Dick and Carey System Model of Instructional Design

The Dick & Carey System Model of Instructional Design is a step-by-step guide for delivering educational content. This systems approach consists of 10 interrelated steps, which depend upon each other and offer feedback to each other to accomplish an educational goal or set of goals. Here is the summary of the 10 steps of the approach:

1. Identify instructional goal: In this step, a needs assessment is conducted to identify what the learners are expected to be able to do at the end of the instruction. From this step, we can also find out what problems the learners are facing, and whether training is necessary to help them solve the problems. For example, even though the learning management system is not new and is widely used by many higher education institutions, most of the lecturers at our school just use the LMS for storage, not for instruction. Therefore, an example instructional goal I can think of is: At the end of this instruction, lecturers will know how to use the LMS to facilitate active learning.

   
   

2. Conduct instructional analysis: This step is to identify everything that the learners must know or do to achieve the goal. For example, to facilitate the LMS effectively and efficiently, lecturers must master many small objectives such as uploading/downloading materials to the LMS, creating courses/lessons on the LMS, communicating with students using the LMS. Apart from these skills, lecturers must also have the right perception about active learning.

   
   

3. Analyze learners and context: In this stage, we identify the characteristics of the target audience. This defines prior skills, prior experience, context, and settings for the performance and learning. This stage is quite important as it helps decide how much content should be included in the instruction. For example, the course designed for one who has no experience at all with LMS and active learning is quite different from the one designed for lecturers who already use the LMS for a period of time.

   
   

4. Write performance objectives: This step defines the required performance based on the analysis of the task and the background of the learners (steps 2 and 3). This is the list of learning objectives to take the target learners from their current knowledge and skills to those desired to achieve the goal.

   
   

5. Develop assessment instruments: This step develops the assessments and tests that will check whether the required performance objectives have been achieved by the learners. Examples can be: multiple-choice theory tests about the LMS, reflective papers, or project-based assignments.

   
   

6. Develop instructional strategy: This is the development stage in the ADDIE model. In this step, the flow of instruction is developed. Content such as pre-instructional activities, presentation of learning content, and learning activities is storyboarded and developed.

   
   

7. Develop or select instructional materials: This is the implementation stage in the ADDIE model. In this step, the actual development or selection of all instructional materials is implemented.

   
   

8. Design and conduct formative evaluation: This step is done in order to identify and correct any portion that needs improvement.

   
   

9. Revise instruction: This is done during design and development for all of the previous steps.

   
   

10. Design and conduct summative evaluation: Once the instructional materials are launched and are being used by the target audience, a broader “summative” evaluation is performed to verify how well the overall goal has been achieved. All steps of the instructional design process are revisited as needed to increase the chances of achieving the instructional goal.