Abstract
This paper discusses instructional design in corporate settings through describing and analyzing six real-world cases of instructional designers’ roles and responsibilities and summarizing key elements of those cases. The intent is to provide graduate students in Instructional/Educational Technology with a better idea of the roles they may take and the skills they will need when they start their careers as an instructional designers in corporate settings.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Needs Assessment: Analysis that instructional designers often conduct to determine whether or not there actually is a need for new instruction to be developed (Smith et al., 2005).
Learning-Context Analysis: Learning-context analysis or learning-environment analysis includes analyses of the physical realities within which learning takes place as well as the temporal and social environment that is a part of the learning process itself (Smith et al., 2005).
Design Specifications: Documents prepared by instructional designers for the development team to follow in developing the instruction. Design specifications include all specific details about the instruction to be developed.
Learner Analysis: Analysis that instructional designers need to conduct to determine the characteristics of the target learners of the new instruction to be developed including cognitive, affective, psychosocial, etc. (Smith et al., 2005).
In-House Training: Training designed for the employees of the company.
Commercial Products: Products developed for commercial purposes, for example, educational software produced for schools to buy.
Learning-Task Analysis: Learning-task analysis is a process that transfers goal statements into a form that can be used to guide subsequent design. The learning-task analysis usually is composed of two steps: information-processing analysis and prerequisite analysis. The information-processing analysis is the first step to decompose the goal into its constituent parts. The prerequisite analysis further breaks down the tasks and converts the goal and tasks into a hierarchy. The learning-task analysis helps instructional designers determine scope and sequence of the instruction to be developed as well as instructional strategies for effective, efficient, and appealing instruction (Smith et al., 2005).
Instructional Design: The term instructional design refers to the systematic and reflective process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, information resources, and evaluation (Smith et al., 2005, p. 4).