Notes from the Physics Wiz

As I sit back to write this last post in my four part series on ADDIE inspired instructional design I am somewhat struck by the topic at hand: implmentation. I am struck by because I was thinking that it’s a huge part of our lives regardless of out field or what we’re doing. We implement ideas to try and be better students, children, parents or stewardaof the environment Scientists implement the design and development of experiments into something that can produce hard data and observation. A cook mightimplement a new technique for making a custard. Or an instructional designer might implement a course or training.Ingram that they spent the last four to eight weeks making. The list is endless but the point is that everyone is implementing something at almost all points in life.

In the context of my third favorite thing, theoretical physics (my daughter and fiancée oitrank of) implemention amounts to applying theory to the worldaround you. Whether it be something successful like Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics or something unsuccessful like ether theory. The essential point is the attempt to match theory to observation and use that correlation to make novel predictions. You take and you put it there to see what it can do, hopefully it will match what you thought it was going to.

Instructional design is similar, yet worlds apart, from the implementation of physical theory. While true that in ID the implementation phase of the ADDIE model includes getting everything going that us so far been merely a conceptualization (paper instruction, I suppose you can call it) its also the time when the designer is usually beginning to get away from the project. As Hodell points out, most designers are not the implementors of the material they design (Hodell, 2011). Kind of sad I think to out a ton of work into a course or training and likely never see of implemented and possibly not have anything to do with the data analysis. That would be terrible.

The Wiz

Reference

Hodell, C. (2011). ISD From the Ground Up: A No-Nonsense Approach to Instructional Design. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press

The second post in the current series of four is about the design part of instructional design. As per my usual modus operandi we’ll be opening up with a foray into some science stuff. That’s good, because design is really an incredibly important of scientific endeavor. It’s particular importance becomes  clear when you consider that no matter how elegant and enticingly simple a theory is a well designed experiment can prove it wrong in an instant.

Thinking about experimental design runs the risk of sending me off on a tangent about the design/analysis relationship. You know since an experiment is designed with analysis to obtain more data to analyze. Interesting line of thought but a little outside the scope of what I want to discuss in the here and now. So, apart from mentioning it I’ll leave as a possible future topic.

The design of an experiment is critical to the success and viability of getting the data that we need to figure this Universe out. Take for instance the classic Milikan oil drop experiment. It’s simply brilliant in the simplicity of the approach. The basic idea is to get a precisely tuned electric field and drip statically charged drops of oil through it. By tuning the electric field just so you can get the drops to levitate and use a little Newtonian physics to obtain the charge/mass ratio of the electron.

The design of a good experiment is definitely a successful wielding of Occam’s razor. That is the simplest possible way to do things is usually the best method, i.e. cut the fat away from the process. Sometimes it’s not terribly clear that this is being done, especially in physics. Take for instance the large hadron collider at CERN, it certainly seems to be (and actually is) an incredibly complex machination. However, at it’s base purpose the design is very, very simple. You get two things going very fast – about 99.99% the speed of light – and smash them into each other to see what comes out.

Things are much the same when you consider design from an instructional perspective. In my last post I talked about the ADDIE model and how it can be used for successful course construction. The model is often (correctly) treated as a cyclical process wherein the ultimate goal is reached incrementally over time but there are different ways of viewing it. I have come to see the design component as the main driving force for the model.

Why? Well to be sure there is no part that should be taking a seat of higher importance than any other part but there needs to be something at the helm so to speak. I feel like the design starts before any other portion and continues right on through to the very end, the initial conceptualization that prompts the analysis phase is the beginning of design. The rest of the phases are really the spokes and fasteners of a wheel that has design as a hub.

The idea of Occam’s razor should (but often does not) play a defining role in course design. We do not necessarily want flashy, high production value stuff. What a good course needs is simple effectiveness and a form that follows from it’s function. This especially true as the complexity of the material grows. When learning something like quantum physics it would behoove the designer and instructor not to bog down the nearly overwhelmed students with complex designs to explain a very complicated and (somewhat) confusing topic. It’s enough that even someone educated and capable of using quantum is really incapable of understanding it, even Niels Bohr knew that and that guy was a genius.

Have a great time, I’ll be back with more soon.

The Wiz