◆Rapid InstructionalDesignLearning ID Fast and RightSECOND EDITION

George M. Piskurich

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Rapid Instructional Design

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◆Rapid InstructionalDesignLearning ID Fast and RightSECOND EDITION

George M. Piskurich

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Copyright © 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Published by PfeifferAn Imprint of Wiley989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.pfeiffer.comReaders should be aware that Internet websites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was writtenand when it is read.No part of this publication, except the Forms and Tools as noted below, may be repro-duced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted underSection 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriateper-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, JohnWiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008,or on online at: http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

The Forms and Tools that appear in this book may be freely reproduced for educa-tional/training actitivies. There is no requirement to obtain special permission for suchuses. We do, however, ask that the following statement appear on all reproductions:Rapid Instructional Design, 2nd Edition by George M. Piskurich. Copyright © 2006by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.This free permission is limited to the paper reproduction of such materials for educa-tional/training events. It does not allow for systematic or large-scale reproduction ordistribution (more than 100 copies per page, per year), electronic reproduction, or in-clusion in any publications offered for sale or used for commercial purposes—none ofwhich may be done without prior written permission of the Publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataPiskurich, George M.Rapid instructional design: learning ID fast and right / George M. Piskurich.—2nd ed.p. cm.Includes index.ISBN-13: 978-0-7879-8073-3 (alk. paper)ISBN-10: 0-7879-8073-0 (alk. paper)1. Instructional systems—Design. I. Title.LB1028.38.P57 2006371.33—dc22 2006008739

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◆Contents

vii

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Preface to the Second Edition / xi

Introduction / xiii

What Is This Instructional Design Stuff Anyway? / 1Why Instructional Design? / 2What Is Instructional Design? / 3A Few Definitions / 5Advantages of Instructional Design / 7Disadvantages of Instructional Design / 11

Before You Do Anything: Pre-Instructional Design Activities / 15Organizational Needs / 16Performance Assessment / 20Assessing Training Needs / 30Choosing Needs to Address / 33The Needs Analysis Report / 36Quick and Dirty Cost-Benefit Analysis / 39

Do You Know What You Need to Do? Analysis / 49Data-Collection Methods / 50Why Analyze? / 59Types of Analysis / 60Computer-Aided Analysis / 87

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How to Do It: Design / 91Make the Right Decision Now / 91Delivery Decision (Training Setting) / 92Objectives / 115Design Documents / 130Course Descriptions / 145Gathering Content / 146Adding Structure: The Instructional Plan / 151Trainee Evaluation (Test Questions and Tests) / 159Hints for Designing in Various Formats / 174

Doing It Right: Development / 183End Products of Development / 183The Lesson Plan As an End Product / 185Scripts and Storyboards / 211Participants’ Packages and Other Print Materials / 215Other Media / 218Hints for Developing Material / 221

Getting It Where It Does the Most Good: Implementation / 237Beta Tests and Pilots / 237Reviews Revisited / 246Common Implementation Issues / 248Hints for Implementation / 257

Did It Do Any Good? Evaluation / 267Why Evaluation? / 267The Key to Good Evaluation / 268Types of Evaluation / 271Evaluation of Self-Instructional Programs / 282Revisions: What to Do with What You’ve Learned / 286Hints for Evaluating / 290

Doing It Faster: More Rapid Design Shortcuts / 295Software for Instructional Design / 296Analysis Software / 297Test Development Software / 297Miscellaneous Software / 298Rapid Prototyping / 298Learning Objects and Granular Training / 299

viii Contents

Chapter 8

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 4

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Public Courses / 300Off-the-Shelf Programs / 300Technology Vendors / 300Performance Support–Based “Training” / 301Problem-Based Learning (PBL) / 303Training Management Systems / 303Miscellaneous / 303

Asynchronous E-Learning Design / 305Definitions / 305Creating and Implementing an E-Learning System / 307Determining a Comprehensive E-Learning Strategy / 308Designing and Developing Good Programs / 311Learning Management Systems and Learning Content

Management Systems / 312Preparing the Organization Globally for E-Learning / 315Planning for a Smooth, Successful Implementation / 319Creating an Effective Monitoring and Evaluation Plan / 320Asynchronous E-Learning Design and Development / 322Analysis / 322Material Development / 325Learner Evaluation / 332Learner Interfaces / 333Beta Tests and Pilots / 334Software / 335Repurposing / 336Evaluating Asynchronous E-Learning Programs / 337Summary / 338

