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

By Dennis Fox


All successful businesses know that they need to invest in their employees in order to stay abreast of their competition. To this end most big companies spend substantial amounts of money on training programs. Highly skilled employees are more productive and they are much more likely to make a positive contribution to the overall goals of the company. But training cannot be done for the sake of training alone. With an experienced developer instructional design curriculum is possible, however.

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.

To decide which knowledge and skills it is that needs to be transferred to the students is perhaps the most important decision the course designer has to make. After all, the training must contribute towards the achievement of the company goals. Designers use a variety of techniques to determine the content of the courses that they develop for their client and they record a detailed training needs analysis.

Once the designer knows what it is that the course must cover, he needs to formulate objectives to define the exact course content. Training objectives help students to understand what it is that they need to learn and it helps to make sure that the course is properly structured. Training objectives need to contain an action verb that is observable and it needs a benchmark for testing purposes.

Evaluation forms an important part of any course. Students, instructors or other delivery systems and the course itself need to be subjected to evaluation. It is the only way in which to make sure that they course have been successful and whether changes need to be made. When training, certain outcomes are expected and the only way in which to determine whether those outcomes have been achieved is through evaluation.

Course designers can play a very important role in helping their clients to spend their training money wisely. They can design courses that will make sure that the actual needs of the company are satisfied. A scientific approach to course development within a systems approach is the only way in which to truly ensure training excellence.




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