ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation) is a well-known often used model for instructional design. In Designing a Blended Course, Shibley, et.al.(2011) discuss how the ADDIE model was used to redesign a general chemistry course resulting in a blended course design. In ADDIE+, Shor (2012) discusses utilizing IT industry software development practices to enhance the ADDIE model, creating ADDIE+. These two articles together show how ADDIE can be utilized to structure a full-course redesign, and then how ADDIE can be expanded to be more scalable to guide a larger multi-dimensional project.
Review: Designing a Blended Course: Using ADDIE to Guide Instructional Design
In Designing a Blended Course, Shibley, Amaral, Shank and Shibley (2011) discuss the process and results of using the ADDIE model of instructional design to guide the redesign of a first semester General Chemistry course. Using the ADDIE model helped the development team to complete a thorough analysis of the desired learning outcomes; design a curriculum that enhanced student interaction with the course content; develop video, animations and class guides which reinforced the learning outcomes; implement the new curriculum; and evaluate the success of the redesigned blended course.
The General Chemistry course redesign was accomplished over a two year period, with year one consisting of the analysis, design and development stages, and year two being the implementation and evaluation stages. The design team consisted of two chemistry faculty members, the director of the Center for Learning and Teaching, and instructional designer, a multimedia specialist and the Director of Planning, Research and Assessment. This team of six professionals spent 18 months and over 1,000 hours in the redesign. The resulting design significantly increased the average GPA, and decreased the course failure rate. (Shibley, 2011)
The ADDIE stages were used throughout the project to guide development. Analysis Stage: the team focused on student learner characteristics, learning objectives, and identifying difficult concepts through analysis of student exams. Design phase: the team focused on instructional strategies, broader learning outcomes, collaborative learning environments, and defining which outcomes could be accomplished online vs. which outcomes would be better in the face to face class environment. Development phase: the team concentrated on developing a class guide, collecting learning materials including instructor selected multimedia resources and developing pre-class assignments. Implementation phase: the new course was offered to students as a blended course. The face to face meeting time was adjusted to include primarily an interactive group discussion format. Evaluation phase: student success data was compared to previous semester data to determine the ultimate success of the redesign project.
Review: ADDIE+: Adopting Proven Practices from the IT Industry
In ADDIE+, R.M. Shore (2012) takes the position that the traditional ADDIE model does not differentiate between the needs of small instructional design projects and larger multidimensional projects. The proposal is to augment ADDIE with practices taken from IT software development models. Shor calls this approach ADDIE+
ADDIE+ utilizes five proven practices from the IT world. They are a set of guiding principles; a team model; modifications to the traditional ADDIE process; a risk management discipline; and version control. These practices essentially overly a project management process on top of the five core ADDIE practices. These additional practices allow the model to address issues such as team composition and lines of communications, budgetary and resource constraints, standardized file naming conventions and sharing techniques.
Shor (2012) gives implementation suggestions for each of the principles. These include naming conventions and utilization of central file repositories that can manage version control and check out / check in processes to ensure data integrity. Collaborative work environments may be used to share working documents. Risk management techniques are described for identifying and mitigating potential issues.
Discussion
In Shibley, et.al. (2011), the ADDIE model appears to have provided sufficient structure for successful implementation of the General Chemistry course redesign. The framework allowed them to identify the major components of the design process and address each stage independently. In my experience, course designers often jumps directly to the development phase without taking sufficient time to consider the needs analysis, development of specific learning outcomes and learning goals, and design elements that will address the determined needs. In addition, it is rare that I have experienced follow up with evaluation after implementation to determine if the new design is in fact doing a better job at meeting the needs that were identified prior to the redevelopment process.
Often, course design and redesign are stressed by time & resource constraints which make it difficult to effectively apply all stages of the ADDIE design. I do think that educators would benefit from taking the time to consider each of these five phases in an effort to improve the correlation between course elements and intended learning outcomes.
In Shor (2012), the additional five practices appear to create a more robust model of design for larger scale projects. One of the strengths of the ADDIE model is its simplicity. In its simplest form it can be easily taught to faculty who are developing course components. However, this simplicity does leave out a lot of the complexity that would be needed to successfully complete a larger scale project. For example, the design of a new degree program which would include many new courses, resources, marketing and deployment would require a more robust model that would include a full project management process.
From these two articles you can see how ADDIE can be applied directly to a single course design, but also see how the model can be enhanced and augmented to scale up to a large multidimensional design project. Utilizing this model, and its enhancements, will help to ensure that a course design project meets the needs of its intended audience and is followed up with evaluation and rapid development techniques to ensure the design continues to evolve and improve.
The articles reviewed were found by conducting a key word search utilizing Santa Fe College’s
Lawrence W. Tyree Library LINCC web service. The search was conducted using the keywords “Instructional Design Model”, and sorting by most recent articles. After a review of about 30 abstracts, two articles were chosen that were interesting to me because both of them used the ADDIE model, one of them applied the model to blended course design and the other suggested utilizing IT software development practices to enhance the base model. I felt this would provide an interesting discussion of how the ADDIE model is used, and how it can be expanded.
References:
Shor, R. M. (2012). ADDIE +: Adopting Proven Practices From the IT Industry. T+D, 66(5), 5661.
Shibley, I., Amaral, K. E., Shank, J. D., & Shibley, L. R. (2011). Designing a Blended Course:Using ADDIE to Guide Instructional Design. Journal Of College Science Teaching, 40(6), 80-85.