Teachers CAN’T Do Instructional Design

I’m sorry but it’s true.  They just can’t do it…BUT it’s not their fault.  You can blame “the Man,” as long as “the Man” conjures up an image of the long entrenched educational complex guided by tradition, infrastructure, and the latest fads.  In my last post, I compared educators and instructional designers, and I think it is interesting how different their role is.  I had always considered the two synonymous.  I went to graduate school to learn about instructional design in a program that was designed for k-12 educators.  What I learned was a very effective model for designing instruction based on the ADDIE model.  It was a revelatory program that provided powerful insights into the creation of engaging, research-based, and most importantly effective learning experiences.   So it would seem to follow that educators can and should use the same model of instructional design in performing their work.  Certainly I thought so at the time, but I want to elaborate on why I think educators just CAN’T DO it, and as I mentioned before, blame “the Man.”  I think “the Man” has handicapped educators by blindfolding them, spinning them around, and not giving them a clear target.  Why should we be playing educational “Pin the Tail on the Donkey?”  But that is what I think is happening.

In my previous post I identified five reasons that educators cannot do instructional design, time, lack of meaningful analysis, lack of defined performance, lack of continued use, and lack of motivation. I want to elaborate on why this is, why it is important, and hint at what this implies about where  we need to make the biggest changes to the hulking and inertially impaired educational complex.

Problem #1 – Time

No one in education would disagree that teachers simply do not have enough time built into their day to do their job well.  That’s why the best teachers spend much of their evenings and weekends planning, grading work, and calling parents.  The problem is that if educators were to actually do instructional design, they would need to do even more than what they are currently doing, and that  means an investment of more time.  The Science of Learning by Robert T. Hays makes the point that Instructional Design is effective as long as it is done scientifically and methodically.  Teachers, however, tend to barely have enough time to Develop and Implement their lessons (the third and fourth letters in the ADDIE acronym).  In ADDIE, one of the most important steps is the Analysis.  By gathering information about your audience and the performance you are aiming to improve, you are able to tailor instruction so that it is successful.  For educators, there just isn’t time to gather and analyze this information, let alone spend the time to carefully Design the instruction you want to Develop before you Implement it.  Currently the vast majority of a teacher’s day is spent in Implementation, teaching the day’s lesson.  Also, it is difficult to have time to truly Evaluate the instruction as well.  Sure assessments and tests will provide some level of Evaluation of the success of instruction.  Plus teachers are constantly doing informal evaluations through a variety of means.  But Evaluation is meant to inform the instructional strategy itself.  It is a key element to the concept of data-based decision making because it allows for the instruction to be modified, re-designed, and improved.  Even if you have an electronic means of assessing students that provides analytics, you still need to interpret those analytics in order to determine how you should modify instruction and this takes time!  But time is probably the least of my worries for why educators can’t do instructional design, so read on.

Problem #2 – There is No Opportunity for Meaningful Analysis

Above I mentioned that educators don’t have the time to perform analysis, but lets say that they did.  What would they be analyzing?  Instructional designers are tasked with improving performance.  So what they are generally analyzing is prior performance.  For example, if a designer is tasked with improving the accuracy of TSA baggage security, they will analyze how the performance is currently being done.  They are detectives looking for clues to why the performance isn’t optimal and ways that it can be improved.  In the case of education, most likely what you are teaching is the first experience a student has with the material.  So what would you be analyzing?  At best you may be able to do a pre-test that lets you know what students already know, but how would this inform your instructional strategy which is the whole point of Analysis in ADDIE?  So you know what they don’t know.  That tells you that you need to teach it.  Big deal.  The instructional designer gets a lot more information from their analysis.  It tells you where the breakdown in performance is and will actually provide insight into whether the audience will need training, job aids, a change in the structure of the job, new equipment, or what.

