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Instructional Design

Module 3. Instructional Design Practice

Listed here are tools and practices commonly used by instructional designers. These are the kinds of skills that employers seek when hiring designers across a wide range of industries and professions. 

ATD Most Valuable Skills

Instructional Design is one of the capabilities defined by the Association for Talent Development (ATD) as essential for developing effective training in the context of workplace learning. Follow these links to explore ATD resources for instructional designers:

Tasks from Instructional Design Australia

Instructional Design Australia is a comprehensive instructional design company offering services for eLearning, graphic design, video production, podcasting, and gamification. Their website provides many examples and case studies of what instructional designers do. Follow these links to explore the following topics at Instructional Design Australia:

ASU Roles of Instructional Designers

Arizona State University has a large instructional design program. Follow the link below to explore the kinds of roles ASU prepares instructional designers to do:

Aims Digital 5 Mistakes to Avoid

Instructional designers can make mistakes. To help you avoid making them, Aims Digital identifies the following five mistakes to avoid:

Unicon’s Philosophy of Instructional Design

Unicon is an instructional design company with more than three decades of experience in designing and developing online learning. Follow this link to learn about the principles guiding their designs:

Top 15 Tools Used by Instructional Designers

Dr. Lisa Evans, Professor and Director of Learning Design and Technology at the University of San Diego, offers the following article about the top 15 tools and how to choose them. Follow the link in the following reference to find out if you are aware of all these tools and see Dr. Evans’ advice about using them:

Creating SMART Goals

Defining your learning goals is important to do at the beginning of any instructional design project. A popular practice is to think SMART and make your goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART). To learn more about creating SMART goals, follow the links in the following bibliographic references:

OKR Goal Setting Framework

Invented by Intel CEO Andrew Grove back in the 1970s, OKR is a goal setting framework built around Objectives and Key Results. Hence the acronym, OKR. Objectives must be clearly defined goals with key results that are measurable criteria for evaluating achievement of each objective. For more on OKR, follow the links in the following bibliographic references:

Assessing the Design

Regardless of what model you use to guide your instructional design project, there are some generalizable questions you should ask in assessing your design. Is the navigation intuitive and visible? Will students know where to click? Does your design respond to differences in device brands and screen sizes? Are there formative measures to keep students engaged? What summative measures evaluate success? How will students know whether they have achieved the learning objectives?

Many instructional design frameworks contain rubrics for assessing quality. Follow the links to study rubrics for the instructional design frameworks listed below:

Instructional Design Job Hunting

If you anticipate pursuing a career as an instructional designer, follow the link below to consider the value of creating a Web-based portfolio that you can show potential employers to demonstrate the kind of instructional design skills you have acquired. If you are a University of Delaware student in the EDTC master’s program, consider making your EDTC program’s capstone portfolio serve as an interactive multimedia resource that potential employers can surf to see examples of what you have become able to create.