You’d think that ADDIE is one of my co-worker given how often I refer to it (or her?) in my 17 years experience in Adult and Corporate Learning. She might even be the hardest-working member of my L&D Team with how often we bring her up: “How can we use Addie to tackle this project?” “How has Addie helped you with your course design?” And more frequently, “Have you forgotten about Addie?” Maybe this overworked and sometimes forgotten teammate deserves a rest. Of course I have a lot of appreciation for the Analysis-Design-Development-Implementation-Evaluation process of the ADDIE Instructional Design model, developed by the United States military in the 1940s (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020, p. 54), but am I using ADDIE as familiar and comfortable tool I can easily pull from my Instructional Designer toolkit without considering the alternatives? Yes, I most certainly am. Is this current unit in our LRNT524 course causing me to reconsider all my previous assumptions? It most certainly is, and I’m happy for that. I don’t want to select a design model just because it is convenient or familiar.
That being said, ADDIE as an instructional design model has a lot of merits and I don’t think it deserves to be thrown away entirely, especially in the hands of a skilled educator who will think critically about how it’s used. In our readings so far this unit we’ve learned how a lot of newer instructional design models leveraged ADDIE or at least make reference to it, including Dick and Carrey’s 10 steps (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020, p. 55-56), Prompt’s OKT Model which is similar to ADDIE but includes a step where the design is launched with a test group before full implementation (Plomp, 1982, as cited in Dousay, 2018), or Dolasinski & Reynolds’ Microlearning model (2020), which seems to me very similar to ADDIE with more focus on a single idea, skill, or learning objective to be delivered in short learning bursts. All of these adaptations of ADDIE work well because they consider how to implement the tried-and-true ID model in context of the specific learning problem they are trying to solve instead of seeing it as a static process. Maybe if we approach ID models like ADDIE with a bit more flexibility, adding to it as we see fit, we will feel a bit less like the educator in Clint Clarkson’s (2019) cartoon below, like a learning wizard performing spells and hoping they’ll be successful.
As I’m completing my Unit 1 readings and working on my team’s Assignment 1A submission I’m thinking a lot about the necessity for flexibility and adaptation with how instructional design models are applied. I know I’m going to try Dolasinski & Reynolds’ Microlearning model (2020) as soon as I have a learning project come across my desk which would be suited to a learning library of shorter modules. It’s been a few years since I’ve tried Kemp’s circular model (Developed in 1971, revised in 1994) which encourages the designer to start their work at any point along the 9-step cycle (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020, p. 56 – 57), which I believe would have more flexibility to consider the learning needs of complex projects or diverse learner needs. I already consider Universal Design for Learning principles (p. 58) in almost every project I undertake, especially in my work ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities by ensuring learning content has multiple means of representation (such as including captions or a transcript link alongside explainer videos). Mohawk College’s centre for Teaching & Learning Innovation has a fantastic UDL Summary chart on their website which I reference frequently, as shown below.
Does ADDIE, my overworked co-worker, need to log off for the last time and ease herself into retirement? No, I don’t think so. However, I’m giving more careful consideration to how the ADDIE model can be adapted to other instructional design models to deliver more effective, inclusive, and learner-focused learning experiences.
References
Universal Design for Learning. (n.d.). Mohawk College Centre for Teaching & Learning Innovation. https://www.mohawkcollege.ca/centre-for-teaching-learning-innovation/teaching-effectively/universal-design-for-learning
Clarkson, C. (2019, January 9). L&D Scene 95: The ADDIE-H Design Model. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ld-scene-95-addie-h-design-model-clint-clarkson-ctdp-ctt/
Dolasinski, M. J., & Reynolds, J. (2020). Microlearning: A New Learning Model. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 44(3), 551–561. https://doi.org/10.1177/1096348020901579
Dousay, T. A. (2018). Instructional Design Models. Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology, 277–295. https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/instructional_design_models
Heaster-Ekholm, K. L. (2020). Popular Instructional Design Models: Their Theoretical Roots and Cultural Considerations. International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, 16(3), 50–65. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1275582
Hi Andrea,
Thank you for this post … Should Addie retire? We love that the material in this course is beginning to make you question whether you have all the necessary tools in your tool kit! This reflection shows you are thinking and challenging your assumptions to move out of your comfort zone.
You highlight the role of flexibility and adaptation in instructional design, and we encourage you to consider what else might be needed? You begin to hint at this, as you note a possible role for Universal Design for Learning, what makes this one of the critical ingredients you’re bringing forward?
Hi Leanne, thank you for your response!
I’ve been thinking about it the past couple of days before responding. Thinking back on my time both delivering and designing learning for corporate learning, my most meaningful opportunities have come from situations where learners said they found our experience learning together more meaningful than previous experience. In a corporate sense this has most often come up because that person had a challenge learning, whether it was due to test anxiety, a learning disability or being neurodivergent, or because the learning experience was more about an educator lecturing at them instead of engaging with the audience through discussion and practical activities. Even if applying good pedagogy or andragogy can be challenging sometimes in the corporate world, it’s those positive influences on individual learners (helping them to do well at their job!) which make it worthwhile for me.
One of the reasons why I find the UDL framework to be so especially helpful is that although it is perceived to increase accessibility for people with learning disabilities, it really does help everyone – not just those it is originally intended for. To reference the chart from Mohawk College as shown above (Universal Design for Learning, n.d.), providing multiple means of engagement for our learning design not only helps learners who have limitations on how they can engage with learning content, but helps all learners to have choice and agency to engage in ways that are most meaningful for them. For example, with the MALAT program I personally prefer to join the live Zoom sessions as I am energized by group discussions, but for others with schedule limitations this flexibility to watch a recording might help to remove a barrier to access which would otherwise exist. In regards to the representation example above (having closed captions), I reference this example very frequently at work. I know learners in my own organization who have benefited from closed captions on videos (or live captions in Zoom/WebEx meetings… even better!) which have removed a barrier that their headphones were broken that day and they were working in a noisy space, that they were recovering from a brain injury and could not manage the sound that day, or because they are multilingual and the captions help them better understand the content in their second (or third or fourth) language.
When you consider that adjusting your learning design and delivery using a UDL lens will provide adjustments which can benefit almost all learners, doesn’t that make a strong argument for building these considerations into our learning design from the very beginning? I certainly think so!
Andrea
Andrea,
First – I really appreciated your writing style in this blog! It was a great mixture of YOUR voice blended with academic blog requirements, and just felt fun. Well done!
As someone who is just dipping their toes into the ID/LD world, ADDIE and I are just starting our relationship – no where near retirement! But even in these early stages I can see the value in using an adaptation of ADDIE or even ADDIE + (insert chosen ID/LD here). The comic panel you have referenced highlights a significant gap with ADDIE alone – the lack of questioning ‘what are we trying to accomplish’ or ‘what impact do we hope to make with this training’ and perhaps that set of questions is where other models and the flexibility you mentioned can come into play. UDL seems to be something to layer onto any model chosen to ensure inclusivity and accessibility are included, I can easily see how this would be an add to ADDIE when the answer to the impact question involves a focus on DEI, for example.
Thoroughly enjoyed the blog!
Hi Andrea. As usual, I appreciate your posts as they give those without experience in instructional design environments a glimpse into our content in practical application. As evidenced by our readings and your personal experiences, ADDIE has made many significant contributions to instructional design and has evolved to meet the changing needs of learners and learning environments. The model is often referred to as a process, which lends to its ability to be paired or layered with other more learner-centered models, such as UDL. After reading DeLorme’s article, Quilting a journey: decolonizing instructional design, which comments on the lack of consideration of culture in the field of instructional design (2018), I am curious about how culture is addressed within the design process in corporate learning. Also, do you feel it is considered as much as it should be?
DeLorme, C. M. (2018). Quilting a journey: decolonizing instructional design. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 14(2), 164-172. https://doi.org/10.1177/1177180118769068