Instruction is a plan through which teaching of activities in the learning process is organized. The instructional plan is a key tool in the motivation of students to learn. The plan hence ought to be properly designed and delivered to the interested parties to satisfy the intended need. According to Reigeluth (2013), instructional design entails the analysis of what is to be taught as well the determination of the teaching process. The design further includes conducting tryouts and revisions on the leaners in a bid to assess their needs in the learning process. Therefore, a good instructional design ought to be systematic to deliver the intended aim of assisting students to attain knowledge and move it into long-term memory from short-term memory. To achieve the objective, the instructional model ought to expose learners to learning the need to rehearse, encode, process and give feedback on new knowledge in a bid to remember what they need.
Topic Activity
The paper shall focus on instructional design in distance education. Distance education is a formal instruction whereby a majority of teaching function takes place while the instructor and the learner are at a distance from one another (Simonson et al., 2014). The circumstances surrounding distance learning have unique implications for its instructional design. In assessing the topic of distance education, the effectiveness of the modes of delivery shall be addressed. The information regarding the topic shall be sourced from media sources and reported in a needs assessment template that shall then be discussed on to yield conclusions and recommendations. All interested groups including tutors, students, media, and education management personnel ought to be included in the planning and conducting the needs assessment. Firstly, distance learning substantially reduces the frequency of regular in-class-meeting between an instructor and a learner. The mode of education hence presents setbacks in the transmission of knowledge. Secondly, distance learning instructional designers should employ a collection of strategies to effectively disseminate distance learning activities. The programs, further provide flexibility of place and time as well as a broader audience compared to classroom learning. Thirdly, creativity is required since the usual forms of feedback as well as assessment may be impractical. The distance instructional design presents in two modes including extension or independent study modes. The extension strategy involves an instructor visualizing the class and extending the classroom to other places and times. On the other hand, the independent strategy isolates the individual and offers flexibility by reducing and eliminating time and place restrictions. Extension courses, as well as independent study systems, are low cost and so are their delivery costs. However, the delivery costs vary with the choice of media. The costs further directly increase as a function of group size and offerings. With independent study, economies of scale are possible. It is of the dire need to integrate the instruction design into existing organizations. The integration is essential since internal instructional design structure provides the needed resources. It also allows existing service units to be more serviceable and even agitate the concept of value-added aspect. The instructional design ought to offer control of both quality and proprietary information to ensure its consistency.
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Needs Assessment
Needs assessment is a systematic process that determines and addresses ‘gaps’ between prevailing and desired conditions or rather ‘wants.' Arends (2014), further denotes that the discrepancy between the two conditions ought to be measured appropriately in a bid to identify the need. In education, needs assessment is described as the gap that exists between the known and unknown knowledge. The assessment is seen as a measure of skills possessed by individuals as well as what they need and the ideal way of delivering the right training to them. The assessment is considered a crucial to the development of effective educational and training programs for learners. Evidence shows that programs based on need needs assessments results in changes in learner behavior. In the past, learners were involved in self-assessing, identifying, and participating in programs to remain competitive but researchers found out that the self-assessment process was tainted with inconsistencies in their needs. Hence, a needs assessment was ideal for evaluating the performance of learners. In light of the existing gap, an educational needs assessment is used to direct as well as shape educational initiatives. It is also a component of the framework encouraging effective continuing education. Conducting adequate educational needs assessment on the target audience in beneficial in some ways. For instance, it engages and meets the expectations of the given audience. It further reinforces knowledge and promotes best practices as well as evidence-based behaviors. A needs assessment can either be conducted quantitatively or qualitatively. Quantitative assessment tends to answer ‘what’ and ‘how much’ a given audience is doing an action. The assessment is occasionally supported by statistics including surveys and questionnaires data. The assessment is pre-specified and outcome-oriented. On the other hand, qualitative assessment answers ‘what’ and ‘why’ the engaged audience does the given action. It involves interviews, expert observations, and interpretation of written responses. The assessment is open-ended and process-oriented.
The Instructional Design
The topic of distance learning purposes to identify training needs in the utilization of distance education as a method of instruction. The topic shall be disseminated over a short period through the institutional distance learning portal. At the end of the topic, the students or rather the learners ought to understand different modes or strategies for effecting distance learning. The learning period shall be divided into six lessons where the first lesson includes the introduction to the topic. The second and the third lessons entail the strategies used to disseminate distance education. The fourth lesson involves discussion of factors affecting or favoring distance learning. The fifth lesson shall be a response to distance learning from the learners. Lastly, an evaluation of the understanding of the topic by the learners shall be conducted through an assessment test. The objective of the topic is to understand and assess the effectiveness of distance education. Before offering the lessons on the topic, the instructor ought to understand the requirements or rather the expectations of different students. The instructor ought to evaluate the learners’ capacity in understanding the topic based on continuous assessment tests previously completed by the learners. The CATs give a rough picture of the capabilities of the students to understand taught topics. The needs assessment is pivotal to gauge the intensity of instruction. In light of this, poorly performing learners are subject to intense, in-depth, and prolonged instruction whereas bright learners need a shorter period to acquaint themselves with the knowledge concerning distance education. The introductory lesson involves the definition of terms used in distance learning process. In the lesson, the learner should understand the meaning of distance education as well as its benefits and setbacks. From the information disseminated from the lesson, the learner should be in a position to make decisions on the importance of distance learning. Included in the introduction is the evolution of learning processes in the education system. Distance learning strategies including extension and independent strategies are taught in the second and third lessons. The learners are encouraged to differentiate these strategies. The fourth lesson looks into factors affecting distance education. The factors include learning media, the group size, and instruction mode or rather strategy, and the instructor. Different instructors portray different strategies in their teaching. The fifth lesson, on the other hand, involves the response of the learners. Response cards are randomly administered to the learners to gauge their understanding. Finally, assessment tests are issued to evaluate the understanding capacity of individual students at the end of the topic. Needs assessment need be conducted on a merit-based technique to evaluate learners on their capacity of understanding the topic at hand. In this sense, distance education should be centrally administered to ensure learners receive the intended course materials. The materials should be limited to learners and the faculty through a distance learning portal to ensure effectiveness. The institution offering the programs should invest in contemporary technologies to provide learners, as well as instructors, receive specific services and educational support. Funding should be sourced to provide support for in-time material distribution to distance learners. The portal should as well have upper-level support for individual learners in a bid to ensure a good learner-instructor relationship. In conclusion, needs assessment is essential in instructional design and delivery of learning activities. Distance education as a topic requires needs assessment before its dissemination to the learners. The activity is divided into lessons including introduction, instructional strategies, factors affecting the form of learning, and its evaluation. The needs assessment is a decision-making tool that is adequately utilized by institutions before rolling out a learning process. Through the distance learning portal, distant learners can receive instructional materials. The portal offers a good instructional design that is systematic and delivers the intended aim of assisting students to attain knowledge and move it into long-term memory from short-term memory. The design of the instructional model involves instructors, learners, media, and education managers in a bid to provide an ideal instructional design and delivery method.
References
Arends, R. (2014). Learning to teach McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Reigeluth, C. M. (Ed.). (2013). ‘Instructional design theories and models: An overview of their current status:’ Routledge. Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., & Zvacek, S. M. (Eds.). (2014). ‘Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education.’ IAP.