Synchronous E-Learning Design / 345Advantages / 345Disadvantages and Misconceptions / 346Design Considerations for Synchronous E-Learning / 350Mini-Interactions / 350Repurposing and Redesigning of Synchronous

E-Learning Programs / 351Other Synchronous Activities / 352More Detailed Facilitator Guides / 355Learner Guide / 358General Technology Considerations / 359Media / 361

Contents ix

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

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Designing Continuing Interactions / 366Audience Analysis / 367Implementation / 369Online Learning: A Special Type of E-Learning / 378What the Learners Say / 383

Glossary / 387

Suggested Readings / 411

Other Resources / 423

About the Author / 427

Instructor Guide for Rapid Instructional Design / 429

Index / 479

x Contents

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◆Preface to theSecond Edition

xi

Since the completion of the first edition of Rapid Instructional Design, verylittle has changed concerning how we do ID, but very much has changed con-cerning what we do with it. E-learning, which was in its infancy back then, hasbecome a major delivery system, and both organizations and their instructionaldesigners are still struggling with how to take advantage of all that it promises,not to mention all the promises that were made about it.

Thus we have added two chapters on e-learning to this edition: the first,Chapter Nine, deals with asynchronous e-learning, which is basically the design of self-instruction in a net-based delivery; the second, Chapter Ten, addresses synchronous e-learning, with an emphasis on preparing facilitatorsas well as designers for this new and inarguably different delivery process.

You’ll also find a bit of information in Chapter Nine on asynchronous e-learning in general, particularly as it relates to the design decision and to cre-ating an e-learning system for your organization, and a brief consideration inChapter Ten on online learning, which we define here as an ID technique thatcombines what our academic colleagues do when they teach a class on line withwhat we know about ID to create a hybrid delivery that can make e-learningfaster to design and more effective, while holding down the costs.

Beyond these major additions, this second edition explores some new con-cepts (which aren’t necessarily new, but just weren’t in the first edition)—suchas learning analysis, one-on-one design, and blended designs—and augmentsthe discussions of evaluation, particularly Levels 4 and 5, analysis, and work-ing with subject matter experts (SMEs). Finally, this edition presents you withsome new job aids to help make your instructional design even more rapid.

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We hope all of these changes will help to make you an even better instruc-tional designer than you already are.

A special thanks to Shaunda Paden for her incisive thoughts on how tomake this edition better than the last.

—George

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Rapid Instructional Design

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◆Introduction

xiii

The purpose of this book is to consider how to make both the learning and thedoing of instructional design faster. Proper instructional design is an absolutelycritical but very time-consuming aspect of any training process, so finding tech-niques to do it right—but rapidly—is important, and the benefits of employ-ing these techniques are pretty obvious.

This book covers all the basics of instructional design, from analysis to eval-uation, and perhaps just a little more, but does so without the theory, withplenty of practical checklists, and with many hints on how to design better andmore quickly in this age of technology-based training.

Some might say that in dealing with basic instructional design this book istreading on much furrowed ground. Although this may be the case, we will beusing a somewhat different type of plow; and perhaps it is time to revisit thatground, particularly from a new perspective.

Instructional design is a difficult topic to write about at best. It seems thatno matter what you say or how you say it you’ll miss the mark for someone.You’ll be too theoretical for some, yet not theoretical enough for others; toosimplistic in your explanations or not basic enough; too focused on the needs ofthe new designer or the needs of experienced practitioners—and what aboutthe “sometimes designer”?—and so on.

Add to this quandary the concept of rapid instructional design, which pre-sents questions such as What can you skip in the design process? What hadyou better not skip unless you truly know what you’re doing? Can it be rapidand still be right?—and you’re simply asking for more trouble. So what can Isay, except, “We’re asking.”

PURPOSE

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The concept of rapid instructional design means different things to differentpeople; therefore there are a number of intended audiences for this book.

The first and perhaps foremost is what I term occasional designers. Theseare individuals who, because of their subject-matter expertise, are called on totrain others from time to time—and not just to “do” the training, but to createit. For you, this book will present a basic instructional design methodology thatwill help you to create effective training. By effective I mean training that meetsthe needs of your trainees and of those who assigned you this task. The processwill be rapid because I’ve left out the theory and provided numerous check-lists to help you through the process.

