Instructional Design

Application of an Instructional Design Model for Industry Training : From Theory to Practice

1. Sri Nur Komala Indah Lestari Zakiyah Pradana Hilda Fajrina Riva Alifia Warid 3C

2. Application of an Instructional Design Model for Industry Training: From Theory to Practice

3. This chapter examines reflections, considerations ( pertimbangan ) , and the problems encountered when attempting to apply an instructional design model in the design and development of two online courses for industry training. Specific issues addressed include: tight budgets, limited cooperation from SMEs, high expectations of clients, major changes to ‘finalized designs,’ and the importance of dealing with such matters promptly and effectively.

4. DEFINITIONS Instructional design “is the process of designing the environment, methods, and resources for effective learning of specified goals and objectives” (Boettcher & Conrad, 1999, p. 49). According to Hall (1997), Web-based training is instruction that is delivered over the Internet or over a company’s intranet. This instruction is accessed using a Web browser, and is characterized by the readily available, interactive, multimedia nature of the Web and its associated plug-ins.  

5. DESCRIPTION OF COMPANIES AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION A brief description of the companies for which the online courses were built will help you better understand many of the instructional design decisions that were made and the problems encountered while developing the courses. The first online course was built for a health care company, situated in Chicago. The pharmaceutical division of this company requested that our team build an online course on the topic of Release Specifications. It would be used to train managers internationally. Previously the course was taught via traditional classroom instruction; however the instructors were involved in so many projects that they no longer had time to teach the course.

6. The second online course was built for a chemical company in Canada To build awareness of the system among its employees, and to educate managers on how to plan and implement the system, the company requested that our team develop instruction that was user friendly and easily accessible at all their petrochemical locations.

7. PROJECT TEAM ROLES The project team for the development of these two courses consisted of a project manager, two instructional designers/programmers, a graphic de- signer, and a network specialist. The instructional designers worked on the projects for almost a month full time, while the remaining team members worked on the project on a part-time basis or whenever their expertise was required. Work on this project was completed in a collaborative manner.

8. DESCRIPTION OF COURSES A brief description of both online courses, including the instructional and navigational components, is provided below to enhance the readers’ under- standing of the instructional design process followed to build them . The navigational buttons on the left include a rationale, a pretest button that links to multiple-choice questions, and an objectives button, from which the learner can access all the learning resources (including text, images, practice activities, and self-assessment exercises).

9. APPLICATION OF AN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN MODEL A combination of two instructional design models where utilized for this project. The first is the Dick and Carey model (1990), which comprises five phases: analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate. This is the model that we used when communicating with the clients, because it is straightforward and easy to understand . According to Kemp, Morrison, and Ross (1998), a comprehensive instructional design plan consists of the following tasks: (1) identify instructional problems, (2) examine learner characteristics, (3) identify subject content and analyze task components, (4) state instructional objectives, (5) sequence content, (6) design instructional strategies, (7) plan the instructional message, (8) develop evaluation instruments, and (9) select resources to support instruction and learning.

10. ANALYSIS From this experience it is possible to conclude that even if a budget is not allocated for the analysis phase, the instructional designer must attempt to verify at a bare minimum: a. the skills that need to be taught (if any ), b. the learning resources already in place, c. the intended audience, and d. the client’s expectations and requirements. As seen from this example verifying the above information is not always easily accomplished.

11. DESIGN According to Kemp, Morrison, & Ross ( 1998 ) . During the design phase, information obtained from the needs assessment, whether formal or informal, is used to plan a strategy to develop effective instruction.

12. Content for Instruction A first step towards developing effective instruction is to identify and outline the content . This observation emphasizes the importance of managing the project effectively, a responsibility that is primarily the project manager’s and to some extent the instructional designer’s .

13. Instructional Objectives Instructional objectives define what the learner will know or be able to perform, under specific conditions, upon completion of instruction .

14. I nstructional strategies were selected: Instructional Strategies The instructional designer determines how to present the content related to each individual learning objective in a manner that helps the learner master that objective .

15. O verview of what will be learned (objectives); P resentation of information through the use of visuals, texts, and animations (knowledge/learning) ; O pportunities for practice and feedback (in the form of matching exercises and dynamic spreadsheets); and S elf-assessment/evaluation questions (in the form of fill-in-the-blank/short answer).