Problem #3 – There is No Defined Performance

In my mind, this is probably the biggest problem and is the root of a lot of the problems that educators face.  If this were altered (as I will discuss in my next post ), it has the potential to solve some of the most niggling problems of education.  Here’s the problem:  Instructional designers know what they want the audience to do better.  If the audience is TSA baggage handlers, the designers know they want them to be more accurate in checking bags.  If the audience is the 7-Eleven employees that make the coffee, the designers know they want them to make the coffee in a reliably tasty fashion.   In order to improve performance, the designer may have to teach the audience a thing or two.  This may include facts, attitudes, a process, etc.  But the things being taught are important only because they are necessary in order to inspire performance.

Educators have no performance they are aiming for.  They are tasked with pumping facts and ideas into students’ heads without a context-of-use and without a desired performance where the facts and ideas are useful.  At best you could say that they want the students to do well on the standardized tests, and so the performance is that students should be able to use the massive array of facts and concepts they  learn to answer questions correctly in a testing environment.  Shoot, I don’t understand why our students aren’t motivated by that.  It’s almost as if what our educational complex is trying to prepare our students for is an international Trivial Pursuit tournament.  But guess what, in the future our students are not going to be playing Trivial Pursuit with China.  They need to be able to be innovators, hard-workers, creative problem-solvers, etc. in order to compete in the global marketplace, which is at least one of the goals of a good education.  But the only performance that we have identified is the recall and understanding of facts, concepts, etc.  There is not context-of-use for the information that we are teaching to students.  How are students supposed to use the information in the future?  What will be the context-of-use where this information will be important.  If educators were also provided with a guide to why the information is important, aside from the need for students to remember it on a test, perhaps instruction could be designed better.  In fact, that might be what we decide to test in order to define whether our efforts have been successful.  Some educators create project-based learning opportunities for students that create a real-world context of use.  This is great, but it takes time and requires the educator define the importance of the information.  If the local, state, or national entity that created the standards in the first place also identified how they expected this information to be used and why it is important, it could make instruction and the evaluation of success much simpler and more meaningful.  This will be the topic of my next post, because I think this point is very important, and I’m not sure I’m making it well here.  Essentially I think our standards need re-thought in two respects.

Problem #4 – There is No Continued Use

Another reason that instructional designers are able to employ the ADDIE model effectively is that there is an expectation that their target audience will continue to use the knowledge they acquire from any instructional intervention.  If they are taught the necessary information in order to perform their job more effectively, they will be constantly using that information in the future.  This is what makes it worth it for instructional designers to put significant effort into the ADDIE process.  The designer isn’t just focusing a day’s worth of instruction to teach a topic that will be irrelevant the next day and just needs to be remembered months later for a test.  The information has inherent value because it will be used again and again.   Let’s say an educator who teaches 7th grade science is planning to teach about photosynthesis in a unit about plants.  They are also expected to teach the structure and function, reproductive processes, and other important processes of plants.  Well the next unit may be about evolution.  Will photosynthesis be something that students will need to remember in detail for that unit? No.  Next year they will go on to physical science.  Will students need to remember photosynthesis then?  No.  When the child grows up will it be important to remember specific details about the process of photosynthesis?  No (unless they become a scientist).  Will they need to remember specific details about the process of photosynthesis for the test?  Yes.  The only future performance that is important is the test, unless the students were to become a scientist in the future.  A whole lot of effort will need to be employed to teach photosynthesis effectively so that students remember key details for a test, but to me that’s a lot wasted effort.  The students who will need to know about photosynthesis in detail will learn about it in depth when they have chosen a career path that will require the continued use of this information.  At that point, that knowledge will become important for a specific performance!   For average Joe student a lot of time will be invested into trying to force Joe to remember something that is ultimately value-less in his life, for a very meager payoff – the student just might remember tedious facts for the standardized test. 

