Secret of Instructional Design Revisited

Improvements in technology, especially automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence have dramatically changed what people do in the workplace and how they do it. Technology advancements over the past 3 decades have reshaped demands in schooling and the workplace bringing on new challenges and opportunities. Employers need employees who are critical thinkers, communicators, collaborators, and creators to remain competitive and innovative. Educators recognize these abilities that learners must have to take advantage of the opportunities and face the challenges that are presented to them in the 21st century. As was the case 30 years ago, the same consistency is needed today among the four elements of instructional design: objectives, methods, content, and evaluation. There must also be integration of the instructional system with authentic, real-world performance. If these two critical aspects are not met the chances of obtaining the desired effectiveness of learning is not likely to be met. The Internet and cloud computing allow more rapid development of instruction for more efficient and affective learning. The pace of change also requires a greater emphasis on the iterative nature of evaluating the instructional design system

Designing Workplace Training for Generational Differences: Does It Matter?

There is little to no empirical evidence that designing instruction to match individual learning styles increases learning. Similarly, the same is true when people are grouped into “generations”. If generational differences exist, the size of their effect is small and does not affect the effectiveness of training. Still, educators and trainers overwhelmingly think differentiated design based on learning styles and generational differences cause students to learn more. Why? I argue that there are other outcomes to instruction besides effectiveness. If instruction matches an individual’s preferences, content and skills can often be learned more efficiently and certainly appeal more to the learner than if it does not match their preferences. It is argued that both efficiency and appeal of instruction are important outcomes for students even when effectiveness is not significantly changed by matching the instructional approach to the learner’s preferences