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Using Theory as a Learning and Instructional Design Professional
Abstract
Practitioners in the field of learning and instructional design are commonly told that “theories are the foundation for designing instructional solutions to achieve desired learning outcomes” (Oyarzun & Conklin, 2021). But if this is true, why do designers often report that theory is “too abstract and inapplicable” to address common problems of practice (Yanchar et al., 2010, p. 50)? Or, alternatively, that theories are so “rigid” (p. 51) and prescriptive that they lead to one-size-fits-all solutions that do not fit the circumstances in which designers are working?
In my studies, I have come to believe that part of the problem is that designers think about theory the wrong way. They often assume it is like a tool (a power drill, for instance, or a circular saw). In this view, theory has some kind of capacity built into it that is independent of the person using it. Anyone can pick it up and produce results (if they have received the proper training, of course). But this perspective misunderstands something fundamental about human-centered work like learning and instructional design. Theories do not solve problems. People do. This does not mean theory is useless. It just means it plays a different role in designers’ work than being a tool that they apply. So, if designers want theory to be applicable and usable they need to first put it into its proper place—a place that recognizes that they—the designers—are most central to the work of improving education, and not a set of abstract, theoretical ideas that are presumed to have the power to solve problems. From this perspective, theory becomes one of many supports for practice, but not the most important nor the most decisive.
My purpose in this chapter is to explain these issues. First, I review some of the challenges with the field’s traditional views of theory. Next, I offer a different view of theory that conceptualizes it as a support that helps designers strengthen their own capacities for better judgement. Finally, I briefly describe different kinds of theory that apply to learning and instructional design practice, and how they support designers’ judgement in differing ways.
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La mayoría de los investigadores que diseñan experiencias innovadoras de aprendizaje digital y luego realizan investigaciones que investigan la utilidad de esas experiencias de aprendizaje, no aplican completamente la teoría de la instrucción (Reigeluth, 1983, 1999; Reigeluth y Carr-Chellman, 2009a) como la base de sus diseños y El foco de su investigación. Esta elección impacta negativamente el juicio de diseño de los investigadores (Boling, et al.2017) y su credibilidad como garantes del diseño (Stolterman y Nelson, 2000). Esto finalmente conduce a barreras de difusión cuando se difunden sus innovaciones de aprendizaje digital. El propósito de este documento es ayudar a los investigadores y diseñadores de experiencias de aprendizaje a superar estas barreras de difusión al adoptar la teoría de la instrucción como base para sus diseños y utilizar seis principios para realizar investigaciones alineadas con la teoría de la instrucción: 1) Conocer los sistemas complejos cualitativamente, 2) Valor los fundamentos del diseño del tratamiento, 3) Practique una consideración imparcial de los métodos de instrucción, 4) Respete el triángulo de hierro del diseño de instrucción, 5) Distinga entre métodos y medios, y 6) Conozca su teoría de diseño de instrucción personal.
Most researchers who design innovative digital learning experiences, and then conduct research that investigates the usefulness of those learning experiences, fail to fully apply instructional theory (Reigeluth, 1983, 1999; Reigeluth & Carr-Chellman, 2009a) as the foundation of their designs and the focus of their research. This choice negatively impacts researchers’ design judgment (Boling, et al. 2017) and their credibility as the guarantor of design (Stolterman & Nelson, 2000). This ultimately leads to diffusion barriers when disseminating their digital learning innovations. The purpose of this paper is to help researchers and learning-experience designers overcome these diffusion barriers by embracing instructional theory as the foundation for their designs and using six principles for conducting research aligned with instructional theory: 1) Know complex systems qualitatively, 2) Value the treatment design fundamentals, 3) Practice unbiased consideration of instructional methods, 4) Respect the instructional design iron triangle, 5) Differentiate between methods and media, and 6) Know your personal instructional design theory.
My purpose in this chapter is to offer a reimagined view of theory in the field of learning design and technology (LDT). Instead of viewing theory as an external storehouse of knowledge, or a rule-like system for professionals to apply, in this framework theory is viewed as an orienting aid that supports practitioners as they refine their personal capacities for perception, discrimination, and judgment. Theory plays this orienting role as it offers insights into LDT-relevant practical knowledge, productive heuristics, points professionals towards opportunities to act, or identifies significant patterns and forms of excellence to which they can pay attention as they attempt to improve their craft. The chapter concludes with some implications for this framework for future research and practice in the field.
In this study we explored how design studio instructors depicted the design critique, themselves as people offering critiques, and what can be learned from their depictions about improving instructors' abilities to offer critiques. To investigate these issues, we conducted a case study of studio instructors from design programs at a university in the United States. Our data consisted of three semi-structured interviews and one class observation each with six instructors from different programs, organized into a thematic structure that revealed insights into participants' self-interpretations. We found that our participants depicted critiques as being a complex challenge, often placing competing demands upon them that they were required to reconcile. They depicted themselves as meeting these challenges through their cultivation of four dispositions that helped them balance tensions they experienced. We report these challenges and dispositions using our participants own words as much as possible. We also discuss implications of these findings for helping studio instructors improve their ability to offer critiques; assistance should take into account the inescapable need instructors will face to balance challenges that arise during critiques and should also help them cultivate affective dispositions that will help them successfully respond to critique situations.
This study employed a hermeneutic investigative approach to determine instructional designers’ underlying views of learner responsibility for their own learning, and how those views informed design practice. Prior research has examined how instructional designers spend their time, make decisions, use theory, and solve problems, but have not explored how views of learner responsibility might inform design work. Based on intensive interviews of practitioners in the field, this study produced themes concerning how instructional designers balance their own and their learners’ responsibility for learning. Overall, these results suggest that designers feel largely responsible for learning to take place, but are seeking ways of sharing that responsibility with their learners. Other conclusions are discussed and future directions for research are offered.
Belland (Developing connoisseurship in educational technology. In: Paradigms regained: The uses of illuminative, semiotic, and post-modern criticism as modes of inquiry in educational technology (pp. 23–35). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1991) and others have proposed connoisseurship as an alternative to more traditional methods for understanding teaching and learning. This chapter further explores the potential of connoisseurship in research, evaluation, and design for learning experiences. It argues that applying connoisseurship leads to a broader understanding of the many qualities and impacts of a learning experience, exploring influences and outcomes often left uncovered. After briefly examining examples of connoisseurship in dramatic criticism, wine tasting, and travel writing and drawing conclusions about their methods for understanding the complexities of experience, we get an idea that connoisseurship has an application in educational technology. Connoisseurs immerse themselves in experiences to examine subjective reactions, examine the historicity of the object of appreciation, attend to all details of an experience for possible significance, and take time to savor those details, trusting in their abilities to find the meaning that can arise only after a period of immersion and reflection.
Examines issues related to theory and instructional systems design: the utility of theory; differences between descriptive (scientific) and design (goal-oriented) theories; the value of multiple theoretical perspectives; the inadequacy of current instructional design theories; and new directions needed in instructional theory, emphasizing the effects of a shift from industry to information. (PEN)
In this chapter, I present a view of instructional design that responds to the tendency some designers have shown to take ultimate responsibility for the learning that people experience. First, I describe different ways that designers have historically assumed they were primarily responsible for students’ learning. Second, I discuss how similar issues are still a concern even with recent evolutions in the field toward human-centered design practices. Third, I present a view of instructional design, based in the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, that considers it to be a type of relationship that designers enter into with learners, rather than principally being a process for making instructional products. In presenting this, I also suggest how a reframed view provides new ways of considering designer responsibility, helping designers better understand what they are influencing when they design. This can lead to designers being better partners with learners in pursuit of the unique disclosure of all parties involved, which is a type of achievement that could not be attained without viewing learners as equal contributors to the learning relationship.
The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015 - edited by Kelly Becker November 2019
Employing phenomenological techniques this qualitative study investigates perceptions of collaborative relationships between instructional designers and faculty at an R1 university. While past research has considered the growing involvement of instructional designers in course development, and knowledge and skills expected from an instructional designer, little attention has been paid to what constitutes an effective collaboration and how it can be developed from the perspectives of both instructional designers and faculty. Based on semi-structured interviews of faculty and instructional designers, the following four thematic categories were uncovered: (1) reasons for collaborative efforts; (2) structure of collaborative relationships; (3) supports of and barriers to collaboration; and (4) essential competencies and strategies for instructional designers and faculty in a collaborative partnership. Our findings support the existing research on the importance of collaboration between instructional designers and faculty, and spotlights instructional designers in the higher education setting. They also outline key elements of an effective relationship, including understanding the role of an instructional designer, trust and rapport building (and its components), administrative support and faculty buy-in. Suggestions are made for to how overcome potential barriers to ensure an effective and collaborative partnership. Implications and future directions for research and training programs are discussed.
Moral realism has been advanced as a central theme in contemporary hermeneutic thought. From this standpoint, participation in cultural practices is made possible and meaningful by ontologically real moral goods and reference points. Cultural practices thus constitute a moral referential totality for human action. This paper suggests that these and related hermeneutic insights offer a unique perspective for taking account of practical involvement in the world, and thus can form the basis of an interpretive frame for research that foregrounds this practice-based moral realism. An emphasis on moral realist concepts such as participation in practice, distinctions of worth, strong evaluations, and moral reference points can allow interrelated phenomena to show up as aspects of a moral ecology and reveal something about their moral significance within a form of practice. Moreover, inquiry of this sort can reveal something about that form of practice as a space of moral possibilities for action.
Multimedia instruction consists of instructional messages that contain words (such as printed or spoken text) and pictures (such as illustrations, diagrams, photos, animation, or video). The rationale for multimedia instruction is that people can learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone. Multimedia instruction began with the publication of Comenius’ Orbis Pictus (The World in Pictures) in the 1600s, and has progressed to a wide array of computer-based multimedia learning experiences that are available anytime and anywhere. The science of learning—that is, a research-based account of how people learn—is necessary for designing effective multimedia instruction. Meaningful multimedia learning occurs when the learner engages in appropriate cognitive processing during learning, including attending to relevant words and pictures, organizing words and pictures into coherent representations, and integrating the representations with each other and with knowledge activated from long-term memory. Successful instructional methods for improving learning with multimedia include research-based principles for reducing extraneous processing during learning, managing essential processing during learning, and fostering generative processing during learning.
This book includes ten essays that trace the notion of unconcealment as it develops from Heidegger’s early writings to his later work, shaping his philosophy of truth, language, and history. “Unconcealment” is the idea that what entities are depends on the conditions that allow them to manifest themselves. This concept, central to Heidegger’s work, also applies to worlds in a dual sense: first, a condition of entities manifesting themselves is the existence of a world; and second, worlds themselves are disclosed. The unconcealment or disclosure of a world is the most important historical event, and Heidegger believes there have been a number of quite distinct worlds that have emerged and disappeared in history. Heidegger’s thought as a whole can profitably be seen as working out the implications of the original understanding of unconcealment.
The purpose of this paper is to prove that including a significant theoretical component in instructional technology curricula has numerous advantages. The discussion is confined to curricula offered at universities, typically at the graduate level. Three topics are discussed: (1) the current state of instructional technology programs; (2) why theory is needed and what that theory should be; and (3) the role of the university in preparing instructional technologists. It is argued that curricula in university programs that train instructional technologists tend to emphasize practice at the expense of understanding. Because there are other agencies better suited to train practicality, universities should devote their resources to making sure students have a good grounding in the theories which immediately support what they do. Theories describe the complete range of human learning and includes perceptual and human factors theory, cognitive theories of learning, and theories of how knowledge guides the way people interact with their environment. It is contended that mastery of this theory should be attained by every student in instructional technology, and its application as the graduate develops professional skill and status will improve the success of the profession. (Contains 41 references.) (MAS)
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