Instructional Design

Instructional Design

Instructional design is the fundamental component by which educators deliver instructions to a learner and apply it to a given situation. Although educators rarely use the term instructional design, they implement the process by providing students with prepared instructions.

In exploring the design approaches of behavioral and constructivism, I wanted to understand how each technique would benefit my future students.

The behavior approach is interrelated to observable changes in a learner’s behavior in response to a specific instruction. B. F. Skinner’s perspective is that teaching ought to be broken down into steps followed by reinforcement; the learner’s observable response to the instruction is his/her measured understanding.

The constructivism approach supports the idea of a unique learning experience by which learners are able to solve problems through activities. In this method it is suggested that long-lasting learning comes as a result of activates in a social framework. The assignments are constructed to reflect real-life conditions and evaluated on activities, projects and experiences.

Acknowledging that both behavioral and constructivism have the common feature of analyzing assignments, I found each approach to be unique. The behavioral approach is supported by the practice of analyzing changes in observable behavior, where learning can be easily measured. In the constructivism approach this is not the case; learners are evaluated on group activities rather than individual learning, making assessment difficult to evaluate. Further comparison of the two approaches reveals one other dissimilarity in defining meaning. The behavioral approach frames its instructional goals, where the constructivism approach allows the student to define the meaning for them.

In a classroom environment each of the approach has a purpose and can be used effectively. A proficient educator will recognize the best effective instructional design, and apply it to the given situation. Flexibility is the architect of learning.