Problem #5 – Lack of or Manufactured Motivation

This is another important difference between the job of an instructional designer and the job of an educator.  Instructional designers are lucky enough to be working with people that care about their job, at least they probably do.  Since they care about bonuses, advancement, job security, etc. the audience of an instructional designer is already motivated to a certain degree to do their job well.  Plus the audience may truly love what they do.  They already have an interest in the topic and skills related to the performing their role.  Sure instructional designers still have to worry about creating instruction that is motivating and engaging.  You can squander the motivational capital that the audience of an instructional designer brings with boring instruction, but for the most part the motivation is there and it is only possible to lose it. Educators are in a totally different boat.  Unless a student simply loves to learn or has an interest in the topic, the educator is tasked with imprinting that information in their brains whether the student cares or not.  Some teachers are masters of making things like photosynthesis seem like vital and interesting information, but that is a tall order, especially since students don’t know why this is important or how they will ever use it.  This lack of motivation, paired with the concerns above, is the key to why instruction tends to be ineffective.

Okay, so I’ve told you the five reasons that I think educators CANNOT do instructional design.  Here’s why I think this is important revelation.  I think educators should do instructional design.  It is an effective and proven strategy for designing instruction.  But I think that the system needs restructured in order to make this possible because there are significant barriers to making it possible for teachers to employ a proven strategy for quality instruction.  In my mind the first step in restructuring is to re-define the outcomes of a quality education.  Are we preparing our students for international trivial pursuit tournaments, which is what I think our current system is designed to do, or do we want something much more significant?  I think this goes back to the age old debate about standards-based education.  My 2¢ is coming soon to a blog near you, in fact it’s coming to this blog, in a post entitled Building a City, Building a Future.  That is, unless I decide to change the title.

Educators vs Instructional Designers – Tackling Some Questions

Educators.  Instructional designers.  Are they the same thing?  Should they follow an identical process?   Does education have something to learn from the field of instructional design?  These are the questions I want to tackle in this blog post.  I’ll try to tackle them, but maybe they run faster than me.  Recently thinking about education has made my mind hurt and I feel like sitting on the sidelines.  Okay coach is sending me in.  I’m gonna try to make the tackle…

Tackling Question 1:  Are educators and instructional designers synonymous (or at least should they be synonymous)?

Here’s what I think:

If educators and instructional designers did the same thing, then they would employ the same methodology in performing their respective roles.  For example, instructional designers typically employ the ADDIE model when designing trainings, job aids, or other interventions to improve performance.  So are educators and instructional designers the same?  This is the first step in answering the next question, “Should they employ the same methodology?”

I think educators have a very different, but related, task when compared with instructional designers, and I believe their job is much more difficult. “Why?” you ask.  Ok, I’m running after the wide-receiver…

Instructional designers tend to be employed in order to improve performance.  There is a specific target that the company or organization hiring them has in mind.  For example, 7-Eleven may feel that their traditionally awesome coffee has started to taste a little bitter or weak.  Something has gone wrong with how 7-Eleven employees are managing the coffee station.  (This isn’t true – 7-Eleven still has awesome coffee.)  If 7-Eleven were to experience this problem, then they could call in an instructional designer who would identify what barriers there are to performance and either design trainings or job aids to help the employees perform more effectively.

Educators tend to be employed in order to teach some proscribed set of knowledge and skills to all students.  A state or local agency outlines specific target sets of knowledge and skills to be taught in each subject matter and grade.  So a history teacher may be expected to teach about the Constitutional Convention.  All students are expected to learn about this important event in our nation’s history and there are generally no guidelines offered by the state for how students are expected to use this knowledge – other than that students should be able to correctly answer questions about the Constitutional Convention on a standardized test.  So the teacher designs a learning experience that teaches these facts in a way that the information will be encoded into long-term memory (not necessarily used).  There is no expected performance utilizing this information rather than recall for the standardized test.

