Friday, December 22, 2006
I am an Instructional Designer
By Jim Hatten
University of Minnesota
CI 5331
The Learning Science vs. Instructional Design debate raging over and through the technological learning landscape seems almost silly to me. It seems the “great divide” between these two communities is merely a cavern of minutia. It also seems that both sides to the debate have the same goal in common: to educate or create action from technological design that is both effective and justifiable. I’m sure my beliefs and subsequent placement on this continuum lies similar to many in our Learning Technologies introductory class – I firmly believe the two side co-exist in my brain and in my planning. Pressed in earnest for an answer: are you more a learning scientist or an instructional designer, my answer would favor toward being an instructional designer. My reasons even seem a bit flippant to me, considering I’m in my 10th year of teaching secondary students; however, in the true depths of my heart I prefer the arguments for Instruction Design as a model.
My layman’s approach to understanding the movement of Learning Scientists gives me these major emphases: they focus on instructional materials, organizational systems, learning systems that approach a student’s learning and only cares if that purpose is educational, approaches the debate trying to find scientific data to justify and decide on technological systems that affect change best.
On the other hand, I read Instructional Designers to take a more “get doing rather than get researching mantra. These people are less likely to carefully decide on a theory of pedagogy or psychology before design. IDers are therefore more likely to experiment and get people going with technology so we can see how they interact with any particular system. I would describe IDers to be more experiment (trial-and-error) based in their approach rather than research instigated.
In my curriculum design as a teacher, I certainly take into account prior knowledge of psychological and learning theories as well as the practice of various pedagogies. In my mind I consider the theoretical side to be more of an LS behavior. This leads me to think about how I design curriculum. I think of the outcomes that I desire, think about how to design a scaffolded curriculum to link it and then finally worry about pedagogies, or ways of presenting the information. Often I’ll see a pedagogical approach that seems to be attractive and palpable to my students then find a curriculum piece to match it up with. This approach obviously takes in both side of the continuum of research and practice. However, I don’t even think about the research much, aside from the ingrained knowledge of it in my subconscious. I think Educational Design in the technology field is a parallel to my teaching approach.
I think instructional technologies should be entertaining and easy to use to attract someone to a particular desired outcome. The old saying about a honey catching the most bees is applicable here. If I have all the research data and have done numerous studies of a particular approach, I haven’t truly done anything. I will learn through trial and error. Something works if it seems to work. After all, who has time for all that research? In the educational field, few do. I need to be out there doing something rather than thinking about doing something. There is an old saying about people who long to publish a novel: Most people don’t get them published because of one simple thing – they worry so much about making it perfect and seam-free that they never actually finish the book and therefore cannot actually get it published. I see this with LSers. They can test and re-test and examine it to death, but in practicality they are not producing and will always be behind. IDers, on the other hand, will at least be experimenting and trying new approaches. The present won’t ever be opened if it doesn’t look like a present. I do realize, however, that the LS approach has its place in all this. There are fundamentals and scientific claims that can help designers to decide on a technique or to be able to say it is a valid approach. We all now seem to have these ingrained in our heads. It is inevitable we would be influenced by what we already know of the developments and should keep ourselves abreast of the research being done. I simply don’t want to be one of those people. I want to be working toward dynamic environments and sparkling design to lure in my students into learning.
University of Minnesota
CI 5331
The Learning Science vs. Instructional Design debate raging over and through the technological learning landscape seems almost silly to me. It seems the “great divide” between these two communities is merely a cavern of minutia. It also seems that both sides to the debate have the same goal in common: to educate or create action from technological design that is both effective and justifiable. I’m sure my beliefs and subsequent placement on this continuum lies similar to many in our Learning Technologies introductory class – I firmly believe the two side co-exist in my brain and in my planning. Pressed in earnest for an answer: are you more a learning scientist or an instructional designer, my answer would favor toward being an instructional designer. My reasons even seem a bit flippant to me, considering I’m in my 10th year of teaching secondary students; however, in the true depths of my heart I prefer the arguments for Instruction Design as a model.
My layman’s approach to understanding the movement of Learning Scientists gives me these major emphases: they focus on instructional materials, organizational systems, learning systems that approach a student’s learning and only cares if that purpose is educational, approaches the debate trying to find scientific data to justify and decide on technological systems that affect change best.
On the other hand, I read Instructional Designers to take a more “get doing rather than get researching mantra. These people are less likely to carefully decide on a theory of pedagogy or psychology before design. IDers are therefore more likely to experiment and get people going with technology so we can see how they interact with any particular system. I would describe IDers to be more experiment (trial-and-error) based in their approach rather than research instigated.
In my curriculum design as a teacher, I certainly take into account prior knowledge of psychological and learning theories as well as the practice of various pedagogies. In my mind I consider the theoretical side to be more of an LS behavior. This leads me to think about how I design curriculum. I think of the outcomes that I desire, think about how to design a scaffolded curriculum to link it and then finally worry about pedagogies, or ways of presenting the information. Often I’ll see a pedagogical approach that seems to be attractive and palpable to my students then find a curriculum piece to match it up with. This approach obviously takes in both side of the continuum of research and practice. However, I don’t even think about the research much, aside from the ingrained knowledge of it in my subconscious. I think Educational Design in the technology field is a parallel to my teaching approach.
I think instructional technologies should be entertaining and easy to use to attract someone to a particular desired outcome. The old saying about a honey catching the most bees is applicable here. If I have all the research data and have done numerous studies of a particular approach, I haven’t truly done anything. I will learn through trial and error. Something works if it seems to work. After all, who has time for all that research? In the educational field, few do. I need to be out there doing something rather than thinking about doing something. There is an old saying about people who long to publish a novel: Most people don’t get them published because of one simple thing – they worry so much about making it perfect and seam-free that they never actually finish the book and therefore cannot actually get it published. I see this with LSers. They can test and re-test and examine it to death, but in practicality they are not producing and will always be behind. IDers, on the other hand, will at least be experimenting and trying new approaches. The present won’t ever be opened if it doesn’t look like a present. I do realize, however, that the LS approach has its place in all this. There are fundamentals and scientific claims that can help designers to decide on a technique or to be able to say it is a valid approach. We all now seem to have these ingrained in our heads. It is inevitable we would be influenced by what we already know of the developments and should keep ourselves abreast of the research being done. I simply don’t want to be one of those people. I want to be working toward dynamic environments and sparkling design to lure in my students into learning.
# posted by Jim @ 3:55 PM 
