E-Learning & Instructional Design 101 — from The Rapid E-Learning Blog

Excerpt:

Good instructional design can make learning happen faster and more efficiently than what might happen more organically.  Instructional design is the process of assessing the learning needs and then applying the appropriate learning strategy to meet them.

I’ve always seen instructional design as an intrusive process.  It’s a manufactured attempt to make learning more efficient and effective as it intrudes on our natural learning process.  Ideally, this intrusion is beneficial and helps us learn better.

In a simple sense, there are three core components to instructional design:

  • Understand how people learn
  • Construct learning activities based on how people learn
  • Measure the effectiveness of the learning activities