Design of Learning Spaces: LEARNING about LEARNING-1

Reviewing an article on Instructional Design(COPYRIGHT © 2011 MIKAEL POWELL. All Rights Reserved)


I am reviewing an article in the Education Technology and Research Development journal entitled “The critical, relational practice of instructional design in higher education: An emerging model of change agency”. It is authored by Katy Campbell, Richard A. Schwier and Richard F. Kenny in 2009. This article explores the role of instructional designers as initiators of change. By studying a Canadian university for four years, this article explores how instructional designers can be instrumental in positively influencing learning in higher education when they advocate for a teaching practice that is combined with reflection. The authors show how the effect of this method can be transformative at every level of the institution, from personal relations through general society levels.
Campbell, Schwier & Kenny (2009) discuss how this role for the instructional designer may be different that the traditional experience. They state “the dominant technical discourse of instructional design deskills the instructional designer in HE [higher education] institutions in fundamental human ways. We maintain that instructional design is a moral practice that involves the ethical knowledge of the designer acting in relationship with others in a dialogue about how to create a social world of access, equity, inclusion, personal agency and critical action”(Campbell, Schwier & Kenny, 2009, p. 661). Instructional designers who implore faculty to ask “Who am I, why am I practicing this way, and what effect does this have on others?” (Campbell, Schwier & Kenny, 2009, p. 661) become complicit in the transformation.
Campbell, Schwier & Kenny (2009) studied twenty instructional designers at Canadian universities from 2002 to 2006. They used interview, email, focus groups and narrative inquiry as means of collecting data.
I appreciated the view of the article. Since I am interested only in instructional design in higher education, it acknowledges some of the shortcomings of the post-secondary system, particularly as it relates to architecture and design instruction. Most architecture professors have no formal training in education. The terminal degree in architecture and design is the Masters and most instructors were project architects or project designers that led teams of designers at a firm. Master degrees in architecture and design do not include teacher training, but rather, offer specialization in a project type like healthcare design or hospitality design. So Campbell, Schwier & Kenny (2009) promote reflection as a way to change existing teaching practice and in doing so, change the greater society for the good.


Reference:
Campbell, K., Schwier, R. & Kenny, R. (2009) The critical, relational practice of instructional design in higher education: An emerging model of change agency. Education Technology and Research Development, 57, 645–663. DOI 10.1007/s11423-007-9061-6