Instructional Design in the Real World: A View from the Trenches (Advanced Topics in Information Resources Management) [Paperback]

Anne-Marie Armstrong (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Advanced Topics in Information Resources Management | Publication Date: September 2003

Text addresses issues of how practices are adapted and applied in numerous environments; emphasizing the constraints on the design process that have been imposed by the timelines, resource distributions, and needs of various systems. Softcover, hardcover available. DLC: Instructional systems--Design--Data processing.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Anne-Marie Armstrong Dr. Armstrong is an instructional designer and online professor who is also a student in the Museum Studies program at George Washington University in Washington DC. She received her PhD in Instructional Design from the University of South Alabama in 1998 and has published and presented papers in a variety of journals and conferences.Dr. Armstrong is an instructional design consultant at the Government Printing Office in Washington. Formerly she worked as an instructional designer and training manager for various organizations and companies including CSG Systems, Lucent, Raytheon, the FAA, Aera, and AmerInd. In the last ten years, she has been involved in all phases of the instructional design process with a special emphasis on needs analysis, formative and summative evaluation, and web-based courseware. She also teaches online courses including Web-based Instruction and Human Performance Technology Interventions at the University of West Florida. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 269 pages
• Publisher: Information Science Publishing (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591401836
• ISBN-13: 978-1591401834
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 6.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,489,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Instructional Design in the Real World, April 1, 2009

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Coley - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instructional Design in the Real World: A View from the Trenches (Advanced Topics in Information Resources Management) (Hardcover)

"Instructional design in the real world: a view from the trenches", by Anne-Marie Armstrong was published by Information Science Publishing in 2004. The author has thoughtfully compiled accounts of many different instructional designers throughout the world. The designers report on the various models and businesses that they have worked for. Many of the designers were hired to create online or e-learning modules. They discussed the successes and failures of their ventures. I will be honest; my first reaction to reading this book was not positive. But, as I engaged myself in the reading, it was a very easy read. The authors of each "story" were very honest when describing their working situations. Many reflected on mistakes they made in the ID process, others reflected on what worked best within the process.
The part of the book that I enjoyed most was that the Instructional Designers realized the importance of knowing the needs of your learner. One of my favorite quotes was that "Learners were considered identical, homogeneous raw
materials in a standard process of educational production (Cameron, 1996). They were considered as an empty vessel that only needed filling. Hence, there was no active communication between instructional developers and learners during the learner analysis process" (p.3). As an instructional designer especially for the online learner, it is very hard to know a learner that you never see or come in contact with, however, the author still keeps this in the forefront of what we should keep in mind when designing instruction.
The chapter that stuck out in my mind was the one that specifically dealt with knowing the needs of your learner. There was a case study on how job aids are used in a manufacturing plant. The instructional designers realized after the needs analysis of the learners, that they did not need full content learning, but specific tasks the worker could look up. The author compared the information they needed to a phone book. The learner already knows how to use the phone; they just need specific phone numbers sometimes.
In closing, this book really opened my eyes to the
role of the instructional designer, especially as they worked with the company and the SME (Subject Matter Expert). As the designers of an online course stated, "Merrill (1997) is often quoted as saying `information is not instruction.' This simple and profound statement seems to make a whole lot of sense; there's a lot more to teaching than just telling students about something and then expecting knowledge and skills to magically appear. Yet what we find in a majority of textbooks, lecture halls, and online courses is a whole lot of telling and not much instruction. We certainly didn't want our course to be categorized as just another "electronic page-turner" (p. 171-172). We can not expect to throw information out there and expect people to learn. The instructional design process must be carried out to achieve high levels of learning.