"I've got an excellent idea about how we could teach this." This statement could be the beginning of a smashing training design that learners will use with joy and glee, instruction that will have them engaged and really learning. Or, it could be the path to instructional hell, with the trainer left scratching his head as to why it didn't work.

Enter Instructional Systems Design (ISD), a research-based methodological approach that brings the learner from a state of not being able to perform a certain task or skill, to that state of being able to perform it. And in the end, isn't that what we want from our learners? The ability to do something that they couldn't do before. Now, many of you are already squirming in your seats. Tasks, methodology, perform? Why, this is naked behaviorism, you say. All right, hold on a second. For those of you who have heard the term "Instructional Design" but were not sure if it meant anything more than 'creating a course', read on to inform yourself what this long standing instructional method is all about. For those of you who feel that methods that employ behaviorism went out with rotary dial phones, I encourage you re-look at this time tested method and see if there aren't one or two gems that you can't pick up.

I base this article on the founding work of Walter Dick and Lou Carey. Their text, which came out in the 70s, is a synthesis of research in learning, formulated into a methodology for creating instruction. The text is currently in its fourth edition and is considered by most in the field to be the basic manual of Instructional Systems Design (ISD). The more I look at it, the more I am reminded of using Microsoft Project. How's that? Well, with MS Project, you start from the final product and work backwards collecting and pasting in the elements and events you need to reach your goal. After a couple of hours or days, you have this huge chart showing each element you will need to get to your final product.

Seems logical, no? Write down precisely what your goal is, then work backwards to what sub items are needed to make it, and what sub-sub-items are needed to make those, etc., etc. So, if our final product is instruction, why should we sit down and start creating the materials without analyzing carefully what it is that we need to get there. The instructional content is the end product, not the starting place.

Assuming that the stakeholders of the organization agree then that instruction is indeed the solution to the given problem, we can begin designing. We will employ the ISD method. See figure 1.

Step 1 - Write the instructional goal(s)
This is an overall statement the designer will write about what he or she expects the learner to be able to do at the end of your instruction. If you say, "The learner will know how to fill out a tax form", this only tells us what he or she knows, not what they are capable of doing. The goal needs to state demonstrable actions (see, it is behavior we are after). As you refine your statements about what the learner will do, ask yourself "If someone was doing those actions, would you agree that they have achieved the learning goal?" Here is an example.

Step 2 - Goal statement analysis
What the designer does next is to classify the instructional goal as either a verbal skill (being able to recall factual information), an intellectual skill (such as calculating paint coverage for a house), a psychomotor skill (such as conducting a train), or an attitudinal goal (such as choosing environmentally friendly camping practices). By doing this, the designer will use different strategies (which I will not be able to address in this article) in the design process. The designer will also breakdown the goal into 5 - 15 main steps to get a picture of the major elements it comprises.

Step 3 - Subordinate skills analysis
This task is where the designer spends many hours dissecting and breaking down the main steps into subskills. Each of the subskills required for each step will in turn be broken down into subskills needed for them. This backward stepping breakdown process is extremely important and continues until the designer comes to a set of very basic skills. You will do best if you completely remove the question, "How am I going to teach this?" At this phase of the design, you are a scientist, dissecting the performance of someone 'doing' the instructional goal. You will ask yourself, what subskills are necessary to perform this certain step without which it would be impossible to perform it. The product of this work will be a large hierarchical diagram displaying all the required subskills. See example 1 below.

Figure 1.

Step 4 - Identify Entry Behaviors and Characteristics
You now need to identify the learners' entry behaviors. That is, what is it that the learners are already capable of doing? Asking a few questions to individuals in your target group will certainly be better than relying on guesses or stereotypes. You will make horizontal dotted lines on your diagram which say, students will have to come to the instruction being able to perform all the skills up to this mark. That is, "My instruction will assume certain proficiencies and start from that skill set." Not only do you want to make sure that they are ready for the instruction, but you must also determine if they already have some of the skills you have identified for instruction.

