Why Design Instruction?

In thinking about the question in the title above, I really began by thinking, as I usually do, about the negative image teachers usually get in their profession. Recent headlines and news segments today are no different than they have been: Schools are failing students, teachers are overpaid and not held accountable for enough in their profession, and even the age-old argument that "those who can't teach," or that, really, anyone could do what instructors do.

So, what I believe is the strongest answer to this question is that if teachers are going to argue against this wave of negativity, they have to first and formost remain professionals in their careers as educators. Primarily, this consists of planning instruction with the careful and systematic approach with which they've hopefully been trained to use. Many people could step into the job of training for a day and teach a lesson or two, but it is only a professionally trained teacher who can assess the needs of students in a correct manner, design instruction to meet that need, and then evaluate those designs to ensure that needs are met. This is a process that can take years to get used to, and it can take a lifetime to master. If critics continue to have isssues, then this system by nature at least creates records (if the designer or designers are professionals) which can show the world how just as much planning, study, and professionalism goes into designing instruction as it does to, say, construct a building or conduct scientific research.

It is the correlation between instructional design and scientific research that is also important in underlining another reason for having a design for instruction. There are really two reasons why scientists use systems, especially the scientific metthod, in their studies and experiments. The first is so that, in publishing their findings, anyone can see proof of the work put into their efforts, and the results obtained. This is similar to the argument for instructional design that I outlined above. The second reason scientists use a uniform system in their work is so that other scientists can duplicate the work done, either to test it themselves for effectiveness, or to improve and build upon the original work to create something improved. This same argument also works concerning the need for designing instruction. If instructors use uniform systems in their design, then other instructors could duplicate this instruction on their own to test or improve the design. These systems work to create an efficient and effective scientific community, and they can do the same for the community of instructional designers.

When thinking about communities of instructional designers, in fact, it's still hard to imagine just how much innovations in technology and communication have changed the world of instructional design, not to mention the individuals responsible for it and their relationships with their peers. If a wide variety of professions are becoming more and more networked as time progresses, including instructional design, then its easy to see how design will become dependent less on individuals, and more dependent on teams of designers, both because it makes their efforts more efficient, but also because it is becoming more and more difficult for individuals to remain effective designers with the explosion of information and educational media varieties out there. If the evolution of instructional design is moving from individual to group work, then it is an obvious point that using a system approach will be a necessity in effective instructional design.