AERA 2014 -- Poster session: Design is Design is Design: What we’ve learned from designers about preparing instructional designers

1. Abstract
Designing effective instruction is harder than ever. Besides staying proficient with various
technologies, effective instructional designers must be adept at making learning opportunities
engaging, memorable, sticky, and transformative. Therefore, instructional design needs to be framed as a
creative process that draws on the same aesthetic sensibilities as other design fields. Instructional designers
need to embrace the creative side of designing instruction, draw on the advice and wisdom of
professionals in other aesthetic design arenas, don the disposition of a creative, and identify themselves as
members of the creative class. During this presentation, we share the results of our inquiry into what
designers in a variety of design professions do and our recommendations for alternative approaches to
preparing instructional designers.
Design is Design is Design
What we’ve learned from designers about preparing instructional designers
Joanna C. Dunlap, University of Colorado – Denver
Patrick R. Lowenthal, Boise State University
What can we learn from designers...
that might influence our preparation
of students for the ID profession?
Interview Designers:
painters, filmmakers, photojournalists, musicians, sculptors, gr
aphic designers, chefs… Work
• Describe a recent design
project you completed.
• What do you enjoy the
most about your work?
• Describe an event that
stands out in your mind
as one where you really
got to do and
experience what you
love about your work.
Background
• What is your definition of
design?
• Describe when you first
identified yourself as a
designer.
• What was your
professional preparation
for the design work you
do now?
Support
• Describe your work
space.
• Describe your
professional community.
• Where do you find
inspiration?
• What educational events
stand out as being key to
your preparation? Why
were they important?
Themes: the work
1. Engaging the audience
• “I learned pretty quickly that in order to make a
living at this I‟d have to figure out how to create
things that were valued by someone besides me.
And my mom.”
• “To begin with it‟s about how I want to express an
idea. Then, I think more and more about what they
want...what will grab them, move them...want
more.”
• “I get off on watching people respond. I need the
feedback loop to complete.”
2. Aesthetic vs. purpose
• “I approach each design with both [form and
function] in mind, sometimes ping-ponging, other
times spiraling... Making sure I‟m addressing the
goals, but creating something people love and
want to visit over and over again. A successful
design does both... I think that‟s why I love what I
do.”
3. Collaboration
• “When I start a project I always know who I want
on board. And I go after those people... They
always make the process and the end result more
than I imagined.”
• “It quickly goes from my -- or me and my partner‟s
-- design to our [the team‟s] work, our creation.”
• “I do my best work when I work with others.”
4. Source of inspiration; curiosity
• “I see everything as design. I always look at
things and wonder, „Why was it designed that
way? How could I make it different or better?‟”
5. Planning & design; use technology
Themes: support
1. Work space
• Bright, colorful, inspiring
• Not confined to a space: in the
field, where the subject is, where
the action is Not limited by
materials (unless the limitation is
part of the design)
• Controlled chaos
• Use of computers and ideation
journals
2. Community
• Bouncing ideas off
others, conception through
installment
• Visiting with creative
colleagues, in and out of the
discipline
• Living / working in creative
community
3. Sources of learning, LLL
disposition
• “If you need to know how to weld, you
find someone to teach you to weld.”
• Formal education in some field;
continue to seek learning
opportunities
• Apprenticeships, continue to seek
out mentors, coaches, consultants
• Looking for informal opportunities;
volunteer time/skills in exchange
for learning, practice, and
feedback
Recommendations
1. Establish the relevance of being creative designers.
• Employment opportunities
• Learning/learners
• Interviews with creative designers
• Evaluations: reviews of materials, juried reviews of their materials
2. Model creative approaches to instructional design work.
• Redesigned courses
• Showcase my work, collaboration with creative designers, ideation journals
• Use content/readings and guest lecturers from other creative domains
• Share my lifelong learning actions
3. Involve students in design work that requires alternative approaches,
formats, and tools.
• Comic book, radio show, movie poster, photo journal, music video, gallery, pecha
kucha, CD insert, games, no-computer designs, etc.
• Cross-creative projects: teams, clients
• Service learning, community-based
• “Non instructional” projects
4. Help students embrace the practices of creative designers.
• Lifelong learning, collaboration, networking
• Broadening inspiration
• Ideation journals
• Articulating what they do
5. Encourage students to share their work beyond courses/program.
• Web presence, SEO
• Pecha kucha nights, Ignite
• Social media and networks
6. Connect students with creative colleagues, clients, consultants
• Cross-creative projects
• Readings, guest lecturers from other design domains
• Assessment via juried review
• Projects in other design domains
• Social media and networks
“Design is a mix of
craft, science, storytelling, propagan
da, and philosophy” ~ Erik Adigard (designer, media artist)
“It’s all one to me: opera, painting,
drawing, faxes”
~ David Hockney (painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer & photographer)