Why Do We Need Instructional Designers?

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SUMMARY

• Instructional design is the process of creating instructional experiences that help learners achieve their learning goals. The field of eLearning has seen a significant increase in demand for instructional designers, learning designers, and instructional technologists in recent years. The process involves understanding the needs of learners and delivering effective training that meets their requirements. The demand for instructional designers is on the rise, even before the pandemic.
• Instructional design plays a crucial role in helping learners retain knowledge and achieve their learning goals. The way visual graphics are presented in an online course can greatly impact learners' ability to retain information. Research suggests that the human brain tends to recall information better through images, charts, and infographics rather than text. Therefore, incorporating infographics, images, and videos into eLearning can aid in knowledge retention.
• Good instructional design not only helps learners retain knowledge but also keeps them engaged in the learning process. One of the key responsibilities of an instructional designer is to conduct a thorough analysis of their learners before creating online courses. This allows them to create learning activities that are relevant, engaging, and appealing to the learners. Additionally, a designer's understanding of their target audience is crucial in determining what motivates them to learn and retain knowledge.
• When designing custom eLearning experiences, the user experience (UX) is crucial to consider. UX defines the accessibility of an eLearning course, which directly impacts learners' engagement levels. A well-designed UX is essential for eLearning as learners may lose sight of the course's main goals if it is not engaging. Poor UX design can also lead to disengagement from the course, resulting in poor retention and an inability to achieve learning goals.
• To sum up, instructional design plays a crucial role in the success of eLearning. It helps learners retain and acquire knowledge, reach learning goals, and stay engaged in the learning process. It is a fulfilling and in-demand career, especially in the digital age. With an increasing need for qualified instructional designers, it is a great career choice to consider.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

FULL TRANSCRIPT

First, I want you to take some time and think about what it is that you're struggling with. Why are you here? What do you want to learn about instructional design? Are you new to instructional design or creating online courses? Or are you just interested in learning about more career options? Do you feel all alone? Like you just don't have any help? Where do you feel slow right now? 

Like you just can't get over the hump. Everyone has their own reasons, take some time to think about this. But regardless of what's holding us back, maybe misunderstandings or doubt, whatever it is, every one of us can do a few things to strap a rocket to our instructional design career and succeed faster. 

In fact, if you don't do what I'm about to tell you in this workshop, I can almost guarantee your progress will be slower. than it should be. The fields of elearning and instructional design have exploded over the last few decades since 2004. Demand has been on the rise up by more than 20% nationwide, even before the catastrophic event of COVID-19 there was still a rapidly growing demand. While unemployment has been on the rise, postings of new advertisements for instructional designers, learning designers and instructional technologists has been skyrocketing. In addition, for those universities that choose not to build, but to buy this capability, there is an option to turn to companies that offer course development and instructional design support. 

Instructional design is one of the most vital aspects of elearning and without it elearning would just be text on a screen instructional design is the systematic practice of designing and developing instructional experiences similar to those of instructors. Instructional design is meant to aid in delivering a better learning experience for learners. It is a rewarding and satisfying career not to mention the ever growing need for qualified instructional designers in this digital age.

Instructional Designers are integral and necessary to the success in the eLearning space.

The process usually involves knowing the learners what they need, and assisting them by delivering engaging and effective training that meets the requirements. 

So next, I'll discuss with you why instructional design matters in elearning.

• Good instructional design helps learners retain knowledge, no doubt, but good instructional design helps guide the learners towards achieving the learning goals of a course. Apart from that, it also helps them to acquire and retain the knowledge. The way visual graphics are presented in an online course can have a great impact on learners retaining capability. It can also help learners connect information to prior mental strategies with learning. Research has it that the human brain tends to recall information more often through images, charts and infographics than through text. Therefore, integrating infographics, images and videos into your elearning can help retain knowledge. 
• Good instructional design makes learners engaged. One of the roles of an instructional designer is to make a thorough analysis of their learners before creating online courses. This enables them to create learning activities that are relevant, engaging and appealing to the learner. Also, a designer's understanding of their target audience is essential in order to know what motivates them to learn and retain abilities. This will help them to know exactly the kind of learning design that suits the learners needs. Hence using their skills to create an engaging learning experience, a good user experience that contributes to the achievement of learning goals. 

One of the most important aspects of instructional design to consider during custom elearning experience is the user experience or UX. It defines how accessible an elearning course is, in this has a direct impact on the learners level of engagement. A better UX design is vital in elearning as learners tend to lose the main goal of the course if it's not engaging. Also, with a bad UX design, learners tend to be distracted from achieving the aim of the course. For instance, not properly choosing a compelling color for your design will end up distracting and confusing your learner's good instructional designs that trigger learners to take action. 

One of the reasons why good design matters in elearning is because it helps inspire learners to act and achieve more than expected. So the role of the designer is to come up with inspiring designs that help motivate the learners to acquire more knowledge. Inspiring designs can be difficult, however you can achieve them if you have a better understanding of your target audience or learners. 

Now I'll talk about a brief history of instructional design. The emergence of instructional design, as an academic subject and profession, came about through a combination of other disciplines including behavioral sciences, military training practices in education. The basis of instructional design theories as we know them today is rooted in World War Two. Soldiers needed extensive training on many complex tasks. Using research from BF Skinner studies in behavioral science. Military instructors learned to break tasks into individual learning goals. And doing this they saw much better results. From there many of the successful military training practices from the war were transferred to business and education. Throughout the rest of the 20th century, theories, models and processes around learning sprang up and were fine tuned. A lot of these theories still inform the way we learn in school and are trained at work today.

Remember, instructional design is very essential and learning and without it, there would be no engagement, only text.

Also, nothing beats having your learners stay engaged throughout the course and achieving the learning goals. 

One secret to engaging your learners is by analyzing them to know what they need, and by putting a nice design in place to meet the requirements. Getting the proper instructional design training, like in the elearning and instructional design for beginners community will help you save time and money to create engaging training for your learners. This theory is not backed up by science in which online courses succeed and which ones fail. I have seen it over and over in my elearning and instructional design for beginners community. When you learn the skills to become a successful instructional designer success happens. 

So why are you having trouble getting started in the field of instructional design? Because you're focusing on all the wrong things. Your design skills must be the focus and you must have a clear understanding of the goals you wish to pursue when getting started in the field of instructional design. So you can choose Are you going to go into this field not having a clear understanding as to why it's such an important role. Are you going to gather all the tools you need to determine the most appropriate career path for you. 

Now I know that all this can seem a little overwhelming especially if you're doing it on your own. If you prefer to fast track this process, have support and guidance and clear direction. Then you can learn how to implement these suggestions and more in the elearning and instructional design for beginners community. The community is an ideal solution for those who want industry knowledge and real world application know-how, but aren't looking to spend a lot of time or money in earning another degree. You just want to get noticed and hired. 

So at the end of this training, I will tell you more about how you can join the community. Now if you have any questions at all about the importance of instructional design, be sure to post it in the comment section and my team will be sure to respond to your answer.