So there are several key difference between these two roles:

• Goals:
  • Instructional Designers have a very specific goal.  Their goal is to improve a SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE in a particular CONTEXT.  Information that is learned in their trainings has value because it improves performance.  That is why it is learned.  The why is the reason for the instruction.
  • Educators have as their goal to help students acquire a BROAD SPECTRUM of knowledge and skills considered FOUNDATIONAL to an educated citizen regardless of context, chosen profession.  Why this particular knowledge is important is not specified.  The reason for the instruction is simply so that students learn the information.  There are no specific goals related to use of the information.
• Audience:
  • Instructional designers generally have members of an organization as their audience.  Certain commonalities generally follow simply because their audience are all members of the organization.  They have all CHOSEN to be employed or members of the organization.  Audience members likely have similar SKILL SETS or INTERESTS because they have chosen this career path or membership.
  • Educators on the other hand largely work with an audience that has no unifying characteristics other than AGE.  ALL students are expected to learn the material regardless of their interests, passions, career goals, etc. because the knowledge is seen as foundational.
• Outcomes:
  • Instructional designers are expected to produce DEFINED RESULTS.  What counts as success is clear, and all knowledge and skills are situated in a particular CONTEXT OF USE.  Designers know exactly why, how, and when the knowledge and skills will be applied, and there is a specific GAP they are trying to close with the intervention.  Performance will be REPEATED as the employee or organization member continues their work.
  • With educators the results are Ill-DEFINED.  State standards do not tend to outline how the knowledge and skills students are gleaning from their education should be used, and the only performances that are measured and valued are GRADES and STANDARDIZED TESTS that provide NO CONTEXT OF USE and certainly NO CONTINUED, SUSTAINED USE of the the information.
• Motivation:
  • In the case of instructional designers, their audience will tend to have motivation built into their membership:  SALARY, ADVANCEMENT (based on performance reviews), JOB SECURITY, ATTAINING COMMON GOALS.  The knowledge and skills are something that they will use again and again in order to do their job.  The knowledge itself has value because they know how they will use it.  It isn’t just something to be remembered for no specific/clear purpose.
  • Educators have a problem with motivation.  Almost always the motivation for learning that is offered is simply that learning the material is a hurdle that is necessary for advancement.  If you do well and make a good GRADE, you may get into COLLEGE or get your DIPLOMA.  Unless you simply happen to be interested, the information only has value until you have achieved the grade or have gotten your diploma.  Then it becomes irrelevant.  The motivation for learning is not related to the value of the knowledge or skills.

Summing up.  Even though the job of both educators and instructional designers is to instruct and guide, educators and instructional designers work in very different circumstances.  The apparent role of the educator is to provide a broad-base education for students that provides a sampling of knowledge in important fields as well as provides a foundation of knowledge and skills that allow the students to be active and successful citizens.  The role of the instructional designer is to militate the circumstances of successful performance in a specific context.  They are very different.

Sweet!  Made the tackle!  Or is there a penalty on the play?  You tell me.  Gotta move on to the next play…

Tackling Question 2:  Should they follow an identical process?  Does education have something to learn from the field of instructional design?

Working in different circumstances does not necessarily imply that educators and instructional designers should employ different models as a guide for their practice.   Although I worked in K-12 education, I went to graduate school at San Diego State in order to get a  Master’s in Educational Technology where I learned about instructional design.  (Quick plug:  great program at SDSU) But that still doesn’t answer the question.  Should they use the same process?  The most pervasive model used by instructional designers as a guide for their practice is the ADDIE model (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate).  At least at first glance it seems like perhaps educators should use this model.  Why shouldn’t they analyze, then design an instructional package, develop it, implement it in the classroom, and evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional package?  Should educators use this model in their work?

Well, in some important respects, they can’t even if they wanted to.

