group of learners the same content in the same amount of time. One reason is that group-based learning represents logistical and economic efficiencies, even though it does not do a good job of learner’s needs. Even the student assessment has typically been norm based to see who the really bright ones are. Standardized instruction allows valid comparisons of student with each other, which was an important need in the industrial age. So our current paradigm was never designed for learning; it was designed for sorting.
Current paradigm of training and education is also based on conformity and compliance. Students’ training is directed by the trainer or teacher. But employers now want people who will take
initiative to solve problems and who will bring in diversity – especially diverse perspectives – to the work place.
We have seen that the current paradigm of education and training needs from one focused on sorting to one focused on learning – from the Darwinian notion of “advancement of the fittest” to the more spiritual and humanistically defensible one of “advancement of all” – and on helping everyone to reach their potential. This means that the paradigm of instruction has to change from standardization to customization, from a focus on presenting material to a focus on making sure that learners’ needs are met. This, in turn, requires a shift from passive to active learning and from teacher-directed to student-directed (or jointly directed) learning. It requires a shift from teacher initiative, control, and responsibility to shared initiative, control, and responsibility. It requires a shift from decontextualized learning to authentic, meaningful tasks. And, most importantly, it requires a shift from holding time constant and allowing achievements to vary, to allowing each learner the time needed to reach the desired attainments.
But to change the paradigm of instruction in this way, the teacher can’t teach the same thing to a whole “class” at the same time. This means the teacher has to be more of a “guide on the side” rather than a “sage on the stage”. So, if the teacher is a facilitator rather than the agent of most of the learning, what other agents are there? Well-designed resources are one, and instructional-design theory and instructional technology can play particularly large roles in developing these. But others include fellow learners, local real-world resources (e.g., practitioners), and remote resources (available on the Internet). Instructional-design theories are needed to offer guidance for the use of all these kinds of resources for the learning-focused paradigm of instruction.
Instructional System Development is explored, particularly with reference to courses in formal engineering programs, in the following sections.
5. Instructional System Design Model
Instructional Systems Design (ISD) Models are the systematic guidelines instructional designers follow in order to create a workshop, a course, a curriculum, an instructional program, a training session, or the instructional materials and products for educational programs. ISD is a process to ensure learning does not occur in a haphazard manner, but is developed using a process with specific measurable outcomes. The responsibility of the instructional designer is to create instructional experiences, which ensure that the learners will achieve the goals of instruction. ADDIE is generic model for instruction system design. All other ISD models can be treated as particularizations of this model for specific purposes. For example, the very popular Dick and Carey model can be seen as particularization of ADDIE model for training programs, though the authors did not refer to ADDIE.
ADDIE Model: The “ADDIE Model” is a colloquial term used, since 1980s, to describe a systematic approach to instructional development. The term is virtually synonymous with instructional systems development. The label seems not to have a single author, but rather to have evolved informally through oral tradition. It is not a specific, fully elaborated model in its own right, but rather an umbrella term that refers to a family of models that share a common underlying structure. ADDIE is an acronym referring to the major processes that comprise the generic ISD:
Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. These processes are sequential and iterative, as depicted in figure 2.
FIG. 2: ADDIE model of ISD
The basic engine of ISD models (Molenda 2003) is the systems approach: viewing human organizations and activities as systems in which inputs, outputs, processes (throughputs), and feedback and control elements are the salient features. Advocates of this model claim that the process of designing instruction can be carried out more efficiently and effectively if the steps are followed in a logical order so that the output of each step provides the input to the next. For example, the outputs of the Analysis phase are a set of instructional objectives, henceforth referred to as competencies. The Design Phase represents activities that enable the course designer to generate a plan according to which the instruction would be conducted, and instructional material and learning material would be developed. The Development Phase represents activities that convert the blueprints created in the design phase into instructional materials and learning materials. Implement Phase presents specifics of an instance of offering. The learners and the instructional system are probed, in the Evaluation phase to decide whether revisions are necessary, in which case the process would be repeated with the next version of instruction.
The iterative aspect of the model is represented vertically down the model by the arrows in both directions between each phase, as depicted in figure 2. Each major phase of the process is accompanied by some sort of formative evaluation, as depicted on the left side of the model, to test the adequacy of the decisions made during that phase. After Analysis, for example, the accuracy of descriptions of the audience and the learning needs are evaluated by a group of experts. After Design, assessment, instructional units and chosen instructional methods are judged by experts. After Development, the efficacy of instructional material and learning material is evaluated and improvements are worked out. Was the syllabus, instructional scheduling, design of assessment instruments appropriate to the context and instructional goals is evaluated after Did
ANALYSIS
DESIGN
DEVELOPMENT
E
V
A
L
U
A
T
IO
N
IMPLEMENTATION
EVALUATION
the entire intervention achieve its goal, or what remains to be done after Implementation? This summative evaluation is what is symbolized by the final Evaluation phase. At each of these phases, the results of the evaluative activity could lead the developers to revisit earlier steps, hence the arrows between phases in both the directions.
The single most important feature of ADDIE model is the identification, during the analysis phase, of instructional objectives (competencies the students are expected to acquire) of the course.
The activities under all these four phases will greatly depend on the nature of what is being created and the context in which it is being created. The context is defined by the audience and their background, environment in which the instruction takes place, and the technologies accessible.
