October 1-7

Shawn Atwood
Foundations of instructional design
EDPS 6430

“Good Analysis Leads to Good Objectives.”

Well, I submit that my mother-in-law is finally starting to understand to a small degree what an instructional designer is and what they do. I however, am still learning and it seems to me that each week I pick up something new to add to the “illuminated cave” as Rich would call it. This last little while as we have been studying task analysis, it has become clear to me that analyzing the learner is such a key element in designing instruction. It perhaps might be the most important thing of all because it is the first step of instruction. It is where it all begins. If analysis is not done right then the instructional design could fail miserably.
This week’s reading backs up the importance of analysis, because as a designer analyzes the learner and directs their instruction towards them, the learner is then more capable of learning and is even more ready to learn. According to Dick and Carey (2005) “few students are likely to be lost for long periods of time, and more are likely to master the instruction when they know what they are supposed to be learning” (p. 124).
In addition to the above ideas, one of the key things that an instructional designer does is come up with, and write performance objectives. These objectives are essentially what the learner will be able to do by the time the instruction is complete. They describe what kinds of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that the student will be learning. In order for an objective to be clearly stated, a clearly identified behavior must be identified first as a result of instructional analysis. So, to sum of this week's thoughts on what is an instructional designer? An instructional designer is one who analyzes the learner, identifies a behavior through that analysis and then comes up with an objective of what they want the learner to be able to do. That is the whole purpose of instruction. When the students leave the classroom each day, they will know how to do something.