Running head: UTILIZING PRINCIPLES 1

Utilizing Principles of Instructional Design for Company Innovations

Week 5 Assignment

Eric Fonseca

Principles of Instructional Design EDU 120

Instructor Inez Whipple

October 10th, 2015

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Utilizing Principles of Instructional Design for Company Innovations

Concept Computers Inc. is implementing a new application to track and send completed

repair requests. These requests are then submitted to the shipping department to send the repaired

item back to the consumer. The current process is on a DOS-based computer program that is out

of date and hard to navigate. The new application will speed up processing and simplify the

ongoing process that is hard to learn and impedes production rate. Using proper principles of

instructional design creates an effortless transition from an old system to a new one. In this

paper, I will provide an assessment of our organization and the criteria for our instructional

designer. I will then discuss what principles should be used for the instructional design of the

application. Lastly, I will show the benefits of having a properly designed instruction for the

company and the employees.

ORGANIZATION ASSESSMENT

Concept Computers Inc. provides computer analysis and upgrades for several corporate

clients. The current system they use to track their production is a DOS system that is not time

efficient and complicated to learn. The system tracks the completed work of the engineers and if

necessary will forward that information to the shipping department so they may send the

hardware back to the client. The users of this application are fifty computer hardware engineers.

These engineers handle testing and repairing defects of the hardware that has been developed as

well as updating existing computer equipment for their corporate clients. The scope of this

project and the implementation of this new software will require a qualified instructional

designer.
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Concept Computer Inc. requires an instructional designer that is a self-motivated

individual that has a contextualism background. Smith and Ragan state that Contextualists

recommend presenting problems in situations that are realistic to learners and common to

everyday applications of knowledge (2005, Pg. 20). The hardware engineers employed with

Concept Computers Inc. handle many hands-on duties and the need for a designer that will focus

materials on the realistic application of the duties will assist with the transition to the new

system. The company also desires someone who will instill problem-solving strategies in the

learners. These strategies place emphasis on the learner to utilize skills they have acquired in

prior experience and have a mindset that the effort demonstrated links to the attainment of the

new information. The instructional designer should: provide hands-on instruction with the new

application, engage learners with the shipping department to provide downstream consequences

of faulty input, and construct an evaluation that properly demonstrates the engineers attainment

of information. The designer must have: a bachelors degree in instructional design, two or more

years of training delivery, proficiency in Windows based applications, and experience working in

the field of computer hardware engineering. The salary for this position will be somewhere in the

range of seventy to eighty thousand dollars annually based on prior experience.

NEEDS ASSESSMENT MODEL

A needs assessment determines if the instruction is necessary for the material that is being

presented to the target audience. Though some may state that a needs assessment takes additional

time and resources that can delay the application training, it is imperative that one be completed.

A needs assessment will be beneficial by ensuring that productivity losses with the transition to

the new software are at a minimum. The impact of not assessing the need of the organization can
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result in having to retrain employees and having unnecessary errors created in the system that

will need to be addressed.

Several models are utilized when performing a needs assessment. One such model is the

problem model that assists in addressing an issue within an organization that is hindering its

mission. The second being the discrepancy model that addresses items that are currently being

utilized but have now changed creating a gap in the current instruction. Finally, the innovation

model focuses on a change or innovation within an organization.

The innovation model is the one that fits best with the execution of our new software.

There are four parts to the innovation model that we will address. The first step is determining

the nature of the change. The new software will affect all of the fifty computer hardware

engineers who have become accustomed to the older software that is currently being used. The

existing job procedure of the staff will not be affected by the new system, though it is now

Windows based requires the same information that staff utilize at present. The new system is

easy to navigate by staff which will lower the amount of time it takes to process requests.

Determining the learning goals of this innovation is the next action that must be taken.

Defining learning goals is important to ensure that the proper instruction is being put into place.

Clearly identified learning goals will provide the learners with an expectation of the outcome of

learning. The learning goal also assists the student to identify concepts that will be presented and

lessen the impact of production issues.

The third topic to be addressed is which learning goals take priority over others. The new

application is very different from the system that the engineers are using today. The system being

a new experience for the student creates a situation in which learners may not be able to rely on
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past experience with the previous application to utilize the innovation. It is imperative that

specific goals are prioritized to aid in the transfer of learning and establish a basis for the design

materials.