The second audience is those individuals who, without really planning itor in most cases being prepared for it, have become training professionals. I’vemet many of you in my wanderings. Sometimes you’re assigned to a trainingposition for a year or two as part of your career development or because thecompany needs you there. Others have been excellent occasional trainers whofor one reason or another find themselves permanently assigned to a trainingfunction, or who become personally responsible for all the training for theirwork groups.

What you all have in common is that you want to do a good job, but youneed the right tools. This book will provide you with those tools—everythingfrom analyzing your work group or company for training needs to evaluatingprograms to make sure those needs have been met—and all the design anddevelopment required in between. Once again, we’ll do it rapidly, with mini-mal theory and maximum practical information in the form of hints for doingwhat needs to be done better and faster.

The third audience comprises those who need to know about instruc-tional design but are not, and probably never will be, practitioners. This in-cludes managers and administrators who must make decisions about whattraining their work groups require and how to do it most efficiently, humanresources professionals who need to understand a bit about instructional de-sign as part of their job responsibilities, and sales colleagues in training andconsulting organizations who are responsible for helping their clients un-derstand what this instructional design “stuff” (particularly new technologytraining) is all about.

The final audience is seasoned practitioners who are looking for rapidmethods for doing instructional design. We will not be exploring these con-cepts in detail in this book, but we will recognize and discuss them. We’ll ex-plore how they fit into the basic instructional design process, both as weencounter them and in the last chapter.

xiv Introduction

AUDIENCES

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To deal with these various audiences and their varied needs, this book usessome special elements. One of the most obvious is the icons. There are twobasic types of icons that you may see at the beginning of a section or subsec-tion. The first is a . This means that this area is not critical for an occasionaldesigner. If you are a reader who is basically a subject-matter expert asked todesign and teach a specific course, when you see the icon you can probablyskip this section with no harm done. It’s not that the concepts discussed inthese sections are not important to instructional design, it’s just that becauseyou are designing a single course for which you are the expert, and the topichas been decided on, and no one will teach it but you, doing everything inthese sections would be overkill or not particularly useful for you. Remember,we are effecting rapid instructional design here, so you should only do whatyou really need to do for your training situation.

This process is called situational instructional design, and we could fill theentire book with all the various instructional design situations and what youshould do in each. However, for the sake of creating a book that might be read,instead of one that makes a great doorstop, we’ll only deal with this one gen-eral situation as it relates to one of our chosen audiences. Once again, if youare a subject-matter expert, designing and instructing for a topic that has beenassigned to you, you can skip the areas marked with a .

You’ll also find areas marked with the icon without a slash. These areareas of special interest to you as an occasional designer. Most often they willindicate places where we’ll tell you how you can shortcut the concept we arediscussing, due to your particular situation.

The second type of icon is a . A means that the information followingis a rapid design shortcut. This is mainly for readers who are seasoned practi-tioners, to help them find the rapid design aspects of the book without read-ing through a lot of what they already know. It does not mean that thosereaders who are in other audiences should not read these pieces; there is al-most always some useful information for everyone in any section. However,using the rapid techniques might not be the best approach for an inexperi-enced designer.

If you’re part of the other audiences, you should be able to utilize justabout everything in the book somewhere along the line in your instructionaldesign processes.

A second special element, besides the icons, is the recommended re-sources. Each resource is what I consider to be the best book, magazine article,or website for further information on the topic. You’ll find them in every chap-ter whenever I have a recommendation for a new topic or concept as it’s

Introduction xv

SPECIAL ELEMENTS

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introduced. These resources are mainly for those readers who need to knowmore, such as those of you who have just taken on full-time training or train-ing management responsibilities. The full reference titles are provided at theend of the book, in sections and alphabetically by title.

Now I don’t want to start a big controversy with my recommendations, soplease note that these are only my opinions, and only in relation to the specificaudiences we just discussed. Please don’t call, write, or e-mail asking why Ididn’t choose such and such, or how could I have missed so and so. I’ll be morethan glad to hear from you concerning nearly anything else in the book, or in-structional design, or training in general.

