Teacher Tool: Instructional Design Frameworks

While contemplating the following quote, "Education has missed the boat, with respect to instructional design. Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly, with little thought to why they are presenting information or even who their audience is. Teacher training, at the university level and during professional development, needs to focus on helping teachers become comfortable with instructional design principles," I found myself, a veteran educator of 20+ years, both disagreeing and agreeing with its assertions.

After completion of my elementary education degree in 1993 and my hiring in 1994 for my first ever teaching position, I certainly had a wealth of prior schema and a strong opinion about education both as a teacher AND as a teacher's kid, as well as a mental bank full of educational theory, suggested best practices for classroom management, instruction and assessment, and a year's worth of getting my toes wet guided by an exemplary master teacher as my guide and instructional partner during methods and student teaching.  Few fellow teachers would find it surprising that I felt that authentic, true immersion into the field of teaching didn't happen for me until I had my own, they're-mine-all-mine, classroom full of students.

For my first four years of teaching, I relied heavily on my grade level partners and school colleagues, learning how to move education theory into actual practice.  My ability to create quality lesson plans, understanding of the need for differentiation, and reluctance to blindly read from any curricular script or adhere to any canned program touting a one-size-fits-and-fixes-all mantra grew with experience, but my first year or two, I did feel as though I were punting.  Some of those first lesson plans definitely tanked, with contributing factors including my lack of familiarity with large groups of very young children and having to learn my school's, district's, and state's curricular goals while doing the job itself.  The expectations for and of kindergarten students were also very different two decades ago: developmentally appropriate practice was recognized as necessary and beneficial for young children, was understood and accepted by families and administrators, and always put the whole child's needs first, which resulted in my effort to create a learning environment focused on diverse explorations, practice and partnership, rather than on a mastery checklist of very specific and sometimes isolated mathematical and language skills as its focus and outcome goal. 

Did I knowingly or intentionally analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate (ADDIE) in order to develop instruction?  No, because I wasn't an instructional designer, I was a kindergarten teacher.  Did I identify my students, their prior schema, needs and strengths?  Yes. Did other teachers and students' families help me identify goals for each year?  Oftentimes, yes. Did my colleagues and I determine which content, tools and assessments were appropriate for 4-6 year olds?  Yes.  Did we create needed tools and resources that weren't available?  When necessary, yes. Did we act as mentors for new grade level colleagues, school staff, parents and administrators, and did we welcome feedback about the instructional framework within which we operated? Yes. Did we evaluate what worked and what didn't, and did we then make conscious decisions regarding best practices?  Absolutely.  Teachers and instructional designers operate at a foundational level in very much the same way.

Twenty years ago, was it the mission of my university's education program to incorporate the role of instructional designer into every teacher's training?  I highly doubt it, though I worked with several colleagues who researched and developed curriculum at our district level.  Have education programs differed from college to college, university to university? Sure, and they'll likely continue to do so. While education and the expectations of schools has continued to evolve, and college and career standards have been clearly defined, it's natural to perceive a need for teachers to understand instructional design and how it goes hand in hand with how they can best teach diverse learners, better select or create quality curriculum and clearly identify the needs and strengths of not only their students but their own instruction. University programs, courses, and professional development can bring instructional design frameworks out of the darkness and offer them as tools to educators.