Step 5 - Write performance objectives
In this phase, you will go through each subskill box of your instructional analysis diagram and write a clear and precise statement about what behavior the learner will exhibit, under what conditions, and on what criteria it will be judged successful. Here is an example. Given a shelf of clearly labeled standard chemicals required for film development, the learner will select chemical x and chemical y and create a mixture that will develop the entire quantity of film and which is not more than 30% off from a 1:1 mix ratio. Let's now ask the defining question, "Would someone be able to determine if the learner has indeed performed this skill?" The answer is clearly yes. These performance objectives are important statements about what demonstrable behavior the learner should be able to do to indicate that he or she 'knows' it.

Step 6 - Develop criterion-referenced test items
Here we create our test items. "Already?" you ask. Well, why should we create content if we don't yet know what we will expect of the learners? Using the criteria created for each performance objective, you will create questions that would show whether or not the learner can perform the skill. The type of test item, be it multiple choice, fill in the blank, essay, or other, should be dictated by the verbiage of the performance objective. Questions, such as essay types will need special evaluation instruments such as a checklist to verify that each key element of the answer has been addressed. The most important thing a designer does in this phase is to create a number of clearly phrased questions that give the learner the opportunity to demonstrate that he or she can perform a given skill. Questions that trick, confuse, or test skills other than that of the performance objective are useless.

Step 7 - Develop instructional strategy Although you are probably very anxious to get in there and start creating the actual instructional materials, you must first create your instructional strategy. This step, along with the next, is where you should really let your creativity run loose. This phase forces you to answer important questions about how you will implement your learning plan. The five major components of an instructional strategy are preinstructional activities, information presentation, student participation, testing, and follow-through. Using the products of the previous design phases, you will sequence and cluster objectives, plan preinstructional, testing, and follow-up activities, write out the information presentation and student participation strategies, and then finally, allocate activities for each learning session. While doing this, you will take into account audience characteristics and include elements to motivate them and hold their attention.

Step 8 - Develop instructional materials
Here, you finally get to develop (or program) the materials. Because your instructional material will certainly be revised before final production, you should construct them on paper using text, sketches, and storyboards. The development should include a student manual, the instruction, tests, and an instructor's manual. Choices of multimedia should be made upon the congruence between the skill and the media type. Practice and feedback should be as close to the real world situation as possible.

Step 9 - Conduct formative evaluation
Formative evaluation is the beta testing that takes place to help you smooth out your instruction. Even with all of your tedious and careful analysis, planning, and reviewing, you have only created instruction that will theoretically work. It is now time to test these assumptions empirically. If done with the instructional design itself as a framework, you will be able to pinpoint the exact areas that will need the improvements. Ideally you will conduct three rounds of evaluation. First, with three to five students on a one-to-one basis, second, with eight to twenty randomly selected target students, and third, a field trial with about thirty students. Each of these evaluations will give you the different products you will need to re-evaluate all parts of your instructional intervention.

Step 10 - Revise instruction accordingly
This step is cycled with step 9 three times, once for each of the evaluation types. In this phase, you will revise the instruction itself or the procedures of how the instruction is used. Your summaries from the formative evaluation will include learners' remarks, scores on pretests, embedded tests, post tests, your attitude questionnaire, and your debriefing notes. Using tables that show both individual and group score results categorized by learning objectives, you should first analyze the inter-objective responses to find if there are problematic test items that need to be thrown out. The point is to focus on which objectives need revision. The designer will typically create a revision table that includes the instructional component, the problem encountered, the suggested change, and the evidence and source for the problem. Your revision could involve changing any of the many design steps up to this point.

Conclusion
I have only given you very brief notes about what a designer does in each of the steps of the ISD model. A book or course in ISD will fill in the gaps and is well worth the time, especially if it is a hands on course. I hope you have seen that each step serves an important purpose, and without which, leaves you with a design that only 'hopefully' catches everything.

Nobody said this was going to be three easy steps to awesome instruction. This process of creating instruction is research based and empirically tested. It does require a level of rigor and time that many people are not willing to expend. Although it takes into account all the necessary items needed to create effective instruction, it should not be followed so strictly that it impedes your creative expression, which in the end, draws the learner into the material. Whether or not the instruction is truly effective, interesting, and engaging, depends on your ability to put on the scientist's lab coat when analyzing the instructional goals, and putting on the artist's smock when creating engaging and enjoyable ways to present the information to the learner and provide him or her with meaningful practice and feedback.

END