Letter from the President, June 2010
The month of June was inspiring for me. I attended Ruth Clark’s Evidence-Based Training Methods workshop in Raleigh and enjoyed Darryl Sink’s presentations for our June chapter meeting and full-day workshop. I really enjoyed learning from both speakers. For the past ten years there has been a debate raging in the learning world. Is the ISD process as we know it obsolete or is it still useful and relevant? Darryl helped me resolve that debate, at least in my mind. The answer lies somewhere in between.
The actual model that you use is not as important as the how you use it. In listening to Darryl talk about his experiences, it is clear that he approaches each new project differently. He decides which steps in his process he will use for the specific set of circumstances in each new opportunity. There is no one process that meets the needs of every new project. There is no silver bullet, just good planning and intelligent choices. Sure, instructional design is based on good science. But sometimes, how we use it is part art and part science.
As always, Darryl places a strong emphasis on good analysis. He knows this is the only way to develop learning that gets results and prevents the development of learning that isn’t needed. This not only contributes to quality, but saves time and money. Another aspect of Darryl’s process that I particularly like is what he calls Developmental Testing. This is the practice of developing a prototype that represents your overall instructional strategy and testing it with a small group of sample learners. You use the data to verify that your strategy achieves its intended results. The data are also used to make revisions as you continue the iterative instructional design process.
I know Darryl helped me resolve the debate about the obsolescence or relevance of the Instructional Systems Design process. If you missed it, we have the Thursday evening program available on video.
PS. For a review of Ruth Clark’s workshop in Raleigh, read my blog at www.dickhandshaw.com
Warmest Regards,
Dick Handshaw
President, 2010