I must confess to some trepidation about responding to the queries Professor Reigeluth posted in his ITForum contribution this week. Back in 1979, Dr. Reigeluth, then a brand new Assistant Professor, was a "reader" for my dissertation at Syracuse University, and to this day I can still recall struggling to respond to his piercing questions during my oral defense.
Overcoming my residual apprehension, I'd like to address Dr. Reigeluth's question:
[quoting Reigeluth's paper] What do you think about the notion of user-designers, and the implications of it for what instructional theory needs to be like?
Before responding, I reviewed Dr. Reigeluth's earlier paper in Educational Technology (1996) concerning a new paradigm for ISD to which he refers in his call for a new paradigm of instructional theory on ITForum. This, in turn, prompted me to re-read the "reclaiming instructional design" manifesto issued by Dr. Dave Merrill and his students (1996), a version of which appeared earlier this year on this listserv. In my view, there is a certain tension between the current perspectives of these two leaders within the USA version of the field of educational technology, and I would like to invite Charlie and Dave (if he is on-line) to comment on their points of agreements and disagreement.
With respect to the question above, I am attracted to Charlie's notion of user-designers because both my experience and my research indicates that it is collaboration (within a certain context and during a certain time) among teachers, learners, and designers that ultimately determines the implementation and effectiveness of any given instructional design. By contrast, my experience and research do not lend much support to Dave's contention that there are natural laws of instruction that can be discovered and applied with relatively little regard for context, time, or the participants involved.
This user-based approach recognizes the need to put better design tools and knowledge in the hands of those who generally create and deliver the instruction anyway. In order for this to occur, we believe a new paradigm of ISD is needed that will empower the users to play a greater role in designing their instruction than our current conception of ISD allows.
Dave and his colleagues (1996) wrote:
Appropriate instructional strategies can be discovered; they are not arrived at by collaborative agreement among instructional designers or learners. They are natural principles which do exist, and which nature will reveal as a result of careful scientific inquiry. ... When the winds of new paradigms blow and the sands of old paradigms shift, then the structure of educational technology slides toward the abyss of pseudo-science and mythology. We stand firm against the shifting sands of new paradigms and "realities. (p.7)
These appear to be different, even opposing, perspectives on the nature of instructional theory and the need for new paradigms, and I look forward to any clarification these authorities can provide.
Merrill, M.D., Drake, L., Lacey, M.J., & Pratt, J. (1996). Reclaiming instructional design. Educational Technology, 36(5), 5-7.
Reigeluth, C.M. (1996). A new paradigm of ISD? Educational Technology, 36(3), 13-20.