Make INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN Your Focus This School Year

When reduced to its simplest form, great instruction is the result of great DESIGN and great DELIVERY.  Design and delivery go hand in hand; we cannot have one without the other.  A well-designed lesson will go nowhere without great delivery, and a well-delivered lesson will inevitably be met with questions and confusion if not well designed. 

This post focuses on the first half of the equation, DESIGN, or in the context of schools, INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN. Like many terms in education today, instructional design is often misapplied and misunderstood. Although not a new word in education, it is unique for many K-12 educators. 

Despite being more widely used in higher education, there is no more of an understanding of instructional design at this level and probably even less agreement on its importance. In fact, a power struggle has emerged between instructional designers and college faculty because of how many higher education institutions apply the term instructional design.  Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case in K-12.

While there is no agreed-upon definition, instructional design can be viewed as a systematic way of thinking, developing, and implementing quality instruction to improve the learning experience for the end user. Put more simply, instructional design focuses on user experiences. It encompasses a lot, and it touches every part of your school and classroom.

With all of the work that schools have coming out of the pandemic, some may ask why the emphasis on instructional design now?

The pandemic reinforced for me that teaching is truly an art form. I've always known that, but seeing the work of teachers throughout the pandemic left no doubt in my mind. Great teachers are truly artists. They use their gift to excite their students, pique their imagination, fuel their creativity, and drive their students' passion for learning. Likewise, instructional design encompasses all the components of great teaching. It defines what and how teachers deliver their instruction, how they facilitate interactions with and between students, and how they differentiate and personalize the learning experience for the students in their classrooms. 

Many schools have spent the pandemic emphasizing the importance of using common nomenclature and folder structures in their school's learning management system (LMS) to help students access their work. These items are critical to ensure teachers, students, and parents can easily navigate the digital classroom. But instructional design is so much more! 

Instructional design allows teachers to design lessons to address predictable barriers that are in all classrooms. What are some of these predictable barriers?

• Students may not be interested in the content or may not know why the content is important.

• Students may lack the motivation to continue when faced with a significant challenge.

• Students may struggle with self-regulation and expected behaviors.

• Students may not be able to comprehend instruction if only presented in one format.

• Students may struggle to express what they really know if only given a single way to do it.

Effective design addresses many of these issues before students even enter the classroom, ultimately making it easier for the teacher to ensure every student gets the learning experience they need. So, when I think about instructional design, I believe it is the most important thing teachers do to ensure the needs of every learner are being met.

Katie Novak, one of the authors of Equity by Design, points out that effective design allows for the "best first instruction" before differentiation occurs and before systems of support are needed. She also does a really excellent job of explaining how the focus of design is an essential component in schools today. Katie likes to give the example of hosting a dinner party. I'm sure we've all been there. We painstakingly clean the house, buy groceries, and prep the kitchen. We then cook whatever it is we're serving at the party. 

But we don't just cook one meal and serve it to all our guests. That wouldn't make much sense since it's likely that many of our guests have different tastes in foods; some may have food allergies, and some may be vegan or vegetarian. We know going in we can't cook just one meal that will satisfy everyone. 

So, what do we do? We may talk to the people on our guest list to see what foods they like. We may prepare different foods, anticipating that some people like certain things while others may want something different. Or, we may create a buffet of sorts and provide all of our guests with many different choices so they can create a meal that best fits their needs and preferences. 

Using that analogy, we as educators are planning a dinner party in our classroom every day. That same attention to detail and that same attention to variability at our dinner party needs to happen in our classrooms if we are truly going to meet the needs of every student. It's certainly not easy, and it will take a lot of time and planning to be an expert designer. To that end, my team and I created the Effectively Designed Instruction (EDI) online course so that all K-12 educators can acquire the skills needed to effectively design and deliver their instruction in any format.

Having worked with thousands of educators across the country, I'm confident this course will change how educators think about designing their instruction. By the end of this course, our goal is that everyone will be able to view their class through the eyes of their students, proactively address the predictable barriers that occur in all classes, and deliver the very best "first instruction."

Joining the EDI course is easy. Click HERE to access the registration page and use the code EDI22 to register at a discount (or for FREE if you act within the week).