Another special element is the hints at the end of some of the chapters.One of the difficulties in talking about instructional design is that sooner orlater you get off on tangents, particularly when you begin to discuss deliverysystems. As we wanted to make the basic information in this book as simpleand straightforward as possible for the new or occasional designer, we tookmany of these tangents and simply made bulleted lists for them, included inthe hints area. Some of these lists get pretty extensive, particularly when dis-cussing media formats, but don’t forget that they are resources, not intendedto be read as a list. Refer to them as required for your needs. Simply readingthrough them will not be particularly effective.

There is also a Glossary. The definitions there include ones that are moreor less accepted and others that are simply practical. Some are mine; some areborrowed in part or whole from others. We’ll note within a chapter when a cer-tain usage might be more relevant for this book. However, the Glossary goeswell beyond this to explore a number of possible terms and definitions. For ex-ample, we’ll use trainee rather than student and trainer instead of instructorin most cases in this book, but you’ll find all of these terms in the glossary.

The Suggested Readings at the end of the book are exactly that, not ref-erences or a bibliography. They are divided by topical area to make it easierfor you to use, although some books tend to spill over into a number of topics.They are alphabetized, not prioritized.

The Other Resources listing at the end of the book contains mostly web-sites that have information on the various topics and some pointers to period-icals or groups that can help you if you need to explore a concept in greaterdetail or if you just like electronic communications better than print.

The problem with organizing any instructional design book is that the in-structional design process is not what it seems, or at least not what most peo-ple make it out to be. It is not a simple linear method that starts with analysisand moves on through stages to evaluation, even though that’s what you see in

xvi Introduction

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

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most models. Instead, it’s more like a connected circle, with the end feedingback into the beginning, or even like a web with all of the aspects intercon-nected and leading to parts of each other.

But because a book is linear, the organization of instructional designherein will be as well, using the tried-and-true five-component design modelof analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. We’ll startin Chapter One with a basic introduction and some thoughts on why in-structional design is important. Don’t get this why confused with theory. Ithink it’s important here and there to have a brief discussion of why you wantto do certain aspects of instructional design, particularly the process as awhole, but we won’t be looking at the theory behind the why, just the prac-tical necessity.

Believe it or not, this is a good place for the first of those rapid design hintswe just discussed. Because instructional design is like a web, you don’t have tocomplete all of one component before moving on to the next. For example,you may choose to begin developing some of your training material even asyou’re finishing the analysis component. You may need to do a little rewritingat the end, but the majority of what you do will be fine, and you won’t havewasted time waiting for all the analysis data to be in before moving on.

Chapter Two deals with what we term pre-instructional design activities—that is, things that need to be done before you actually begin to design yourprogram. These include concepts such as training needs assessments, perfor-mance assessments, and cost-benefit analysis. If you’re an occasional designer,most of Chapter Two will be less important to you, whereas if you are newlyin charge of a training function, the information here will be critical. Followthe icons and use your own situation as your guide.

Many experts would say that Chapter Three is the real beginning of in-structional design, the component known as analysis. Of course, just as manywould say that Chapter Two is the real beginning, as much of what we accom-plish there feeds into analysis. Anyway, we’ll look at the various types of analy-sis, what they are used for, and the methods for doing them. There are anumber of them and all are important, although some will be more critical thanothers, depending on your particular situation.

Chapter Four is very long because it deals with a number of critical designissues. We start with another analysis that determines what delivery system willbe most effective for your training tasks and your organization. This in itself iscontroversial, as some designers balk at deciding on a delivery system beforewriting objectives and content. However, with all the technology variations thatare available for delivering training today, and their associated cost in both dol-lars and time, we feel that a delivery decision is a critical early step in the de-sign component.

Introduction xvii

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We’ll move from there to objectives, design documents, test questions, andinstructional plans to complete the design component. This is actually a more-or-less random stopping point for Chapter Four. Some of these concepts couldjust as easily fit into the delivery component; others interrelate so much thatit is hard to tell where they go—but we had to stop somewhere.

Chapter Five is the delivery component, which is concerned with the ac-tual development of the training materials. We follow a lesson plan format inthis chapter. Even though lesson plans are basically a classroom delivery prod-uct, they make a good outline for on-the-job training (OJT) and for technology-based training (TBT) as well, which covers most of the other major deliverysystems. We discuss openings, motivation, activities, summaries, and some eval-uation aspects.

