How To Design An Instructional Design Course
An Instructional Design course is useful for educating students or providing on-the-job training. Let's learn what are the steps in the Instructional Design process.
Recognize The Audience
The general process that a company follows while designing an eLearning course is to consult the users first. It helps to have an idea about the age group of the target audience as well as their education level. Identifying the target demographic is important so that the learners don’t get puzzled with the course.
Collect Resources
The second step is to gather all the information from the users and Subject Matter Experts, then decide on an Instructional Design theory. The next part is to create a reference document or a storyboard which will be referred to in later stages.
Course Preparation
The next step is to prepare the course. It involves including animation and adding resources and sound effects, including narration and other audio.
Get Client Feedback
The last part is to show the course to the client. The client will check the course and provide any suggestions if required. Now, what is an Instructional Design theory? You have to choose an Instructional Design theory properly because it decides how impactful your course is. You have to take into account your learning goals and what your learners need. Here are some Instructional Design theories so that a proper eLearning course is designed.
Instructional Design Theories
Adult Learning Theory By KP Cross
This theory says that personal experiences form the mainstay of how a user learns. Due to such experiences, adult learners have high intellectual abilities. But the sensory-motor abilities are reduced with age. So, an Instructional Designer should also use these abilities when designing Instructional Design courses.
Problem-Based Learning By Howard Burrows
The problem-based learning theory is based on the concept that the main reason learners want to learn is to solve real-world problems. When challenges are given to learners, they create a pool of their knowledge and skills.
So, there are some basic principles which are included in this learning theory:
- The students, once challenged with a problem, try to figure out what’s to be done;
- The problem should be complex once it is presented to a group;
- The students should know how this knowledge is related to what they have learned earlier.
ARCS Model Of Motivational Design
The third model is Keller’s ARCS model of motivational design. ARCS model means Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction.
Let's talk about its stages:
Stage 1: Attention
This stage includes getting the attention of the user. It can be done in the following ways:
- Perceptual arousal
It refers to surprising the user to gain their interest. - Inquiry arousal
The second way to get the user’s attention is to provide them with tough problems and questions to get them interested.
Stage 2: Relevance
In this stage, the user’s motivation levels are increased by creating relevance of the knowledge learned in the course. There are different ways to do this. The learners are taught how the knowledge gained will be useful in the present context and in the future also. They are also taught how the knowledge will satisfy their needs of getting more power, belongingness, achievement, and risk-taking.
Stage 3: Confidence
In this stage, the learners can calculate how much they are likely to succeed as per the performance requirements.
- The learners are allowed to grow during the process of learning;
- The next part is providing feedback to the users;
- The learners should feel that whatever success they have achieved is in consequence of their own efforts.
Stage 4: Satisfaction
The learners should get some satisfaction after learning. It can be from higher management in the form of applause. The applause makes them feel as if they have achieved something. The learners should be able to feel that the knowledge gained by them is useful in a new situation. However, if the learner can carry out some easy tasks, they should not be praised for them.
So, these are the Instructional Design theories upon which you can build your eLearning course.
