In education, selecting a design model is a dynamic and ever-changing process. Perhaps because of this dynamic nature, no prescribed panacea can be applied to the instructional design process. Professionals attempting to create, apply or modify learning models need to consider the learning outcome, environment, involved professionals, and the learner. However, many other affordances should be examined in a model’s application or creation. For example, when applying a model in a K – 12 environment, the surrounding community will be heavily invested and should be considered and possibly even utilized. Likewise, an online-only environment would have completely different affordances that most likely rely more on technologies for communication and delivery of course content.

One essential and seemingly contradictory aspect of designing and implementing models is balancing a study foundation with dynamic, time-sensitive adaptation, individualization, and innovation. The course’s foundation gives it structure; it allows learners and educators a predictable learning path, which affords the course routine and stability. Yet, a constant systematic course does not encourage critical thinking and innovation. A stable course cannot adapt to the learners’ needs, inevitable changes in the related field, and environmental pressures, causing instructional designers to risk redesign or irrelevancy. One solution to this problem is to implement a hybrid-like model. Hybrid models allow instructional designers to pick and choose the best aspects of an established model based on their course’s specific affordances. However, there is no prescribed methodology for implementing a hybrid model.

Using a hybrid model requires a shift in thinking from didactic, computation-based thinking in design to a fluid approach that encourages reflection on practice, media, and content. Most designers use the concept of affordances in the design process, which, admittedly, has some ambiguity in the field but will be defined as factors, philosophies, and queues that help an instructional designer conceptualize the foundational needs and structure of a course. The problem associated with using affordances is that they are factored in the course design process exclusively during the conceptualization and creation of the methodology and content. This methodological approach conveniently ignores many unknowns that can only be discovered during the delivery of course materials, such as changes in the field, individual student needs, previous knowledge, social and cultural factors, and many other nuances related to individuals. Instead of affordances, designers need signifiers. 

Signifiers help designers identify critical information during all stages of the design process because they are viewed as trails or the evidence left behind when specific actions occur (Norman, 2008, p. 18). Using affordances often requires designers to predict a course’s needs before any instruction happens, or, in more modern models, at constrained intervals. Signifiers allow signals to emerge organically, even allowing for unpredictable or accidental indicators that help reveal social structures or other complex behaviours that are vital variables used when delivering course content. Signifiers are under constant scrutiny; they give educators the knowledge they need to adjust course materials dynamically or just-in-time based on an ever-changing flow of information. 

Using models allow instructional designers to universalize best practices in education but constrain innovation and create an environment that can be averse to change. A hybrid approach affords stability yet encourages change by using signifiers. Signifiers indicate possible areas of concern that could be addressed at all course development levels, from creation to implementation. 

References

Donald A. Norman. (2008). The way I see it: Signifiers, not affordances. Interactions. 15(6), 18–19. https://doi-org.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/10.1145/1409040.1409044

I also created an example model, but I already had a lot of information… so I ended up cutting it – here it is if you want to view it: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1AWFghhuyOVg3aM2A2KEnDH1XWllVIHvWidWFGgKVAzQ/edit?usp=sharing