Friday, March 14, 2014

The Importance of Instructional Designers

Instructional Design is a profession that combines psychology, education, and technology into one field. The ultimate goal is to improve instruction through research, evaluation, and application of learning theories. The importance of instructional design lies in the fact that this field changes constantly as new theories and technologies are developed. The traditional approach to education is outdated and nearly as obsolete as floppy disks. The times are changing, and instructional design is changing as well.

Instructional designers teach the teachers how to integrate technology into their classroom. Technology is not everything and an instructional designer's focus will remain on instruction and how well students are learning the presented information.

So where do instructional designers work? Instructional designers may work in the private sector for training of employees, or in the K-12 and higher learning education systems. Instructional designers working in K-12 schools are generally referred to as Media Specialists. For instructional designers in higher education, the focus shifts to e-learning and developing courses. Instructional designers are utilized everywhere and the field continues to grow.

Dave Stein states that "[t]he instructional designer provides a blueprint that serves as the foundation for a successful training program. You wouldn't build a house without an architect, so why would you design your training program without a designer?". Instructional designers are hired more and more each day as times are changing. Will you choose to make a difference in education?