1. Time:   Planning an instructional intervention in Instructional Design takes a lot of back end work.  You analyze the audience, the needs, the goals, and most importantly the gaps prior to instruction.  Educators have to daily churn out plans for the day with limited time.  Generally the process is more like the DIE model of teaching.  Design, Implement, Eternally with no chance to take a breath.  Create a lesson, deliver it, and repeat without having time to truly analyze needs, design instruction to meet those needs, and evaluate success.  So even if educators want to analyze, carefully design, and evaluate their instruction, there just isn’t time.
2. No Meaningful Analysis:  When instructional designers do the Analysis portion of ADDIE, they are generally analyzing the status of the performance they are tasked with improving.  For example, in the 7-Eleven case above, the instructional designer would perhaps observe employees performing their task, survey them about the current process, guidelines, etc.  This data would provide information for the designer so that they could identify why the performance is not up to par.  It may indicate a need for better training, better job aids, a need form more staff, etc.  The analysis informs the strategy.  In the case of education there is no prior performance to be analyzed because ultimately education is not focused on performance.  The goal each year is to fill the child’s head with new knowledge.  So analysis would be simply the flimsy act of determining what students already know.  The analysis will only inform what you need to focus on, not what strategy to implement.
   
3. No Defined Performance: Instructional design hinges on improving performance.  In education there is no specifically outlined way that students are expected to use the knowledge they gain; there is no context of use.  This is probably why information tends to be taught at a surface level (recall and comprehension).  Educators can simulate or create contexts of use where students will be asked to apply and use the information they learn, but these are not an inherent part of the system.  If educators create or simulate the contexts of use, this takes time (see above).  Plus then the specific ideas of the educator are defining the value of the information.  If the state or locality takes the time to identify the information that should be taught, why aren’t they articulating its value as well.
4. Lack of Continued Use:  Part of what makes the very extensive nature of the ADDIE model feasible is that all of the effort put into the endeavor is meant to not only support a single performance but extended performance over time.  In education you are covering so much material, it is not worth repeatedly coming back to topics like the Krebs cycle or the Roman empire.  Generally the knowledge is only important until the end of that grade level and then it is never mentioned again.  Why put the effort into making sure that students learn, and learn well, what the Magna Carta is and why it was important?
5. Lack of or Manufactured Motivation:  Encouraging students to feel motivated to learn can be an art-form.  Some teachers are masters and some students simply love to learn, but for many students telling them that they need to know a broad array of information that crosscuts academic fields and includes tidbits like the steps of photosynthesis because it may be important some day or because it is basic scientific literacy isn’t going to provide the motivational gravitas the student needs.

So my argument is that teachers can’t employ the ADDIE model because it isn’t feasible and the circumstances of the task outlined for them by the state and how success is measured makes it unrealistic.

Did I make the tackle?  Oh I see a flag on the field.  Here it is:

Notable Exceptions to my “they can’t even if they wanted to” claim:

If an educator is teaching an audience that is motivated by a specific outcome, then I believe that educators should use instructional design strategies.  Some examples would be educators in teacher education programs, elective classes that teach a skill such as drama or wood shop, or any education program that is preparing students for a specific trade, hobby, or career.  In these situations, you know what you want your students to be able to do to be successful, and you can identify what knowledge and skills are necessary.  In addition, they are motivated because they are training in a field that they have chosen.  The outcome is defined and the students have a reason to attain that outcome.  For example, if you are a professor in a teacher education program, all of your students want to become exceptional teachers.  So you can identify particular outcomes that are important, and design instruction appropriately.  In contrast, if you are teaching high school biology, you are given a goodie bag of facts and skills the students should acquire, but you don’t know how they will use this knowledge in the future.

Why does this matter?

Well, frankly I think it matters a lot.  I think sometimes we act like the process for teachers is clear and straightforward.  If only teachers did it, then everything would be peachy.  Instructional designers have a much more straightforward task.  Teachers have way too much on their shoulders because ultimately their task is not even defined for them.   I know that when I first learned about instructional design, it seemed to me that it defined how teachers should approach the process of education, but now a days it seems an insurmountable task.  In my next few posts I’m going to write about my thoughts for education reform because I am still trying to work through what I think about the following:

• What counts as foundational knowledge and skill for teachers
• How should we teach teachers to teach
• What expectations we should have as a locality, state, or larger society for education and the role it plays
• How can the system be better structured to meet those expectations

Sorry for all of the sports metaphor embedded in the post.  It felt right at the time.  Funny thing is, I don’t even like football.