Reflection

Instructional design theory is important at all levels of teaching/instruction. It is

important to understand how people learn, what motivates them to learn, and the best
ways to teach in order to be an effective teacher. I have not spent much time learning
about instructional design theory before this, but still consider myself to be an effective
and engaging teacher. I think I can attribute this to an ability to be self-reflective about
how I learn best (during the last 20+ years that I have been in role of learner) and also to
model the teaching style of instructors that I have found to be effective. These model
instructors may have had some formal instruction in effective teaching based on
instructional design theory.
It has been obvious to me throughout my own medical training how trends in
medical education have changed. In medical school, many programs are changing from
emphasis on rote memorization of facts to problem-based learning, group learning,
discussion sessions and other forms of integrating basic science material with more of the
pathology and physiology encountered in medical practice. In residency, simulationbased learning has become a new popular modality for prompting learners to apply
knowledge and skill to real-life patient scenarios and then debrief with self-reflective
discussions about performance, importance of the exercise and need for improvement. In
these ways, I can appreciate how instructional design theory has influenced my own
education and learning to date.
Being familiar with and/or well-versed in instructional design theory provides a
baseline and goal to aspire to with your teaching. It can be applied at multiple levels of
instruction: curriculum design, large-group presentation, small-group presentation,
lectures, workshops, and even bedside teaching. Understanding the motivation for
learning and techniques to best facilitate learning and comprehension are important for
continuing to effectively teach both within and outside the traditional classroom setting. I
think this is particularly true when you get to the point of educating learners outside of
the classroom setting, where grades are no longer a motivating factor it can get more
challenging in some ways to figure out how to get them engaged and actively
participating in educational activities when there are so many other competing factors,
such as clinical work requirements and personal life demands.
Instructional design theory will definitely continue to influence my teaching style
for these reasons. I think it is important to be cognizant of learners motivations and
conflicting interests when developing courses, lectures, workshops and other teaching
activities. I also think it is important to consider the most effective way to deliver the
content remembering to include objectives to make the goals of the session clear and
also methods of teaching to best keep the learner engaged are probably most important
for my typical teaching platforms. Getting feedback and evaluation are important to tools
to evaluate how effective instruction is. Some of the instructional design theories we
evaluated that I think are most pertinent to my teaching are: Goal-based Scenario Theory
by Robert Schank, Gagnes 9 Events of Instruction, Kemps model and Dick and Careys
models are similar and related more to course/curriculum design.