Lastly, once the steps mentioned above have been addressed, then the implementation

and the design would be warranted. These steps must be completed correctly, or it will create

confusion for the instructors, learners, and designers. As stated before, the needs assessment does

take additional time to gather the information and attend to the identification of learning goals,

but it is necessary to guarantee a smooth transition to the new software.

COMPUTER HARDWARE ENGINEER ANALYSIS

Creating successful instruction is essential to the transfer of information to the learner.

Smith and Ragan identify The term instructional design refers to the systematic and reflective

process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials,

activities, information resources, and evaluation (2005, p.4). In designing instruction, we must

first recognize who the learners are.

Conducting a learner analysis is important in identifying the needs of the employee as

well as recognizing who the target audience is and how to design better for that audience. The

social and physiological characteristics of computer hardware engineers will help focus materials

to this group. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 15.3 percent of computer

hardware engineers are women as of 2014. When looking at ethnicity 7.4 percent are African-

American, 22.8 percent are Asian, and 9.5 percent are Hispanic (2015). Identifying these

characteristics especially assists if the instruction is going to be done by computer based modules

by recognizing cultural differences that may be significant in the transferring information.

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Prior experience and education of the learner helps discover useful information as well.

Computer hardware engineers usually require at minimum a bachelors degree in their field as

indicated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014). This educational background can determine

the anxiety level of the learner as well as their motivation to learn a new system and skills. This

audience performs a lot of hands-on activities; therefore, instruction should be designed to that

experience. Cognitive skills of the learner are also an important aspect of the learner analysis.

The computer hardware engineers must utilize not only educational background but also other

learning strategies as well. Those learning strategies will be instrumental in the processing of the

new information being presented. Identifying how the learner best processes new data will make

designing instruction to the engineers less complicated.

LEARNING STYLE IMPLEMENTATION

There are many learning style assessments available to learners to suggest a better way

for them to receive input in learning environments. These tools while helpful for the student to

come to a better understanding of the learning strategies can be confusing to the designer.

Moallem suggests Some instructional designers and educators argue that content and expected

outcomes of learning must decide what strategies should be used to deliver instruction, rather

than matching instruction to individual learning styles (2007, p.238). Designing curriculum

based on learning styles can be time-consuming and attempting to detect the learning styles of

each user seems unnecessary. An instructional designer should be implementing all of their

knowledge to ensure that all learning styles are addressed. For this reason, learning styles though

helpful are not applied to this innovation instruction.

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LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

The learning environment is an important piece of the instructional design. The learning

environment includes things such as materials being trained, a determination of available

instructors, the equipment available, and the facility or way the material is to be covered. Asiyai

indicates Students impression about their classroom can have positive or negative impact on

their learning. They are able to perceive the nature of their classroom environment and their

perception affects their attitude towards learning (Asiyai 2014, p.716). This quote shows how

important it is to identify your learning environment prior to the initiation of instruction. Concept

Computers Inc. has five training rooms available and ten computers in each room. The resources

will accommodate the number of staff needing to be trained, but to decreases production losses

the sessions will include ten employees in each session. A primary instructor will focus on

supplantive information while a second will assist with the generative process.

CONTEXTUAL LEARNING INFORMATION

When beginning the process of creating training materials, it is best to start by

recognizing the goal of the innovation. The goal is the result that you wish to have the learners

demonstrate at the end of the session. Goals should be able to be measured but not so specific as

to confuse them with the learning objectives. If a goal is not clearly identified it can cause the

materials to be unclear and the objectives to stray away from what are necessary for the learner

to acquire.

After describing the learning goal, the designer can begin to create objectives or they may

decide to work on the assessment. Working on the assessment prior to the learning goals can be

helpful because it creates a basis for the objectives to be designed to. Assessment questions act as
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a guide to creating the learning objectives. If the objectives are established prior to the

assessment, you may find the assessment questions are unrelated to the objectives and changing

them to fit the needs of the evaluation may be required. In this instance, it is helpful to create the

assessment before the objectives are designed.

PROBLEM SOLVING ASSESSMENT

The assessment will be created based on the learning strategy. In the case of the Concept

Computers Inc.s innovation, a problem-solving approach will be employed. Smith and Ragan

describe Problem solving is the ability to combine previously learned principles, procedures,

declarative knowledge, and cognitive strategies in a unique way within a domain of content to

solve previously unencountered problems (2005, p.218). The new application the employees

will be using is a window based program and as such all the computer engineers have utilized

one before. The engineers must call upon previous knowledge to problem solve how the new

system functions.

