I’ve been doing an online course through Lynda.com all about Instructional Design. In fact ,it’s a collection of courses – I think Lynda calls them a Learning Path. I’m doing them because some of the work that I’m doing at UTS is very much of the learning design mould, and I thought the course might be useful to put on my LinkedIn CV, as well as positioning me more favourably should I be interested in a role like that
The first thing that struck me, as I was doing the course, was that it was entirely soulless. That’s a pretty harsh way of putting it, and I acknowledge that not all learning design is meant to be that way, so perhaps it’s just a feature of this path. The focus of this course is very much on adult education, and rather than education, it’s more correctly defined as training. The examples focus on things like educating managers to interview prospective staff more effectively, or training staff to use new equipment efficiently.
In an adult, corporate environment, I guess this makes a lot of sense. Corporations, for the most part (and I am ignoring obvious exceptions like Google) are about efficiency and effectiveness. They are also about uniformity and even conformity. Customers require – even desire – a regulated experience regardless of where they are shopping. When there are thousands of employees in hundreds of locations, they all need to know how to do something quickly and effectively. There is a formula that needs to be followed. It’s not a world away from the Australian Army’s ‘Like this, do that’ approach.
The thing that struck me, though, is that it’s a world away from the work that we do in school. At least, it’s a world away from the work that I – and most other teachers I know – do. In schools, there is less focus on effectiveness and efficiency. I’m not saying it’s not important – some of the best teachers I know are ruthlessly efficient and very effective – but that’s not the end goal. Rather, it’s a byproduct of the work that they do – and that work is about empowering and enlightening young people. It’s about agency and opening doors. In some ways, this is the exact opposite of what the Learning Design examples provided above are seeking to do.