Analyzing the Task

The first thing that must be done before analyzing the task is stating your goal. While this may seem a silly thing to state, it is probably overlooked far too often. For example, if you are planning to teach someone how to change a tire, you can completely miss the mark by simply saying your goal is to teach someone how to change a tire. Do you want the person to know how to change car tires or bike tires? Should they be able to do it in a certain amount of time? Should they have to do it safely or correctly? It is important to decide what the real goal of your instruction is.

The best part about a good goal is that it leads to a good analysis. Once you have that goal, you can simply ask: "What will the learner have to know or do in order to achieve the goal?" From that you have your higher-order tasks. Once again, you simply ask yourself what the learner must know or do in order to achieve that higher-order task. You can continue that process until you reach: "in order to do _____, the learner must exist." It may sound easy, but often the skills required to reach a goal aren't as obvious as you'd think. Look at catching a pop fly in baseball. The player needs to see the ball, predict its trajectory based on speed, height, angle, and past experience, then decide on a route to get there before the ball hits the ground, and also use proper technique to catch it. While the steps I've used still aren't complete, most would simplify it further and say, "you see the ball, run to where it's going, and catch it," because they have done it or seen it done so many times that the subtasks are looked over. So the analysis is more difficult than it seems.

ID in the Classroom

The systematic instruction of design is far too time-consuming for low-paid teachers to apply to every lesson they plan, but it's principles are used all the time. For example, when planning a lesson, or simply modifying an old one, the teacher may analyze their students rather quickly by thinking about some of their learning styles and decide if some of the material may be over the heads of a few students. This can immediately be applied into design, development, and implementation. Many teachers evaluate their instruction while they are teaching by looking at their students' expressions, or asking questions. Also, teachers can use tests to evaluate their instruction. This brings up a great point: how are we evaluating? If you don't test on what your students to know and understand, you will never know if you are teaching effectively.

Mostly, I'd say that teachers are using ID whenever they take their students' characteristics into account while planning and preparing a lesson, and if they evaluate their instruction, not just the students mastery of the material.

Just to emphasize the point, I repeat the tests need to evaluate the instruction, not just the students. This is a statement more about the teacher's attitude than anything, because he/she will become stagnant and will not effectively deal with the needs of their students if they simply use tests to determine grades. If you notice a marked decrease in scores you should analyze the subject and the learner to determine how you might better teach the material, instead of simply handing out grades.

Analysis

Frankly, Analysis has totally won me over. Who would have thought that just by writing down a problem or a goal and then writing down everything you can think about the goal, subtasks, and context would suddenly give you specific direction about fixing the problem. Take our fictional problem - getting employees to bake focaccia bread correctly. As I was think about the learner and their previous experience, I realized that I had no idea what the bread was supposed to look like at any step and it made my baking far less than perfect. Because of that discovery, I think that pictures need to be available throughout the training and afterwards. Also, because quality is of such importance, we need to either have a veteran employee inspect the bread, or find some way to check the quality, maybe every time. While these may seem like simple things, not putting them in place could eventually result in poorly-made bread, which could lead to a loss in customers, and eventual loss of profits. So the tiniest detail can't be missed.

All of this could be done with an interactive recipe program on a touchscreen in the bakery. It could have every step (or all simultaneous steps) on the screen at the same time along with pictures. While this may be the best way to ensure speed and quality, it isn't efficient in the least. We need to be able to find the most effective way to teach someone to make great focaccia bread, which is efficient in terms of teaching it quickly and it is cost effective, and it needs to be appealing in that the employee won't get bored and lose attention, and they will be able to walk away knowing that their new employer cares about their training.