16. FLOWCHARTS Flowcharts are graphical presentations of how the HTML pages are mapped out and connected to form the online course. Such flowcharts were used for both courses and seemed to enable effective communication among the project team when they were building the online courses

17. Storyboards and Style Guides W hen designing instruction, storyboards should be drawn on paper to visually illustrate how the text and graphics will be presented on each page . S tyle guides can be created to provide an outline of how a document should be structured, including elements like corporate logos, screen design, methods of interaction, links graphics, and animations ( Lemiski , 2000). For both the Release Specifications course and the Business Systems course, no storyboards or style guides were created, because there was a very tight timeline. The pages for the online modules were immediately built in HTML . I f there is no time to create a storyboard, at the least cascading style sheets and templates should be used to allow the instructional design team to quickly make mass changes.

18. D evelopment Once the storyboards and design specifications have been decided on, the next steps involve the production of the final product. For both the Release Specifications and the Business Systems courses, the instructional design team built a prototype module, based on specifications outlined in the design phase. This sample of the whole course was provided to the client early on to identify any problems or concerns, and to resolve these prior to finishing the whole course . This process took longer than expected, as the SMEs (from the client side) seemed to find it difficult to schedule time to collaboratively review the prototype module.

19. As a final step within the development phase, technical testing — other- wise known as quality assurance testing — was conducted for the Release Specifications course . This involved checking every link from within each module to ensure that the links were working as intended (Hall, 1997).

20. I mplementation Since the Release Specification course was terminated prior to completion, only the Business Systems course was implemented. Learners were expected to complete the Business Systems awareness course at their own pace, when they had time. While there was no formal instructor, an individual from the company was assigned to maintain and update the course. Therefore a session was arranged to provide coaching and advice to this individual on maintaining and updating the learning modules using Dreamweaver .

21. Evaluation Formative testing and revision are conducted throughout the design and development of the online courses, to identify and eliminate weaknesses before full-scale implementation, contributing to the success of the project (Kemp, Morrison, & Ross, 1998 ). For both the Business Systems and Release Specifications courses, formative evaluation was conducted when the instructional content was examined and revised, when storyboards were examined and modified, when the prototype module was reviewed, and when the modules that were completed were tested. Summative evaluation is conducted at the end of a project to measure the degree to which the major project objectives are attained (Kemp, Morrison, & Ross, 1998).

22. This type of summative evaluation, examining the final product, was not conducted for either of the two courses, since the Release Specifications course was not completed, and there was no budget allocated for summative evaluation of the Business Systems course . If a business does not have the expertise internally to complete a summative evaluation or would like a ‘fresh’ perspective and outlook on the project, an uninvolved external evaluator can be hired to complete a summative evaluation.

23. ADDTIONAL OVERALL REFLECTION

24. T here are two additional reflections regarding project management responsibilities of the instructional designer and the overall approach to the courses.

25. Project Management and Instructional Design The writer make Project management = writing the initial proposal for the project, managing the work of the graphic designer, and ensuring that he met deadlines, as well as tracking and reporting the hours and resources utilized for the development of the course. according to Kerzner (2000) indicates that a project is successful are to complete the project within the estimated timeline and budget, and ensure that the client’s expectations were met

26. For example, the SMEs/Application of an Instructional Design Model for Industry Training instructors of the Release Specification course communicated that they felt uneasy about converting their traditional classroom course into an online course, despite the eagerness of senior management to go ahead with the project. According to McCallie and McKinzie (1999), if industry people do not feel comfortable and at ease with the online course, the project will be terminated

27. Constructivism VS Behaviorism Constructivist values such as collaboration, personal autonomy, reflectivity, active engagement, personal relevance, and pluralism ( Lebow , 1993) were overlooked to a great extent in the Business Systems courses. The client advocated that these types of activities would take too much time to complete, and that they would not appeal to learners who are used to being “fed with information .”

28. So, between students and instructor need communication. As instructional designer, we must know about what the client wanted.

29. B ehavioristic approaches to learning, such as competency-based learning, may be more appropriate than constructivism. Through self-paced modularized learning, immediate feedback, and remedial instruction, employees are expected to achieve 100% mastery of skills.

30. a combination of the two approaches, as was seen in the Release Specifications course, may be the most effective approach, where elements from both are utilized, allowing mastery of specific skills, while spending some time reinforcing learning through collaboration and communication (i.e., threaded discussion board).