After months as a lurker in this forum, I feel I must comment on some of the recent discussion about the pros and cons of ISD versus the wonders of constructivism.
I find my head nodding in agreement with Tim Spannaus [13 Jul 95] and Michael Spector [14 Jul 95] about the need to keep this discussion in perspective, not from any need to preserve and protect the holiness of the systems approach to instructional design, but to remind those new to the field that constructivism does not start from ground zero in its understanding and explanation of individual learning. The learning theories and principles developed and expanded through research and practice over the last 40 years (and longer) serve as the basis for our current understanding and practice in the field. The field has naturally evolved as both our understanding of learning and cognition has deepened and as our tools have improved to allow us new and better ways to provide meaningful interaction with and for students. [P.S. I am in the "technology is a tool for learning AND for teaching" camp.]
Learner interaction and hands-on activities have always been important in the arenas that have used ISD from the beginning, e.g., the military, government, large business. Unfortunately the hard and soft technologies we have had to work with, until relatively recently, imposed fairly severe handicaps on the learning environment, causing more than its share of lecture to occur. Now that we have the technologies to permit, if not demand, interactivity, we as designers and teachers need to learn more about how to use them to maximize their effectiveness in the learning/instructional environment. Tom Reeves [ITForum #5] is absolutely right when he says that it's time that the research stop looking at media comparisons (been there, done that) and start looking at real differences in treatment or strategy approaches.
Let me go back to the ISD is bad/Constructivism is good discussion. As a long time technical trainer for both government and private industry (tax law, widgets, computer systems, financial systems and management, etc.) I have long resisted the title, or even the suggestion, that I was an organization development person. "I just help people do their jobs better," I would reply. Except that in each new system change project I was involved in, I spent less and less of my time developing training and documentation materials, and more and more of my time developing performance support structures and materials, and helping the organizations manage the change process itself. Pretty soon I had to admit to myself that, in fact, I was doing organizational development work too, not just instructional development and performance improvement work. This called for new skills, new approaches, new technologies. I had to learn these, learn how to use them effectively, and sell them to my clients so they could use them too.
However, I didn't abandon my systematic way of looking at the performance improvement problem that I have used from when I started in this business. I have added some new analysis techniques to get at different kinds of knowledge and performance that I have to help support. I have changed my design/development process to rapid prototype solutions to allow more and better testing of approaches. I have added more instructional approaches to my tool kit to provide for the various types of learning that have to take place on the job, some straight cognitive, some procedural, some philosophical, etc. I have added new technologies into the learning/instructional delivery environment and have learned more and more about how to design the human-computer interface to allow real performance and learning to take place. Nowhere in this process have I abandoned what I learned from the early days in ISD. Nowhere in this process have I found that all people have to learn in one "best" method or in one "best" environment. At no time did the systematic way I approached trying to solve the performance improvement problem get in the way of coming up with creative approaches to designing the learning environment. The new research and discussions on cognitive and constructivist learning theories have added to my capabilities and creativity, certainly, but have not contradicted what behaviorist learning theory taught me, either. Rob Foshay, at this past April's NSPI conference talked about 4th generation ISD--an evolved model. Just as I have changed from a straight "technical" trainer," so have I evolved in my use and understanding of ISD or any systematic approach to designing and developing instructional learning environments. [Note: Jackie Dobrovolny and I will be presenting a session about these new skills, knowledges, and strategies needed for a instructional designer in this evolved environment and model at next year's ISPI conference (NSPI (National Society for Performance and Instruction) is now the International Society for Performance Improvement!)]
I would like to echo Michael Spector when he says much of this bad ISD/good constructivism discussion stems from expert/novice differences. Experts with a more fully formed and developed performance and/or knowledge model don't need to follow exact procedural steps to develop good instruction. This is certainly true of expert performers in any arena, such as those in my clients' organizations. However, the experts do understand the theory and rational for the steps and take care that the underlying "rules" are taken care of in developing solutions. This is what I would like to encourage all those who dismiss the ISD process and its underlying theory to remember. Novice designers need to start somewhere. ISD and its underlying behaviorist learning theory is a good place to start. They can then add cognitive and constructivist learning theory to the base to have a more fully formed and articulated model of learning that they can use to design the most appropriate instructional strategy and environment for the particular learning need and environment in which they are working. To presume that only one strategy and learning theory model is the "right" way is to ignore what we already know and have proven through years of research. And to ignore what we already know about learning leads to the development of a misshaped model that will (and does) allow designers to create instruction and learning support environments that do not meet all the needs of all their users. This should not be an "either/or" discussion; this should be an "AND" discussion.
I would like to stop worrying about the application of one particular model versus another particular model and worry instead about the quality and appropriateness of our design solutions for the particular problems and opportunities we find ourselves faced with. I would particularly like to point out an article by Harold Nelson in last November's Performance Improvement Quarterly titled, "The Necessity of Being 'Un-Disciplined' and 'Out-of Control': Design Action and Systems Thinking." (In fact, get the entire issue focusing on human performance design, including an award winning article by John Carroll on design scenarios for human performance.) Harold talks about the need to be "un-disciplined" in our thinking--to look outside our own disciplines for ideas; and to be "out-of-control" in our design process--to give it a more emergent quality, rather than be a linearly managed process. This does seem to be on the surface the final condemnation of ISD, but in fact is what I have been trying to say much less succinctly--that if you let the process get in the way, you can possibly end up with the wrong solution. The "systems thinking" that Harold espouses is not that of designer that preaches ISD or Constructivism, but a more integrated, global systems view that allows designers to create and develop solutions based on new models and metaphors that draw from expertise from a wide range of disciplines. This is what we as instruction and learning environment designers ought to be striving for, using our expertise and knowledge of behaviorist, cognitive, and constructivist learning theory to combine with expertise in other disciplines (multimedia, human factors, systems engineering, telecommunications, etc., etc.) to design and deliver the most appropriate solutions for our performance improvement and learning situations.
All for now. (As well is should be...)