What is Instructional Design?

Instructional design is the process of creating educational or training materials in a systematic and efficient manner. It involves analyzing learning needs, designing and developing learning materials, implementing and delivering the materials, and evaluating their effectiveness. 

Instructional design typically involves a series of steps, including needs assessment, defining learning objectives, designing and developing instructional materials, implementing and delivering the materials, and evaluating the effectiveness of the materials. During the needs assessment phase, instructional designers analyze the learning needs of the target audience and identify the goals and objectives of the learning experience. This information is used to design instructional materials that are tailored to the needs of the audience and aligned with the learning objectives. 

The design and development phase involves creating instructional materials such as lesson plans, training modules, and multimedia presentations. Instructional designers use a variety of techniques, such as storyboarding, scripting, and prototyping, to create effective and engaging materials. 

The implementation and delivery phase involves delivering the instructional materials to the target audience through various means such as classroom instruction, online courses, and multimedia presentations. During this phase, instructional designers also provide support and guidance to learners as they navigate the learning materials. 

Finally, the evaluation phase involves assessing the effectiveness of the instructional materials and making improvements as needed. This phase may involve collecting feedback from learners, analyzing performance metrics, and making adjustments to the instructional materials based on the results. 

What do instructional designers do? 

Instructional designers are essentially the architects of the learning experience. They use applied learning theories to design and develop content, activities, and other resources to support learning. They are responsible for developing course content and learning evaluation methods. Furthermore, they create and provide learning products for different users such as K-12, higher education, corporate offices, and government institutions. 

Instructional designers generally: 

1. Create Learning Management Systems (LMS) 
2. Develop learning content including training manuals and video tutorials 
3. Plan online learning mediums like virtual labs 
4. Keep up to date with new practices in educational content creation 
5. Apply feedback to improve on courses 

Instructional design is now an occupation of its own and is in high demand worldwide. Organizations and companies are seeking instructional designers to create learning solutions for their employees, partners, and customers which in turn elevates business performance. 

These instructional designers are responsible for not just creating course content but making sure that participants can apply their learnings in their respective fields. 

See how CloudLabs is a boon for Instructional Designers in IT education. 

What are the different types of instructional design? 

Instructional design processes are not universal, and no one type fits all. Companies make use of a type that benefits their needs the most. Some of the most popular approaches to instructional design are: 

1. ADDIE: The term ADDIE stands for the different steps involved in the process. These are Analyse, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. ADDIE follows a linear process and focus is given at each step to ensure efficient learning. It is most suited for academia and is one of the most popular approaches to instructional design. 
2. SAM (Successive Approximation Model): SAM is essentially a simplified version of ADDIE. It mainly consists of 3 steps- preparation, iterative design, and iterative development. It is a more agile mode of ADDIE used for faster product delivery.  
3. ALD (Agile Design Learning): It is an instructional design approach that is more suitable for corporate training. It is cyclic and focuses on speed, flexibility, and collaboration. It follows four steps which are analysis, development, implementation, and evaluation. Since the process is cyclic, developers can go back to iterate each step based on feedbacks. 
4. ASSURE: This model is suited for hybrid or blended learning applications. It is a model designed for more effective teaching and learning. ASSURE stands for the different steps followed in the process, which are “Analysis, Stating the Goals, Selecting the Media, Using Technology, Requiring Performance, and Evaluation.” 

Which are the general steps followed in instructional design? 

All approaches to instructional design follow some general steps which act as fundamentals: 

1. Analysis: This step involves in-depth analysis of the student’s needs, company goals, need for training and previous course data. The training program is to be developed based on the goals you set for the business. This step involves analysis and planning. 
2. Development: In this step, the coursework is to be developed based on the analysis done previously. The designing of the coursework is done in this step. Course materials such as learning texts, video tutorials and more are created. 
3. Evaluation: This is the step in which you see how effective the course has been. The potential pros and cons, growth is business efficiency, and more are evaluated in this step. The program is modified based on these performance metrics and participant feedback.