A good Instructional Designer (ID) is like a magician.  He/she can take a situation and change or modify it while not having to be in the physical space or know every detail.  As I was reading Ertmer’s and Newby’s (2013) article, I realized that IDs can design courses for subject matters in which they have no experience by applied the right educational theory (p. 45).  As I discussed in a previous blog post, the title Instructional Designer was new to me when I started MALAT (Moore, 2019, para. 2).  I realize now that my initial perception was that an ID had to have experience in the field in order to create a successful design.  After reading more about the IDs’ roles and tools, I now see that by appropriately applying theories to designs it allows students to change throughout their learning, thus absorbing information and converting it to knowledge.  Just like magic.  Granted, there is more to it than magic, but a well-designed course can feel like it to the students.

As innovations come into the field, it is the responsibility of IDs and educators to balance the changes while keeping the goal of educating learners in mind (Moore, 2016, p. 425).  Since changes and innovation are constant, new ideas on how to focus on the goal will make IDs and educators stronger.

What are the best ways to guarantee students are at the centre of every design?

References

Ertmer, P., & Newby, T. (2013 Online). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71.

Moore, K. (2019), Virtual Symposium 2019 [Blog post].  Retrieved from https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0108/173-2/

Moore, R. L. (2016). Developing distance education content using the TAPPA process. TechTrends, 60(5), 425–432.