A Great Wall of Difference: Musings on Instructional Design in Contemporary China

Abstract

Instructional design is typically viewed as a process for identifying and solving instructional problems. However, for designers who work on international development projects, the “western” assumptions of instructional design may pose particular challenges as project participants work together to find solutions to teaching and learning problems. The challenge is to find culturally sensitive ways to create resources and provide training for individuals who have different cultural backgrounds. After almost three years of work on the project shared in this article, there are still a number of questions. For example, why has there not been the development of a community of practice around instructional design with the project members? In addition, why has the Canadian project team been unable to encourage our Chinese colleagues to value the instructional design process? This paper offers a number of musings and insights about the field of instructional design within the Chinese context.