الثلاثاء، 14 مايو 2019

For A Competent Developer Instructional Design Curriculum Has To Be Done Scientifically

By Dennis Fox


All successful companies make sure that their employees are highly skilled and similarly, all successful people know that they need to learn new skills and sharpen their existing ones all the time. Skills are acquired by means of training and that is why most large corporations spend a lot of money on training programs. Training needs to be relevant, however and it must satisfy the current and future needs of both the student and the employer. With a competent developer instructional design curriculum this can be achieved.

Designing curricula and courses is a highly skilled profession. Far too much money is spent on training that is of no use to the student or his employer. Course designers can make sure that the needs of companies and their employees are fully satisfied in custom designed training courses. They employ the principles of educational technology in order to maintain a scientific approach to the process.

Courses need to be designed with full cognizance of all the factors that will have an influence on the eventual training. This may include restrictions such as the budget for presenting the course and the maximum length of time students can be freed for training, for example. Other factors such as the availability of technological aids and facilities also need to be kept in mind. These factors form a framework within which the course is designed.

Next is a thorough analysis of the intended target group. The profile of the typical student that will undergo the training has a decided influence on many issues such as the delivery method, the setting of entrance requirements, the selection of training resources and many others. The more the designer knows about the target group the more likely he is to produce a course that will achieve results.

Far too many courses are based on existing resources such as books or manuals. Instead, a proper training needs analysis should be performed in order to determine exactly which skills and what knowledge the students need to acquire. Professional course designers use different techniques to determine the training need and this step is perhaps the single most important one when designing a course.

The next step is to refine the course content into measurable objectives. Training objectives need to be exact and they must specify what exactly it is that the student must learn or master, to which standard it must be done and the time limit within it must be done. This is the only way in which students can assess their own progress and in which those delivering the course can know what it is that they must teach.

Despite modern trends to not evaluate students, some form of evaluation is definitely necessary. There is no other way in which to ensure that students have actually mastered the course objectives. If they have not done so, they need either further training or additional tutoring until they master all the objectives. Other aspects such as the course content, the instructional system and the relevance of the course must also be evaluated.

There can be absolutely no doubt that money spent on training is a good investment. This is only true, however, if the training is relevant and if it satisfies the needs of both the student and the employer. This is where professional course designers can play a very important role.




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