Do you want to be an instructional designer?

The title is a question but really the first question should be what is an instructional designer. How about we cut through the usual professional BS and just state that an instructional designer writes training material and resources. It doesn’t matter if it is print based, ebook, online or powerpoint it is all training material. I read this article on the accidental instructional designer recently and though I like many of the points I think something is missing.

I don’t care how much passion you have if you do not understand learning, learning theory, learning design, how to facilitate a group and know at least more than the learners on the topic or concepts being covered in the training program you can’t be an instructional designer. You will be an instructional disaster.

I am not sure why people still think that writing training is as simple as getting a textbook and summarising it into some slides with a few activities and there you have it – great training. That is probably why there is so much poor training around. Most of the people who write this sort of training don’t write anything else, don’t read, haven’t attended a training session themselves for years, have no education in teaching and learning and minimal if any experience in the topic, discipline or concepts that they are writing about.

I put together a simple video a while ago on the basics of training. Please watch it and remind yourself occasionally that good training is simple if it is written by an expert!