Because development is the component during which you add media, thehints section there is pretty formidable. We cover ideas on everything from flipcharts to satellite mediated broadcasts, with plenty of attention on the tech-nologies such as multimedia and net-based training. (Note: There is a lot ofterminology flying around concerning the process of internet-, intranet-, andweb-based training. In this book, we will use the term net-based training tomean any type of training for which a computer network is the delivery sys-tem. This might include intranets, internets, and webs. If there is a particularreason for focusing on one of these processes over the others, it will be calledout specifically.)

Chapter Six is concerned with program implementation. However, it be-gins with information on pilots and beta testing. Some would say that this ma-terial belongs with evaluation (Chapter Seven) or even development, as—likemany instructional design activities—it has a lot of connections to both. Wechose the implementation connection, as this is the first time you’ll actually seeyour training implemented. Chapter Six continues with some general concerns,and the hints section contains ideas for various types of implementations.

Chapter Seven deals with evaluation: both of the trainees, which is dis-cussed in various other chapters as well, and of the training program itself. Wecover reasons for doing evaluations, what might be evaluated, and how to eval-uate, as well as evaluation of self-instructional programs, which requires asomewhat different approach. Thoughts on revising programs and programmaterials end the chapter and bring us back full circle to analysis, which is theend product of evaluation.

The purpose of Chapter Eight is to provide you with a little more detailon a number of rapid design techniques. This chapter is more for the experi-enced designer, but the concepts may be interesting to all readers. These shortdiscussions are not meant to make you an expert on these methods, but rather

xviii Introduction

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to supply you with enough information to decide whether they are useful foryou and, with the suggested readings, to send you on your way to learning moreabout them.

Chapters Nine and Ten consider the design of two newer and widely useddelivery systems: asynchronous and synchronous e-learning.

As we noted earlier, instructional design, particularly rapid instructionaldesign, is not an easy concept to discuss. It is highly situational, often de-pending on the level of knowledge of the designer, the organizational envi-ronment, the needs of the trainees, the responsibilities of the trainers, andother even less tangible things. I hope that this book will help you deal withthese complexities and make your instructional designing the best, and fastest,it can be.

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◆Chapte r 1What Is This Instructional DesignStuff Anyway?

1

This chapter will help you to:

• Discover why you need instructional design

• Begin to see what instructional design is

• Consider the advantages and disadvantages of instructional design

There is an old saying that if you don’t know where you are going, any roadwill get you there. This is a fine philosophy if you are spending the summerbetween your junior and senior year “experiencing” Europe or if you haveembarked on an Australian “walk-about,” but when you are developing train-ing programs it leaves a lot to be desired.

One purpose of instructional design is to provide both an appropriatedestination and the right road to get you there, whenever you are responsiblefor creating a training program. Your destination is usually some form of learn-ing that your trainees will accomplish; the road is one of the many paths thatinstruction can follow to facilitate that learning.

Instructional design, stripped to its basics, is simply a process for helpingyou to create effective training in an efficient manner. It is a system—perhapsmore accurately a number of systems—that helps you ask the right questions,make the right decisions, and produce a product that is as useful and useableas your situation requires and allows.

Some people refer to instructional design as the “science” of instructionbecause it follows a set of theories and methods and is concerned with inputsand outputs. Other people see instructional design as an “art” because the bestdesigns usually have a direct relationship to the creativity and talent of the

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designer. Still others see it as “a good thing to do if we have the time,” butstress that it can’t get in the way of producing the training.

How you see instructional design is up to you. In this book we will notchampion one view over another, or even one definition as the most correct.What we will do is try to convince you that creating a training program with-out using instructional design principles is inviting failure. Once you are (wehope) convinced, we will explore the most basic of those principles, not from atheoretical point of view but rather from the direction of how to apply them,rapidly and successfully. In fact, if you are seeking instructional design theoryyou’ve probably come to the wrong source; you may want to read Dick andCarey’s The Systematic Design of Instruction (2004).

One of those basic instructional design principles we will explore is to knowyour target audience. This book’s target audiences were described in the intro-duction. Primarily, they are individuals with little to no instructional designexperience who need to learn to do it right, but fast. For the most part you arenot permanent training professionals planning to make a career out of instruc-tional design, so the theory is not as important as the actual practice.

