Point/Counterpoint with an academic and a practitioner: On Cammy Bean, certification, and instructional design
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dr.curry @ March 26, 2008
Wow! I never thought about this distinction of learning/training. I agree with you John…even Gagne Schmagne. Ha ha! I also agree with Cammy. Is a transfer of knowledge (training on how to get from here to there in a series of procedural steps) really learning? Yes and no. No one can make you care. I think knowledge is power, but doesn’t necessarily measure what you have learned. Am I rambling?? This was a fantastic read and has made me think.
In regards to certifications for “instructional design” type skills, they’re all over the place, right? For industry, ASTD’s CPLP (http://tinyurl.com/344j2v), ISPI’s CPT (http://www.certifiedpt.org/), Training Magazine (http://tinyurl.com/2qgovs), Texas A&M (http://tinyurl.com/39rl4v), Univ Houston Clear Lake (http://tinyurl.com/38fvoe). For education, Washington State (http://www.idesign.wsu.edu/) & Indiana Univ (http://tinyurl.com/3dxggf) as specific examples, but you could basically pick an graduate, College of Education program with instructional technology, and they’ll likely offer a certificate of some sort. And, there’s even a certificate offered specifically for those that train faculty, by NCSPOD (http://tinyurl.com/2ovmuz). What certificate do you suggest is needed? An AECT sponsored certificate?
As far as the role of an instructional designer vs. instructional developer, I think that distinction has been slipping away for some time now - except perhaps in programs focused on the academic study of instructional design theory. No institution can really afford to have an instructional designer that does ONLY design; they may be able to employ instructional developers, but a designer has to have SOME development skills - even if that amounts to the ability to load content into an LMS (which isn’t always easy… WebCT cough cough). Besides, once you get to the practitioner level, it becomes meatball instructional design anyway. You do what you have to do to help people learn and improve as efficiently as possible; you develop as quickly as possible - likely designing as you go. You don’t have the time to work through all the theoretical paperwork about what you’re going to design. Sure, you’d end up with a better product if you spent more time designing before developing, but that’s the ideal situation; that’s the exception rather than the rule.
I believe I commented this before in this same blog space when this thread began. I do believe knowledge of instructional design and learning theories is valuable to anyone working in any capacity to improve human performance - on the job or in the classroom. However, I don’t think it’s an absolute critical skill to be an effective training developer in the private sector; on the job training, experiences or mentoring with an experienced training professional (that’s likely learned much of those ideas on the job through trial and error) will produce an effective training professional. For educators working in K-16? I think it’s more important to know the learning theories - to understand the developmental cognitive stages people go through.
-Chris
Tongue firmly in cheek here, but I found this anonymous quote and it reminded me of this discussion…
“Professionals built the Titantic. An amateur built the Ark.”
Christy–
THAT’S HILARIOUS!
jhc
I like Gagne’s 9 there.
And here I was thinking I was all alone. What a wonderful conversation. I work for a company that partners with universities to “do” instructional design for online degree programs. The lines are blurred in many ways here between academe and corporate, as well as between the roles of “designer” and “developer”. I stay mostly in the technology part, but have also done design. I do not have a degree in ID, but just happened to stumble across a great position with the best possible timing I have ever seen. Most people in our department come from varied backgrounds: corporate/military ID, public education, programming, and psychology; all of which provide for a very wholistic mix of opinions. This conversation helped me a lot and I am very thankful for stumbling across this blog…I am looking for more conversations in this area as well as some mentoring.
As a current grad student in IPT (Boise State) and a beginning instructional designer in the Corporate world and experienced developer of elearning, I can’t help but be fascinated by this discussion. I’ve been following along across the blog lines. I had these internal conversations/debates with myself many times, before and after enrolling. Academics vs Real World. Designer vs Developer. Where do I fit in? Where will I go? What will I believe? What do I want? Thanks for helping add to my confusion!
This was fascinating to see the discussion all in one place. As an instructional designer myself, it raised a number of issues, one (of many) is who will the certifying body be, especially given that there is not even a single central organization for ID’s.
I suppose that is what the online community that is reading this is to decide.
To Jeffrey’s question…I think trying to have a central ID approval board would be like requiring people to get certification in order to cook a meal in their own homes.
instructional design certification…
I can’t believe I missed this! I’m going to have to do some more reading me thinks….