Instructional Design

Instructional Design What is it? Instructional Design is the process involved in making the teaching more effective, efficient and appealing so that the learning is maximized. The process involves determining the current state of instruction, the needs of the learner, the desired state, defining the end-goal of the instruction and creating interventions to achieve the same. To simplify further, Instruction Design is the science of designing the given information for maximum knowledge transfer. The instructional designer s greatest role is that of bridging concepts between education and technology. Effective instructional design, if followed, will allow the creator to produce a product (i.e., course, website, seminar, tutorial, workshop, or training manual) that will facilitate the transfer of knowledge and skills to the recipient or acquirer of the instruction. How can I become an instructional designer? In the beginning, the first Instructional Designers learn instructional designing the hard way; i.e. by referring books and learning from their client requirements. They further train the future batches from the experience they have gained from their work. But this learning takes a long time and is a strenuous process. Most of the learning actually happens once you start working. The Demand for Instructional Designers The need for instructional designers is in e-learning both in corporate training departments and education institutions. It is one of the fastest growing fields. Sadly, even with a rapid growth in the outsourcing of instructional designing to India there are not more than 100 instructional designers in India. As more outsourcing work pours in, there will be a huge demand from companies all over the world for better instructional designers in India.

Traits of an Effective Instructional Designer:
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Ability understand the concept of the training that needs to be created Effective Interviewing skills Ability to comprehend and chunk the content Ability to write clearly and to the point Writing correctly, clearly and concisely. Ability to interact with specialists from other fields (graphics and subject matter experts) Creativity and lateral thinking Good knowledge of the process of Instructional Design Knowledge of the tools used in creating courses

Instructional Design is a specialized field for developing effective learning tools for maximizing the learning for the learners. This is a career for you if you have the passion to improve the training techniques and have good writing, comprehending, training skills.