Our audience analysis (we’ll be talking a lot more about analysis in the nextcouple of chapters) tells us that you are much more preoccupied with how itis done than with what is behind the doing. Not that you aren’t interested inthe theory, but you just don’t have the time to explore these aspects wheneveryone is expecting your training program yesterday. So terms such as adultlearning theory, learning styles, and even cognitive science may appear herefrom time to time, but we won’t be discussing them in any detail. We willspend most of our time considering how to apply good instructional designprinciples, specifically to the various ways you can deliver training, such asclassroom training, on-the-job training, self-instruction, and technology-basedtraining.

However, for the more experienced practitioner, we’ll also discuss ways tospeed up the instructional design process through simple hints and larger-scalemethods, such as instructional design software, learning object-based design,rapid prototyping, and performance-support-based design. If you are an expe-rienced instructional designer, or plan to be one someday, you might want toat least check out the shortcut icons and hang around for Chapter Eight to pickup some new ideas and shortcuts.

So why should you concern yourself with instructional design? Perhaps thebest reason I can give is one we’ve all experienced: the course, class, seminar,or other training event that sounded good on paper, but that you left (and thatleft you) wondering why you ever came. There are a number of reasons for this

2 Rapid Instructional Design

WHY INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN?

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universal phenomena, but in the end they all boil down to one cause: poorinstructional design. Did the class not meet the objectives stated in the coursedescription? Poor instructional design. Did the test at the end of the programnot make any sense? Poor instructional design. Did the instructor meanderfrom topic to topic with no clear pattern to what was being discussed? Poorinstructional design. Was the material over your head, or too basic? Blame iton poor instructional design. (OK, I admit there may be other reasons as well,but poor instructional design is often the most critical reason, and because thisis a book on how to become a better instructional designer, allow me just a lit-tle overstatement.)

On an individual basis, these ineffective learning experiences are annoy-ing, but when considered for a company-wide training course they are ratherpainful, particularly to the bottom line. Multiplied by five or a dozen or fiftytraining courses, they are appalling. Hundreds of thousands of precious train-ing hours are wasted every year telling participants what they already know orthings they cannot use. The cost in wasted time, wasted money, and wastedopportunities is staggering—all because the person responsible for the pro-gram did not know, or did not take advantage of, a few mostly commonsenserules for creating good training.

What instructional design will do for you, the training course developer, ishelp you guard against making such mistakes. It will help you create good, clearobjectives for your program that can be understood and mastered by yourtrainees. It will help you develop evaluations that truly test for the knowledgeand skills that your objectives are based on. It will help you or whoeverinstructs the course to facilitate the participants’ learning effectively and effi-ciently, and, most important, it will help you make sure that what is in yourprogram is what your trainees need to learn. This reduces wasted time, wastedmoney, and wasted opportunities for helping to develop more effectiveemployees who, through their knowledge and skills, increase corporate prof-itability.

Earlier we discussed instructional design in generalities: a science, an art, away to create training. These are all fine concepts, and perhaps good defini-tions, but instructional design is really a set of rules—or procedures, you couldsay—for creating training that does what it is supposed to do. Some of thoseprocedures have to do with finding out what the training is supposed to do (youmight call it determining the goals of the training); other procedures deal withletting the participant know what those goals are. Still other procedures ensurethat everything in the training focuses on those goals, and one more set mon-itors how we know that the goals have been achieved.

Chapter 1 ◆ What Is This Instructional Design Stuff Anyway? 3

WHAT IS INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN?

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Instructional design is a way to plan your training program from themoment you have the idea for it (or the idea is given to you) until the momentyou complete your revisions of your first effort and get ready to run the pro-gram again. It is a working model that you can use to manage the concepts andtasks that are part of a successful training process.

There are many ways to do instructional design—probablyabout as many as there are good instructional designers—but eachway follows the same basic principles, and it’s those principles thatwe will explore here. No matter whether you are training techni-cians, service workers, or managers, or if you will be utilizingclasses, on-the-job training, e-learning, or satellites, you will needto use these principles in one form or another to make your train-ing a success.

Those principles were developed by the military in the 1940s,and set down as a method of instructional design called Instruc-tional Systems Design or ISD. The following graphic depicts thestraight-line ISD model with its five phases: analysis, design,development, implementation, and evaluation.

