To Be, or Not To Be?

What Is Instructional Design Theory?

According to Charles Reigeluth, "An Instructional Design Theory is a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop." An instructional design theory must include the following:

• Design Oriented (An IDT must show how to achieve set goals),
• Identify methods of instruction and situations they apply to,
• Be probabilistic rather than deterministic, and
• Values must play a role in design.

The most difficult part of the white paper analysis for me was finding the components that would reflect a distinctive instructional design theory in our training program. There really wasn't anything that stood out in the training program that I could identify as Instructional Design Theory, so the group and myself used Reigeluth's framework to thoroughly analyze every component of the program. After establishing our goals, values, and making sure they are in alignment with the mission, we were able to analyze and break down methods of the training program into more detailed component methods. From there, we were able to not only draw a conclusion that there wasn't a distinctive instructional design theory within our training program, but we were also able to make recommendations that would improve the program and make an instructional design theory more recognizable (Reigeluth, M. C. (1999). Instructional Design Theories and Models, Vol. 2).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

Reigeluth, M. C.(1999). Instructional Design Theories and Models, 2.