Why Instructional Design is dying.........

Apologies for the long time between posts. Don't forget to follow me on twitter as I am constantly micro blogging but am using my blog now for lengthy thought provoking posts!

Let me qualify this by first pointing out that I am only referring to the corporate learning ecology here and not the academic ecology.

There are two major aspects to this that I am now focusing on as I see it being critical to the future of effective learning.

Firstly, it is important for L&D professionals to have had some business experience. There are 3 transient levels that impact learners and designers in particular need to take these into account. Firstly an understanding of the industry ecology that the company works in is imperative. The global forces and the industrial forces at work are constantly forcing companies to evaluate and re-evaluate their strategic and operational directions. A 5 year plan is aspirational at best in today's fast moving world. The next layer down is the business context and this is subject to the cultural motives of the organisation and the resilience of the various units that make up the business. As ecological forces move in and force change, so does the leadership and management of the various organisations that are impacted by the ecological forces and they start to create new or revised contexts for individuals to cope with. Lastly the inner core is people and their belief systems. I focus on belief systems because at the end of the day, most of what we produce as learning designers, is designed to impact that belief system. That's why behaviour changes. Because an individual recognises something as important to them and makes that decision for change. (I think most people can relate to this.)

So these forces that are constantly at work and bi-directional in their influence look something like this:

Secondly, the advent of social media and its capacity for mobile delivery forces the corporate learning function to recognise that the future design of learning materials will be informal and performance oriented. Performance support has always been talked about as the next big thing but we have consistently focused in the past on integrating this as task oriented learning at the point in time that the task needs to be achieved. The problem is that we buried it in systems to be called up by an F1 key or click on a help function. Now, I can tweet, link in, facebook, friend feed my vast array of contacts to find my answers. And lets face it, the answer will always be aligned to my beliefs and in a lot of cases will be contextual.

Instructional design of formal learning materials is dying because of the aforementioned and I am sure a host of other reasons. This is not to say that it is not needed. I still believe that good, robust, well researched ID produces enhanced learning outcomes. It is just that organisational contexts are now moving too fast to support this unless there is rapid design that is effective!

Re-usable learning objects I hear you say........... time to ruminate again.

Do yourself a favour..................

You need to read this:

"Learning to learn is a diffuse and complex concept, with different aspects emphasised in different contexts. It is a global phenomenon with similar ideas about learning to learn articulated around the globe. The common features associated with the idea are those of lifelong learning to ensure economic competitiveness, as well as expressing some dissatisfaction with aspects of the current education system in terms of its appropriateness for contemporary society and culture."

It is an excerpt from a paper written by Professor Steven Higgins, Durham University (May 2009) and the papaer can be found here.

What resonates with me about this paper is that the acknowledgement of context looks to play a significant part in the understanding of motivation to learn. I have formed a view that ecology, context and belief systems need alignment for an individual to become cognisant of the need to invest time in their won learning and I will write more on this in the future.

In the meantime enjoy this article from Steven Higgins.....

Heroes of learning # 2

David Merrill.

M. David Merrill was listed among the most productive Educational Psychologists (Gordon, et al, Educational Researcher , Aug/Sep1984), among the most frequently cited authors in the computer-based instruction literature (Wedman, Journal of Computer-Based Instruction, Summer 1987), ranked among the most influential people in the field of Instructional Technology (Moore & Braden, Performance & Instruction, March 1988.).

Although famous for his component display theory, I prefer to focus on the following which he collaborated on with Charles Regulith. I will cover CDT at a later date. In focus in this post is:

First principles of instruction:

Task-centered principle

• Learning is promoted when instruction is in the context of whole real-world tasks.
• Learning is promoted when learners are engaged in a task-centered instructional strategy involving a progression of whole real-world tasks.

Activation principle

• Learning is promoted when learners activate relevant cognitive structures by being directed to recall, describe or demonstrate relevant prior knowledge or experience.
• Activation is enhanced when learners recall or acquire a structure for organizing the new knowledge, when this structure is the basis for guidance during demonstration, is the basis for coaching during application, and is a basis for reflection during integration.
  
  

Demonstration principle

• Learning is promoted when learners observe a demonstration of the skills to be learned that is consistent with the type of content being taught.
• Demonstrations are enhanced when learners are guided to relate general information or an organizing structure to specific instances.
• Demonstrations are enhanced when learners observe media that is relevant to the content and appropriately used.

Application principle

• Learning is promoted when learners engage in application of their newly acquired knowledge or skill that is consistent with the type of content being taught.
• Application is effective only when learners receive intrinsic or corrective feedback.
• Application is enhanced when learners are coached and when this coaching is gradually withdrawn for each subsequent task.
• Application is enhanced when learners observe media that is appropriately used.

Integration principle

• Learning is promoted when learners integrate their new knowledge into their everyday life by being directed to reflect-on, discuss, or defend their new knowledge or skill.
• Integration is enhanced when learners create, invent, or explore personal ways to use their new knowledge or skill.
• Integration is enhanced when learners publicly demonstrate their new knowledge or skill.

Tell me this does not make sense and that instructional designers should not be using this and I will immediately counter with a resounding "you do not know what you are talking about!". Some of our back to basics approach should allow for deep dives into the skill and competence required and we have to take a big breath and rediscover the strength of sound instructional science.