Are teachers well versed enough in Instructional Design?

    As we read: "Education has missed the boat, with respect to instructional design. Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly, with little thought to why they are presenting information or even who their audience is. Teacher training, at the university level and during Professional development, needs to focus on helping teachers become comfortable with instructional design principles." I see that the view that teachers have not been trained enough in Instructional Design is a misconception. The teacher might not be following one of the many Instructional Design Models, but the essence of teaching when done correctly is evidence that teachers do focus on Instructional Design.

   As I look at teachers I work with and have worked with, I see an emphasis on instruction being at the forefront of their lesson planning. From the outside looking in, the emphasis might look like it is state standardized test, but if you talk to the teachers and truly find out what their emphasis is you will find that it is all about students learning and instruction.

   Teaching at its essence is about instruction and learning. Teachers that are trying to do their best look at a lesson as a chance to present their material in a way that will grab the students' attention, then will lead into the student learning or achieving the learner goal. This is not much different than most Instructional Design Models.

   Teachers come up with their objectives, which is the first step in almost all Instructional Design Models. Once they have their objectives the work on creating a lesson that will cater to the students needs to achieve the goal, this would be similar to Instructional Analysis. The nature of teaching also leads itself to the constant reflection and adjustment of the plan through formative assessment; this is very much a part of Morrison, Ross and Kemp's model of instructional design which is a popular Instructional Design Model. The last part of any lesson is an assessment or evaluation of what the students have learned, which is the same of any good Instructional Design Model.

   As we look at whether teachers have been trained in Instructional Design I would have to say that the nature of their process is the same. I would only say that teachers do have other factors that come into play when doing their planning. When a teacher has a great lesson plan or unit plan it will always run into the classroom atmosphere as a road block. School activities and distractions cause the teachers to adjust and to think on their feet to change the perfectly designed lesson to work in the changing atmosphere. This is where we get the outlook of planning on the fly; it is really just teachers adjusting to the classroom atmosphere.

So taking a closer look at teaching shows me that Instructional Design is a large part of the profession. The training that teachers go through at the university level helps to prepare them in this practice so that they can achieve success in their own classrooms. I would even say from my personal experience that I was prepared well in Instructional Design. I learned to reflect on my delivery and modes of delivery and was most definitely taught to assess my students to see if what methods I used worked.