Instructional design Essay Example for Free

Instructional design Essay 1 â€Å"Well begun is half done†. So goes a saying. Action plans are like roadmaps for a meaningful journey toward a specific destination. Hence they are essential in any developmental work, including education and training. ADDIE is one of the most widely used action plan models used by instructional designers. It is an acronym for five terms â€Å"Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation† that constitute the five phases of the process. Analysis, the first phase, is a process of studying something by taking into account the characteristics of individual parts and their inter-relationship. The instructional designer curriculum content developers and teachers evaluate the cognitive â€Å"entry† behavior (knowledge, skills and attitudes) that his students possess before they are introduced to the prospective module, for instance a set of virtual laboratory experiments for use in a Grade 12 physics classroom. The team seeks answers to questions like â€Å"Are all students familiar with the theoretical concepts? †, â€Å"How much do they differ individually? † etc. It also considers the cognitive behavior that is expected from the learners at the end of the module (â€Å"What knowledge, skills and attitudes are they expected to have acquired after being taught in the virtual laboratory module? †) and the logistic aspects (â€Å"How best should the module be delivered? † â€Å"What is the time factor involved? †). The team considers all the pedagogic and logistic aspects of the issue in order to get a complete picture of any discrepancies between the â€Å"current† and â€Å"desired† levels of resources and processes used in the system. In effect, this is the phase in which measurable instructional aims and objectives are stated. In the design phase, the instructional designer and the design team develop a sequence of strategies that are most appropriate to realize the stated aims and objectives. Here the ID team creates comprehensive storyboards (Number and sequence of animations and interactivities, GUI, Voice over etc), uses wide range of strategies such as brainstorming, concept mapping, group discussions to collect information and implement Critical Path Networking etc.to monitor time and resources management. This phase answers â€Å"Why? †, â€Å"What? † and â€Å"How†? of the whole process. In the development phase, the ID works with the development team (consisting of content developers, animators and action script writers) to develop the virtual laboratory experiments as a pilot product, ready to be tested. This phase is usually more complex than the previous ones, as there is a higher probability of bottlenecks, such as lack of proper communication, unrealistic expectations, lack of convergence and inappropriate multimedia system configurations. This phase is mainly concerned with authoring and production and hence the most crucial. In the implementation phase, in practice the last phase of the model, the instructional designer and the team decide on the logistical aspects of implementation and the strategies for training the teachers, multimedia coordinators and learners. The team ensures that the process is smooth. The phase also includes delivery of the prototype. The most important phase in the model is â€Å"Evaluation† and it is carried out from beginning to end of the ADDIE process. Both types of evaluation, viz. formative and summative, are used in the process. The former is used to trouble shoot problems and apply alternative strategies when needed. The latter is used to assess the learner outcomes by providing evaluation tools such as criterion-based tests to the end users (learners). The feedback from them helps in bringing about modifications in the product, until all the stated aims and objectives are met. Thus ADDIE model serves as a wonderful canvas on which the concerned professionals can work on so that the instructional aims and objectives are realized in a smooth, efficient and effective manner. Thus, â€Å"Well begun, promptly followed by ADDIE, is almost perfectly done†. References Carliner Saul (2002) , DESIGNING E-Learning, American Society for Training and Development. http://alpha. nsula. edu/~gillan/08id. htm http://www. itrc. wvu. edu/coursedev/preproduction/addie. html.