Another very popular model due to Dick and Carey is presented in the figure 3.
Fig. 3: Dick and Carey Instruction Design Model As can readily be seen this model is differently elaborated version of ADDIE
Analysis Phase: Analysis is the first stage of ADDIE model. The first task in this phase is identification of audience and determination of their entry behavior. As engineering programs are formal, elaborate mechanisms exist for selection of students to these programs, and the curriculum identifies the course structure and prerequisites of each course, the analysis of audience and entry behaviors need not be undertaken for each course. The time and budget constraints also do not change from one course to the other very much. All courses are of one semester duration and have well defined credit load. The instructor has limited choices with regard to assessment depending on the nature of the subject, his/her personal preferences, number of students registered, and the technologies available. Therefore, the major task of the analysis phase is identification of instructional goals. An engineering program has to facilitate its graduates to acquire Graduate Attributes identified the National Board of Accreditation, which are generic in nature. Each course attempts to meet a subset of these attributes. The selected attributes need to be translated into a set of technical and non-technical competencies related to the subject matter of the course.
The stages of analysis phase for an engineering course may be listed as
1.
Write the Course Overview and Context indicating the assumptions made and approach taken by the instructor, its relationship to other courses in the Curriculum.2.
Select a subset of Graduate Attributes proposed to be addressed by the course.3.
Select the relevant cognitive levels and knowledge categories4.
Identify the competencies that the student should achieve at the end of the course and the selected graduate attributes.5.
Elaborate each competency into sub-competencies6.
Draw the competency/sub-competency map using appropriate drawing tool7.
Have the outputs of analysis phase peer reviewed and modify them if necessary.Design Phase: The design phase represents activities that enable the course designer to generate a plan according to which the instruction would be conducted, and instructional material and learning material would be developed. The stages of design phase for an engineering course may be listed as
1.
Determine the assessment pattern.2.
Create the Item Bank as per the assessment pattern3.
Select the delivery technologies proposed to be used.4.
Arrange competencies and their sub-competencies as per the competency map, group them as Instructional Units, and identify the Instructional Methods proposed to be used for each Instructional Unit.5.
Determine the structure of Assessment Instruments6.
Have the outputs of design phase peer reviewed and modify them if necessary.Instructional methods refer to the activities in which the instructor and learner will be involved in conducting an Instructional Unit. These are used to create learning environments considered to be effective by the instructor in achieving the sub-competencies and competencies. Some examples of instructional methods are direct teaching, structured overview, case studies, conducting experiments, field studies, projects, and group discussions.
Development Phase: The development phase represents activities that convert the blueprints created in the design phase into instructional materials and learning materials. The stages in the development phase of an engineering course consist of
1. Develop the Concept Map of the course as defined by the competencies.
2. Prepare instructional materials for all Instructional Units as per the selected instructional methods.
3. Select and/or prepare learning materials for all Instructional Units for the course. 4. Have the outputs of development phase peer reviewed and modify them if necessary.
Implement Phase: Instructors conduct the course as per the instructional plan prepared in the Design Phase using instruction material and learning material prepared in Development Phase. However, each instance of a course conduct is likely to be slightly different based on the context and the time of offering. Implement Phase presents specifics of the instance of offering and involves preparing and communicating the Syllabus of the course, planning resources for conducting the course, scheduling instruction, creating specific assessment instruments, giving feedback to students after every assessment, and tracking the performance of students. The specific elements of Implement Phase are
1. Writing Syllabus 2. Planning Resources
3. Creating Instruction Schedule
4. Preparing specific Assessment Instruments 5. Feedback to students after every assessment 6. Tracking students
Evaluation Phase: Instructors conduct the course as per the instructional plan created in the Design Phase using instruction material and learning material prepared in Development Phase. However, each instance of conducting a course is likely to be slightly different based on the context and the time of offering.
Evaluation is both formative and summative. Every instance of course design and its conduct should be evaluated to plan for improvements to the next instance of course offering. The evaluation can be self evaluation by the instructor as well as by peers. The activities of evaluation phase include
1. Instructor’s perception of students with regard to their abilities and motivation 2. Observations on Instruction
3. Additional sessions conducted by the instructor beyond the scheduled hours 4. Observations on Assessment Instruments and Student Performance
5. Student feedback during the session 6. Student feedback at the end of the course 7. Summary observations
8. Peer feedback
9. Suggestions for Improvement 6. Summary
Instruction design of a course is done in five stages as per ADDIE model. The analysis and design phase activities require an in depth understanding of the present day context and an awareness of different technologies available. The instructor needs to appreciate availability of a large number of instructional methods and learning resources. He has now an opportunity to facilitate students to learn as per his beliefs.
References
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3. Kneller G.F., Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, 2nd Edn., John Wiley & Sons Inc;
1971
4. Molenda M: The ADDIE Model, in, Educational Technology: An Encyclopedia (Eds. A. Kovalchick & K. Dawson) ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, CA, 2003. (Draft at
5. Perkins, D.N., Smart schools: Better thinking and learning for every child, New York, The Free Press, 1992
6. Reigeluth, C. M., What Are Instructional Strategies and Theories? [online] Available:
http://php.indiana.edu/~reigelut/3.1inst.html , 2001
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http://www.emu.edu/education/model.html; http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml;
