Six Models of Instructional Design: An Overview & Reflection
ADDIE
The Addie Model is a model for process rather than content. It breaks design down into five steps, which can occur in a linear fashion or otherwise.
Analyze: Focusing on the audience, this stage is where you outline what students need to learn and how that should influence the design.
Design: This phase translates what students should learn into objectives, lessons, assignments, and more. This is where the bulk of the content generation happens.
Development: In this stage, the development is not of content, but of learning outcomes which are then tested.
Implementation: The program is "deployed," so real feedback can now be gained. Confusingly, design evaluation is done in this stage.
Evaluation: This is where the ultimate analysis of the courses efficacy is performed, and relies on summative assessments.
Evaluation is truly spread through all of these stages, and as such, graphics outlining this model often put evaluation in the center with the other steps always referring back to it. In many ways, this model puts words to unavoidable stages of design (you must know what you want to teach before you start designing, and you must get feedback on the course before you can evaluate it) but doesn't bring a lot of new perspective to the design process for me.
GANGE's Nine Events
1. Gaining Attention: Signaling to learners that they need to shift into learning mode. This can be done through many nonverbal cues, or explicit statements.
2. Informing Learners of the Objective: Often supported by varied learning theories, setting expectations for students and sharing goals with them can improve learning outcomes. This is where you first create meaning in the subject.
3. Activating Prior Learning: Also critical to many theories of learning, students can acquire new knowledge best when they have a prior framework to place it in.
4. Presenting the Stimulus: This is the meat of the lesson, where the content is conveyed.
5. Learning Guidance: Students are supported through building independence and practicing what they have learned.
6. Eliciting Performance: Students demonstrate their new knowledge. This can take many forms, but should be a relatively independent process.
7. Providing Feedback: Constructive feedback helps students to identify and correct misunderstandings.
8. Assess Performance: The learner should be able to complete some form of assessment that proves their knowledge.
9. Enhancing Retention & Transfer: Continuing to retrieve this information over time, or applying it to new situations will increase retention.
This model focuses on organizing content into a layout that enhances student learning. It reminds me of the Madeline Hunter model of Direct Instruction, which includes many of the same steps. Clearly these steps are supported by a lot of research and practice, and they seem to be very effective. While they may seem to be in an obvious order, it can be helpful to have the model handy to refresh and make sure no steps are missed.
Merrill's First Principles of Instruction
Problem/Task Oriented: The first principle is to center learning around a real-world problem or task to motivate student learning.
Activation: Retrieving and applying prior knowledge helps students anchor the new material.
Demonstration: New knowledge is demonstrated.
Application: The student applies the new knowledge and receives feedback in a scaffolded way.
Integration: Learners are able to incorporate new knowledge into their understanding and worldview. This can be achieved through discussion, reflection, application, and continued practice.
This model is an interesting mix of a step-by-step road map, and a broader statement of learning values. These principles are meant to be applied in order, but also each represent bigger ideas for what makes education effective. I like this model's concise but dual-purpose principles.
Revised Bloom's Taxonomy
This model really doesn't model good design- it models the learning process, which certainly has design implications. It is not meant to be prescriptive, but can be used to understand progression from lower order (easier) skills to higher order (harder) ones and ensuring that students move through these levels can help increase mastery of the content. I find it to be a helpful visualization of the buzzword "mastery."
Understanding by Design
The "backwards" model of design, UbD starts with the learning objectives and works backwards to ensure that activities and assessments are truly getting to the goal of learning. In this model, everything is referred back to the learning objectives, so that the objectives are sure to be met. It is very easy to analyze the success of UbD programs, because the goals are so well defined and the assessments are designed specifically to reflect the desired learning.
Universal Design for Learning
UDL focuses on providing variety in the learning experience to engage learners of all abilities, learning styles, and other differences. The main principle is to provide multiple options for everything.
Multiple means of representation: The content should be taught in multiple forms, such as video and text, demonstration and lecture, audio and visual.
Multiple means of expression: Students should also be able to work with the mediums that work best for them, such as being able to turn in an assignment in either written, video, or graphic form.
Multiple means of engagement: Students should be provided multiple types of activities to engage with based on their interests.
This model has a lot of principles and ideas that go along with it, such as ten steps towards universal design and a nine part guide to application of the multiple means in different contexts. I like this model's focus on supporting diverse learners and emphasizing choice and engagement in the learning process. It does, however, seem much more tedious to follow for the simple fact that it require multiple forms of everything. It also doesn't provide any sort of step-by-step model, or guidance for how to get started, which would be overwhelming to jump into with the dozens of points to keep in mind all at once.
Reflection
Overall, it is rather hard to compare these models as they almost all model a different part of the learning process or course design. You could use the learning implications of Bloom's Taxonomy, in a Course designed following UDL standards of multiple means of everything, starting with the objectives in mind as UbD prescribes, that is outlined following Gagne's 9 steps, and design and evaluate your course through the ADDIE model of course development. This makes it rather difficult to compare the models, but also is helpful in that no two models compete with one another providing contrary views on what practices improve or detract from learning. Their compatibility instead can strengthen each and the use of multiple models in course design.
Of the models, I am most attracted to Bloom's as a method of understanding the levels of mastery, Gagne's steps for lesson layout, and the UDL principle of providing choices and variety. Thankfully, I can use all these simultaneously, or, more likely, take parts of each to create lessons that don't follow one prescription to the letter, but keep in mind the spirit and main tenets of each. The time constraints of teaching and being beholden to state-assigned standards can make it very difficult for teachers to incorporate everything they want to do, but having a basic understanding of these principles can hopefully help me to keep in mind the most important aspects, and provide learning experiences that reflect the best of each of these models.
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