Instructors Tryst with Instructional Designing – Part 1

I know I promised this post a long time ago but was caught up with some more reading.
Not that all of it made things any easier. But I think a wise decision was to take up some classes.True that the underlying reason to take a class in instructional designing was to add another tag on the resume. However I will not deny the fact that I realize it will also be to hone my skills.Now after all that explanation let me get back to business explaining “Instructional designing for Trainers”.

I know a lot of trainers who deliver classes prepared by someone else though a larger number of trainers nowadays prepare their own classes and deliver them. All these trainers have little or a basic sense of creating training modules from the years of training. Apart from this multitudes of us create lesson plan to customize the training. It was not until a few days that I realized that it is important to understand the theory of what we do .(the post below gives yu the story why strated reading)

As SME’s we may know the core information but, who would know it better, that we need to deliver the information in a way that suits the audience. A lot of the classes I have attended and quite a few that I have delivered are a classic case of “Death by Power Point”. I am not trying to prove that you wouldn’t know these pitfalls but it wouldn’t hurt to take some lessons from the industry that does this on a daily basis. Not that I am an expert but I am trying to marry the information from this industry to help us trainers best. So what do these guys who call themselves the designers of instruction do differently?

Instructional designing as explained by Wikipedia is :

"The practice of arranging media (communication technology) and content to help learners and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively”

Most in the industry are there by chance and may be former trainers or have something to do from the education industry. And then there area a few who are the “I got my masters degree in Instructional designing”. But the earlier bit comprises of 70% of the industry. So if you’re tired of classroom training but love the industry this is a lovely option.
As for what they do, they make are lives easier by making the content relevant and enjoyable for the students. It may sound simple but there is a lot of work that goes into this. I have tried to jot down a few points on their job profile though not an exauhstive list.

• Training Need Analysis (I know I don’t have to elaborate this one)


• Getting the content from SME’s


• Creating objectives


• Finding the best form of Training delivery method


• Structuring the content for the learners


• Creating the Multimedia, PowerPoint , participant guides and also the famous Instructor Manual

There is a huge demand for Instructional designers in E-learning industry. However they truly are the ones who decide how the training could be best delivered i.e. Computer based (CBT) or Instructor Led (ILT).
Now that I have laid down the structure I am sure a lot of us will say “we do that” so are we Instructional designers. And my answer would be “yes in a way” but there are two things that are missing

1. Theory of Instructional designing


2. Usage of Technology.

Both of these I will try and elaborate in my subsequent posts. So keep reading

All the information is from the multitude of blogs and site that I have read. So thank you all.