How Do You Do Instructional Design?Learning Theories and Models

Now that we covered a lot about the substance of what an Instructional Designer is, how to dawn some successful traits, and develop your unique style, it is time to learn the tools of the trade! IDs use both Instructional Design models and learning theories to help develop their delivery systems. Learning theories are used to determine how to adequately present the information to a certain audience. Models are used to analyze systems to see their effectiveness, where faults are and where improvements can be made.

Learning Theories are abundant; there are many different schools of though out to approach content and relate it to the audience. The diversity in theories allows an ID to see which specific theory would best benefit a certain demographic. For example, let’s say you need to produce an instructional system for new developers about a tech company’s unique software programming language, and these new employees are all averaged at 21-years-old. How should one approach it? Malcolm Shepherd Knowles’ Adult Learning Theory (aka Andragogy) suggests to have the developers involved with the planning and development of their curriculum, as well as having the content show how the new language relates to them and their job presently. This is because Knowles noted as learners became more mature, they shown motivation and readiness to learn, stemming that passion from the sense of self. The information becomes personal, as now mature learners apply it to how it affects them immediately. Having the content presented to the developers as if they were 5-years-old in grade school would diminish the effectiveness of the system.

Instructional Design Models are frameworks to help identify key parts such as Needs, Desired Outcome, etc. to blueprint the actual instructional system. Like theories, there are many ways to approach the problem: how to make a system for said content? One approach is using the ADDIE Model. The ADDIE Model stands for Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. This model breaks the process into set stages, and continuously goes through them to improve the systems. Fun fact: this model was developed at Florida State University in 1975!

Here are some links to different learning theories, as well as the source I used for Andragogy:

https://elearningindustry.com/the-adult-learning-theory-andragogy-of-malcolm-knowles

https://elearningindustry.com/top-instructional-design-theories-models-next-elearning-course