Saturday, June 28, 2008

Where ADDIE fails....

Many of the instructional designers still open their textbooks when they are asked to design a new course.They tend to look at ADDIE again...
Unfortunately ADDIE fails to deliver most of the time..
So what are the things an instructional designer must rely upon...???
Blending some theories of Joseph south, i would like to narrate some points here..

1. Narrative: Story has been used to bind people together in shared knowledge and understanding for thousands of years. It is arguably the first instructional strategy ever used to convey essential cultural knowledge to the rising generations. It's an essential aspect of virtually every culture on the planet. We are wired for narrative. We think in narrative, we speak in narrative, we even dream in narrative. We perceive our very existence as an unfolding narrative. We collectively pay billions of dollars to experience well-crafted (and not so well-crafted) narrative. Narrative design needs to be deeply understood and routinely practiced in our field.How many instructional designers have even heard of the field of narratology? How many designers have studied the construction of a documentary, a screenplay, a dance performance, a musical composition? We are starting to scratch the surface with our recent attention to role-play scenarios and gaming, but have far, far to go.

2. Aesthetics: Human beings respond powerfully to aesthetic design. Every decision we make, like it or not, is mediated by our subjective perceptions. The "Bottomless Soup" study done by Brian Wansink, a recent winner of the IgNoble Prize for nutrition (and also has a book on the subject, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think) demonstrates this beautifully. And, of course, aesthetics don't only make us fat. They can relax us, orient us, inspire us, enliven us. Aesthetics are much more than the surface qualities of an object, but extend to encompass the richness of our experience, and the best applications of aesthetic design can embody and express layers of meaning in a profound, prereflective way. Patrick Parrish is starting the conversation in our field. This conversation needs to be accelerated and expanded.

3. Learner Emotion: Human beings feel, and what they feel influences their readiness to learn, their willingness to learn, how much they actually learn, and whether they will (ever) decide to learn about a particular topic again. As Russ Osguthorpe asks, "If they got an A in the class, and tell us that they never want to see that content again in their lives, have they really learned what we intended to teach them?" Emotions can work for or against learning. In order to account for emotion in our learning design, we need to know what learners are feeling before, during, and after learning experiences occur.We have a whole science devoted to measuring learning before, during, and after learning experiences and, ostensibly, ways to intervene based on what is learned from these assessments. Where is the science and technique of measuring the learners' emotions? What are the best practices of how to intervene based in what is learned? What makes us think we can teach effectively if we only know what learners know and not how they feel? How they feel about learning this topic, how they feel about their ability to learn this topic, how they feel right now in this learning session during this learning activity? Engagement is both a cognitive and an emotional experience. Can you imagine a flow experience in a learning setting that was devoid of emotion? Can you imagine an overwhelmed, bored, distracted, or anxiety-filled learner maximizing their learning?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very useful article

Thank you

Anonymous said...

Excellent stuff