When creating an assessment for a problem-solving strategy, a best practice is to create

questions and activities that focus on tasks being performed in live environments. When

generating assessment material for the implementation of a new application, it is best to

concentrate on skills that will let the user practice with scenarios that they may encounter once in

the production environment. This type of assessment can take a considerable amount of time;

therefore, it is important to make certain plenty of time is available for this sort of assessment. If

not a lot of time is available, you may need to design partial problems (Smith & Ragan, 2005).

Making use of these partial problems can assist with time restraints, but it is recommended to

employ entire problems if time allows.

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Once the assessment has been designed, use it as a focal point for the learning objectives

construction. Learning objectives are different from learning goals in that they are more specific

to the activities that attendees will encounter during training than the result of the training.

Veronin & Patry state A useful objective communicates to the student an intended instructional

outcome (2002, p.209). The problem-solving strategy should be taken into account when crafting

objectives to assure that the objectives are concurrent with the assessment information.

Supplantive instruction is teaching led primarily by the trainer with materials being

presented. Supplantive teaching will need to be implemented first for employees to gain core

concepts of the system. After the supplantive instruction, a more generative approach is required

to generate learning strategies. Generative learners participate in activities that involve utilizing

learning strategies to transfer knowledge themselves to better comprehend the material. The

facilitator monitors generative learning, but the learners do much of the work. These strategies

assist with the transfer of information from the training items to the student. Objectives should be

formed based on these criteria as well.

MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES

Promoting interest in problem-solving can be done by using several techniques. Problem-

solving can be motivation for many learners, but Kellers ARCS model provides some additional

ways that motivation can be designed (Keller, 2008). Motivation is attained by gaining the

attention of the learner through stimulating curiosity in the subject matter being presented.

Assisting the student in building confidence in the success of the learning outcomes will also
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help motivate the learner. Lastly, removing distractions and obstacles from the learning

environment can alleviate stressors and increase attention.

THE BENEFITS OF DESIGN

The benefits of the instructional design are vast not only for the designer but to the

organization and the learner as well. The company can reduce production losses from the

retraining of employees and cut revenue losses from those production errors. The instructional

designer will be able to utilize better their time and effort to generate materials that are functional

and concise. The learner will be able to grasp better concepts to employ in their job function and

gain intrinsic value in their job duties. These benefits are just a few obtained from suitable design

material focused on an outcome of the innovation being put into operation. The design process is

sometimes time-consuming, but the outcome without such a process can impact the company

negatively and create a distrust amount our corporate clients. Making sure that customers trust in

deliverables is a primary mission that must be maintained.

CONCLUSION

Without a doubt, using proper principles of instructional design creates an effortless

transition from an old system to a new one. I have shown that using the principles of

instructional design creates an effortless transition for the implementation of this new

application. I provided an assessment of our organization and the criteria for our instructional

designer. I discussed what the principles are in the instructional design of the application, and I

presented the benefits of having a properly designed instruction for the company and the

employees. The impact of not conducting design in this fashion can devastate the company

mission and harm the relationship with clients.

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REFERENCES

Asiyai, R. (2014). Students' Perception of the Condition of their Classroom Physical Learning

Environment and its Impact on their Learning and Motivation. College Student Journal,

48(4), 716-726.

Keller, J.M. (2008). First principles of motivational and e-learning. Distance Education, 29(2),

175-185.

Moallem, M. (2007). Accommodating Individual Differences in the Design of Online Learning

Environments: A Comparative Study. Journal of Research on Technology in Education

(International Society For Technology in Education), 40(2), 217-245.

Smith, P. L., & Ragan, T. J. (2005). Instructional design (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons.

U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2015, February 12). Labor Force

Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Retrieved from

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm

U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2014, January 8). Computer Hardware

Engineers. In Occupational outlook handbook (2014-2015 ed.). Retrieved from

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/computer-hardware-engineers.htm

Veronin, M. A., & Patry, R. (2002). Instructional Objectives: What They Are, What They

Aren't. Pharmacy Education, 1(4), 207-213.