Delving into Instructional Design and Technology

Just what is the instructional design and technology (IDT) field? According to the book Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology by Robert A. Reiser and John V. Dempsey, the definition of the field has evolved over time. Prior to beginning my degree in Educational Technology & Library Sciences, I would have defined IDT as two different ideas. In my mind, instructional design involved using educational theories and best practices to design lessons for the classroom. Educational technology involved media used to supplement and enhance classroom instruction. While completing courses at Texas A&M Commerce, I have come to see how these two concepts are combined to become IDT.

The Early Days of IDT & Beginning Teachers

The field of IDT has it's beginnings in the 1920's with the rise of educational film use in the classroom (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). In the early days of IDT, definitions of the field focused on "Instructional media—the physical means via which instruction is presented to learners" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). The field was associated with visual aids and their usage to enrich the classroom environment.

The early definitions and ideas of what was involved in IDT draw parallels to how a beginning teacher might see and incorporate technology in the classroom. For those who received their initial teacher licensure via an alternative certification program, they may not have had a large grounding in educational theory and designing lessons prior to stepping into the classroom. I think for a lot of us our first year teaching is really overwhelming and we might use a lot of tech tools and media without really digging into the process of how to best use the tools to enhance learning and instruction.

The Evolution of IDT

By the 1960's and 1970's, IDT was beginning to be viewed as more than simply using visual aids in the classroom. Instead, it was considered to be a process by which educators looked at instructional problems and found solutions to those problems using media. Thus IDT became "a process for systematically designing instruction" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012).

During the 1990's, "cognitive and constructivist learning theories began to have a major influence on design practices" (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). In 2008, the AECT committee defined IDT, referred to as educational technology as:

"The study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources."

Reiser & Dempsey's (2012) definition spotlights both the early and evolved definitions of IDT. They believe that:

"These two practices—the use of media for instructional purposes and the use of systematic instructional design procedures (often simply called instructional design)—are the key defining elements of the field of instructional design and technology."

As a fervent lover of the use of technology in the classroom and a teacher who appreciates having a solid lesson setup, I really like Reiser and Dempsey's definition. I think that instructional media usage in the classroom by itself is awesome, but if we don't think about properly designing lessons for its usage it is pointless. The usage of media in the classroom to serve a purpose or to further enhance the learning atmosphere in place of simply using technology for the sake of using media in the classroom is a frequent topic of discussion. Reiser and Dempsey's definition allows not just for the use of the tech, but also notes using a systematical design procedure. In my opinion, this is the direction that IDT needs to go.

The Characteristics of Instructional Design

Reiser and Dempsey (2012) identified six characteristics of instructional design. A successful instructional design should be:

1. Student centered.
2. Goal oriented.
3. Focused on meaningful performance.
4. Provide outcomes that can be measured in a reliable and valid way.
5. Empirical, iterative, and self-correcting.
6. A team effort.

Looking back on the lessons I have designed in the past, there are a few areas mentioned above where I feel I have occasionally fallen short. As an elective teacher, I have never shared a planning period or been on a team with other teachers which has led to few opportunities to collaboratively create lessons. 

During the 2015-2016 school year, I designed a unit for my Intro to Television classes where the students created stop motion videos. For the content of the video, the students were asked to use stop motion to explain a concept they had learned in a CORE area class. The project easily fit the first three characteristics. Since my classes had more students than available equipment, I ran several different station activities in the class each period. Typically I ran three stations. One with a single group of students at a chromakey wall (green screen), then I had six student teams working on stop motion at round tables, and finally 12-16 students working individually on editing on iMacs. With so much going on, it was vital that the activities be student centered! I think this was also very goal oriented and meaningful, because the students were working toward gaining proficiency in the skill by performing authentic tasks. 

The projects were graded using a rubric. Students within the class also provided a peer score for every project. In doing this project again, I think performance could be even more accurately measured if I used a checklist to observe how students were contributing to their projects. The students all worked in teams, so with the way the outcome was measured, it's difficult to determine individual student outcome.

This was the first time I had attempted this sort of lesson. I came up with the idea after seeing a presentation on stop motion at the Region One ESC Technology Conference at the end of the prior school year. Aside from my notes on that conference, I did not have a lot of data or empirical research on the use of stop motion to convey a classroom concept. In terms of it being a team effort, I think it would have worked better if I could have collaborated with the CORE area teachers to find out what they were currently covering in their classrooms. 

Are Teachers Instructional Media?

Reiser & Dempsey (2012) defined instructional media as "the physical means, other than the teacher, chalkboard, and textbook, via which instruction is presented to learners." They justify this definition by referencing Saettler's idea that: 

"Materials (were)...viewed as supplementary curriculum materials. They were not intended to supplant the teacher or the textbook...teachers and textbooks are generally viewed as the primary means of presenting instruction, and teachers are generally given authority to decide what other media they will employ."

I do not agree with the authors. I think that with the definition of media equaling a medium for informational delivery, teachers, chalkboards and textbooks should be included. With the advancement of our increasingly digital society and online learning, teachers are no longer a necessity to deliver information. While there are many online learning apps that do have teachers serving as information deliverers, many commercial learning apps like Rosetta Stone lack teachers.

Textbooks are no longer a necessity. Commercial apps like Coursera allow universities around the world to share information with students. None of the classes I have completed on that site require a textbook. Instead the information is presented via video lectures. In this case a teacher is still serving as a medium for conveying information, even if there is no specific textbook.

Chalkboards are not a necessity. Chalkboards have evolved over time. Reading Reiser and Dempsey's thoughts, I came to wonder if chalkboards only referred to the traditional black or green painted surface that is written upon with chalk. Whiteboards are an evolved form of chalkboards. Smart boards are an evolved form of whiteboards. They are all a medium used to aid in the delivery of information.

As a society, we are moving past being constricted to learning solely within the bounds of a traditional brick and mortar school house. We may or may not have a teacher using traditional textbooks or a digital chalkboard proctoring an online course to provide us with information. 

If we consider instructional design to be the process of systematically creating lessons, and if we include teachers, textbooks, and chalkboards as instructional media alongside things like online courses then instructional media becomes an integral part of instructional design. Any lesson that is created must have some delivery method. In that sense, we could consider instructional design as the practice of determining the best methods to utilize instructional media to meet a desired outcome.

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2012). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson.