The Basic Elements of Instructional Design Consultants Help With

Analyze the needs of the learner

Instructional design development must carefully consider the learner’s needs to ensure the course is effective for the target learners. Determining the characteristics and needs of a learner is one of the first steps to take during instructional design development.

Set instructional objectives and goals

By stating the end learning objective for a course early on, the instructional design process can work backward to ensure the course stays true to the objective throughout development.

Create an evaluation method for the learner’s achievement

It’s important to base the end assessment off the accompanying course’s style to keep the learning experience cohesive for the learner. The end assessment should closely pertain to the course’s learning objectives to best determine if a learner has successfully understood the content and is ready to move on or needs to review the lesson for better comprehension.

Create and choose instructional materials and strategies

Your instructional content must be arranged sequentially so that one lesson topic leads into the next and culminates with the final assessment once the learning objectives have been accomplished. Most instructional courses utilize different forms of media to teach students with video lectures, audio snippets, interactive text for student engagement, and educational games being some of the most common.

Place the training into effect

The delivery method you choose for your course should reflect the courses’ learning objectives, the needs of your learners, and the situational limitations. Instructional design programs for corporate trainings may need to quickly reach many students all at once that are not in a centralized location and an online course might be the best delivery method in that situation.

Evaluate the training

A successful course should see most learners pass the final assessment and move on to apply what they have learned in their related tasks. If a learner was sent through an instructional course as part of job training the employer should see the employee use their training to better their work almost immediately.

Benefits of The Instructional Design Process

Modern instructional design and development are moving away from the “cookie-cutter” and “one size fits all” modules. Instructional design services should be geared towards creating custom and unique learning experiences that are specific to the learner. By using the instructional design consultant’s recommended method, both the learner and organization can benefit from the training.

• Results-driven instructional design leads to clear deliverables, accountabilities, and outcomes that can be tracked or measured to ensure a course satisfies all parties involved.
• Instructional design creates a blueprint that can be adapted and customized to suit a learner’s specific needs. In contrast, generalized training assumes all learners experience the same situations which can leave some learners woefully unprepared for unique experiences.
• By following an instructional design consultant’s process or model, you can predictably create successful courses despite differing lesson content. Consistency in instructional design does not mean regurgitating the same course material, but rather using the same process to consistently produce quality courses.
• The more invested a learner is in a course, the more likely they are to absorb the information, meaning: including learner engagement in instructional courses only improves the course.
• Quality instructional design creates a course that is the most efficient and effective way for learners to receive the training they need. As a result, the learning time is reduced, objectives are met faster, and no extra resources are expended saving time and money for all parties.

Types of Instructional and Learning Experience Design Models Consultants Work On

There are many instructional design models, but most use the core elements, known as ADDIE, to develop new instructional design models. The ADDIE model stands for “Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation”. Instructional design methodologies vary between consultant, business and learner need. Each learning experience design model can use a variety of presentation methods with some classes being delivered to learners entirely online while other classes utilize a traditional in-person classroom setting.

Below are a few other popular instructional design models:

• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction
• Merrill’s Principles of Instruction
• SAM (Successive Approximation Model)
• AGILE instructional design  or Rapid prototyping