Before you begin reading further, rewind the clock back to your school days and think about those dry lectures that muddled you or put you to sleep.
I’m sure there was a little voice going off in your head saying, “Oh Gosh, why can’t she make it simple rather than confusing me!”
All of us have been through classes which didn’t kindle our interest towards the subject. But imagine if the working of an electric motor was taught to us using an interactive video, simulation, 3D animation, or even a game. Don’t you think this kind of an approach could have added some fun to our learning and made us fall in love with Science or any other subject?
Well, this temptation that attracts learners and makes them fall in love with learning is INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN. A little over exaggerating, but yes, if your learning pie is baked with a perfect blend of instructional design, it would definitely satiate your hunger for learning.
Instructional Design (ID) involves taking up the information and framing it in a way that is easy to understand. It holds an imperative position in eLearning.
But why is it so important in E-Learning?
Look at this word cloud given above. Imagine this to be a pool of information available for a specific course. However, not all of it is meant for your learners. If you bombard them with this information, they’ll find it difficult to decode the message meant for them. They need someone to pick up the relevant information and present it in a way that helps them comprehend the message.
In short, you need to guide them and show them the right DIRECTION.
Did you see ‘DIRECTION’?
Well, had I not mentioned this word or highlighted the same, you wouldn’t have known that this was the only message intended for you in the whole word cloud.
This is an example of Instructional Design (ID).
Instructional design is not about dumping information. It’s about compiling the RELEVANT information and presenting it in a way that makes sense to your learners.
Poorly designed courses often lack instructional design principles and hence fail to impress learners or meet their learning needs.
Need for Instructional Design
The fundamental purpose of instructional design is to identify the learning gaps of your audience and create suitable learning experiences to fill those gaps. If you don’t make use of it, the gaps will always remain vacant.
Here are some of the reasons why ID is important.
It saves time and makes the learning simple and easy.
When you learn something by yourself (without an instructor), you are likely to spend more time and effort. You may also get overwhelmed by the amount of information available and finally end up without seeing any positive results. However, if you have someone to cull out the relevant information and simplify it for you, then your time is saved, and learning is made easy. Instructional Designers play a huge role in achieving such results, thereby making learning very efficient.
It improves learner engagement.
If you are designing an online course for bakers, you can simply add a visual and list down the steps for baking a cake or may be demonstrate the same using a video. However, this approach may not engage your learners or help them retain the steps in the long term. Wouldn’t it be more fun and engaging if you convert these steps into an activity or a simulation? Take a look at those cake baker/pizza maker games on play store. I’m sure you’ll be tempted by them. Of course, graphic design forms an important aspect here, but instructional design acts as the foundation for coming up with such ideas.
It helps to identify if training is really required or not.
ID methodologies play a pivotal role in assessing the training requirements. Needs assessment is one such method which identifies the underlying problem to see if training is the only solution. Sometimes, training may not be the solution for a problem.
It helps to set clear learning objectives.
The ID process begins with learner analysis. This helps to determine what should the learners be able to do after the training ends. Once you collect these details, you can apply different levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy to set clear objectives and meet their expectations.
It helps to boost productivity of your learners.
Many organizations are now adopting E-Learning to train their employees. A well-designed course having a healthy dose of instructional design will enhance their learning experiences and help them internalize the new information. This makes them more productive.
So, if you’re working towards helping your learners shine, make sure your course experiences the golden touch of instructional design.