As time went on, designers began to realize that although thephases were a pretty good representation of how instructionaldesign worked, the straight-line model with a beginning and anend was not realistic. Evaluation usually led to more analysis,which created the need for redesign, and so on. So we began tolook at an cyclic ISD model, like this:

4 Rapid Instructional Design

Analysis

Evaluation

Implementation

Development

Design

Instructional SystemsDesign Straight-LineModel.

Analysis

Implementation Development

DesignEvaluation

Instructional Systems Design Cyclic Model.

However, to confuse you a bit, and because it mirrors the reality of ISDas an iterative process in which we keep making and remaking decisions allthrough the five phases as we create our design, I offer you my rendition ofthe ISD model.

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I affectionately refer to this as the ISD spiderweb model, and I challengeyou that if you can recite an instance for each of the arrows in which you wouldmove from one phase to the other, then you probably don’t need to continuereading this book.

In the final analysis, instructional design requires only specific behavioraloutcomes, a way to measure them, and reviews and revision to make sure thetraining effectively covers the outcomes. Everything else is just icing on the cake—though as all of us with a sweet tooth know, the icing is whatmakes the cake.

Before we get into the advantages of instructional design, we’d better takesome time to develop a couple of definitions. An instructor (as we’ll use theterm in this book) is the person who stands up in front of a class or a personand performs the main role of disseminator of content information. There isobviously a lot more to training than just that, and—as we all know from sadexperience—there are instructors, and then there are INSTRUCTORS, butfor now let’s just leave it there.

The term facilitator is also meant to describe an individual who stands upbefore others in a training setting, but one whose main role is to assist in help-ing them to learn rather than to disseminate content information. This is notto say that an instructor doesn’t assist in learning, or that facilitators don’t pro-vide content information at times, but these aren’t their main responsibilities.Lectures are given by instructors; classroom simulation or role-play activitiesare expedited by facilitators. Instructors almost always have to be contentexperts; facilitators do not.

Chapter 1 ◆ What Is This Instructional Design Stuff Anyway? 5

A FEW DEFINITIONS

Analysis

Implementation Development

DesignEvaluation

Instructional Systems Design Spiderweb Model.

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We’ll use the term facilitator often in this book, as this is the role a gooddesigner tries to design for, even if he or she throws some instruction into themix. We’ll use the term trainer to mean a facilitator as well. For example, anon-the-job training (OJT) trainer for our purposes will be basically a facilita-tor, even though he or she may occasionally provide some content information.

A designer is the person who puts the training together for the instructor,facilitator, trainer, or whomever. Often the designer is also the trainer; just asoften he or she is not. If the designer is the trainer, this makes instructionaldesign simpler and more treacherous, as trainer-designers tend to take a lot ofliberties with the instructional design process, knowing they can deal with anyshortcomings on the fly during the class. If the trainer and designer are not thesame person, then instructional design is more difficult, but normally lessinconsistent, as the designer needs to spell everything out in detail for thetrainer if the training is to be done right.

The designer’s function can be broken down into lots of subfunctions—such as material developer, evaluator, writer, artist, and so on—many of whichtheorists would argue have nothing to do with “true” design. However, as Imentioned earlier, we will not deal much with theory in this book, so for sim-plicity’s sake we’ll group all these functions under the designer role.

Another role is that of subject-matter expert or SME. As the name sug-gests, an SME is a person who, mainly through experience, knows a lot aboutthe content to be taught. A designer will team with an SME to help in thedevelopment of content and for review purposes. A trainer or facilitator mayconsult an SME concerning thorny issues in the content, or just to get somegood ideas to use during the class, some “examples from the trenches.”

In far too many cases in training, people who are SMEs are given the roleof designer or trainer or both, simply because they are SMEs. They may knowlittle about how to put a training together—and even less about how to run aneffective training class—but because they have expertise in how to do the job,they’re elected, appointed, or volunteered. They usually teach what they thinkis important (and it often is, although it may not be everything needed orimportant for this particular audience). They tend to teach it the way they havebeen taught, or the way they are most comfortable learning (which may bewrong, or at least not effective, for the content or the audience). In otherwords, they are very often not practitioners of good instructional design.

If you find yourself in this predicament, please don’t feel that we are crit-icizing you. We are definitely criticizing the people who put you there, but itcertainly isn’t your fault that you’ve been told to do something you have notbeen trained to do. No one would ask you to drive a bulldozer or fly an airplanewithout the proper training, but this does not hold true for training. Books suchas this one can help SMEs become good designers, and there are other books

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