Instructional Design—Step by Step

This book was written for three audiences: 

 Those who are relatively new to the field of instructional design, 

 Those who have been tasked with creating training or education who do not have a background or formal education in instructional design, and 

 Those who have some background, education, or experience in instructional design who: (1) want to expand their skills in certain areas (such as analyzing complex procedures), (2) want a concise summary of the key principles of instructional design, or (3) want a concise, proven, and simple approach to instructional design. 

In this book, I have tried to distill my 30 plus years of experience in designing education and training, my university degree in instructional design, and my sitting at the feet of some of the founding fathers of human performance improvement into a simple, straightforward, step-by-step process for designing instruction and training. 

This book is not intended as a comprehensive treatment of the field of instructional design. Rather, it is designed to teach a newcomer, in simple, understandable terms, how to design effective, efficient, and successful instruction. 

This book is not an academic tome; rather, it is a practitioner’s guide. As such, I will be your personal mentor and tutor. I will teach you in the simplest way I know the minimum information and skills you will need to perform systematic instructional design. 

The process I teach is not an unproven, abstract, or theoretical musing. I believe it is the quickest, most concise, and most direct way to design effective instruction. I have practiced and refined this approach in numerous real-life projects with many clients on tasks and subject material ranging from the simple to the complex, from soft-skills to the highly technical, covering a wide range of disciplines. In short, in this book, I have condensed all of my wisdom, knowledge, and skill to its most essential elements and have packaged it into a simple step-by-step approach. 

The follow-on and companion activity to instructional design is instructional development. Instructional development is the set of activities that are required to create the instructional materials that were specified and prescribed by the instructional design document—the blueprints of the training. It is the construction phase of the training project. In instructional development, the course materials are 
“fleshed out” into their final verbiage and form, based on the course and topic objectives. 

Instructional development requires knowledge of such things as how to sequence the instruction, how to identify different types of information, and how to design and write instructional prose, graphics, and treatments accordingly. For a how-to manual on instructional development, see my companion book, Instructional Development - Step by Step: Six Easy Steps for Developing Lean, Effective, and Motivational Instruction.