July 8, 2009
In general, what I love the most about Instructional Design is the actual nuts and bolts of putting a project together. In the ADDIE model, that would be the Design and Development phases. Specifically, I love the concepts of Flow, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and the ARCS model for motivation. I love the simplicity and common sense approach to design of Cognitve Load Theory, and the utility and practicality of the Knowledge Management in supplementing instruction. In the fast-changing world of ID and education in general, nothing stays the same very long. Technology changes, demographics change, and theories develop and moprh into something new. Some of my loves may be much different different in the future, but I think their essence will remain the same.
I cannot really see the need for motivting learners changing much as time goes by, the change will simply be 
in how we do it. Instructional Designers will certainly want the recipients of the work to attain a state of flow, and I think it will become easier with the advent of new technologies to customize the difficulty of tasks to the exact level needed by an individual learner. This will certainly facilitate flow. Keller’s ARCS model will also likely remain untouched. We will still need to gain the learner’s attention, establish relevance, build confidence, and provide a level of satisfaction to the learner when the task is complete. The differences may lie in precisely what the learner finds interesting, relevant, confidence-building, and satisfying. Motivation has always been essential to good ID, and will likely remain so even as other instructional methods change.
Cognitive Load Theory is one that was proposed and then refined by research. Many studies were done highlighting the differences between learning in situations where the material was presented in different ways. It is also based on what we know about how the brain works. We are only able to focus our attention on so much before our capacity to learn and retain ideas is diminished. This is another theory that promises to be important as time goes by, but one in which there is likely room for continuous refinement. As our knowledge of the way our brains work becomes more complete, there will likely be implications for how we present lessons to maximize efficiency, and therefore we will have improvements in Cognitive Load Theory.
My final choice for ID loves, was Knowledge Management. In a world of ever increasing data availability, KM promises to be come increasingly important. In my classroom alone, I am awash in student data that I seldom have the time to analyze sufficiently. The best use of assessment information, after all, is to inform instruction. But, too often, it only becomes a mark on a report card. Systems for organizing and analyzing classroom data do exist, but need to become more widespread (i.e. I have them in my classroom) in the schools of the future. Knowledge management is also a critical at the organization level. One of my projects in the EDTEC program attempts to address this issue by gathering math resource support and making it available to teachers on the web. I love the idea that with KM we can tap into what each person in an organization knows and make that available to those who need the data.
Like Flow, ARCS, and Cognitive Load theory, it is likely that much of ID will remain mostly the same, with maybe a few minor adjustments. Other systems have great potential for growth due to the advancement of technologies, such as KM. The future of ID no doubt holds much which is yet to be revealed, but after consulting my magic eight ball, I am confident in making this announcement:
