Educators and other subject matter specialists understand that developing clean, concise and relevant learning content is anything but arbitrary. The process involves a great deal of thought, insight and judgment as it relates to the information being gathered and presented. A variety of processes and tasks help us to assemble our thoughts and ideas, and to build upon our expertise in order to effectively share knowledge and information with learners. The goal is to identify specific needs, develop solutions, and to examine the outcome of our efforts based on predetermined criteria. These steps are essential to the development of an effective instructional strategy.

A great deal of research has been conducted regarding the processes of designing and assessing educational resources and learning outcomes. Instructional design models incorporate methods that are from the relatively simple to the more complex. These methods include Concept Mapping, the ASSURE Model, Criterion Referenced Instruction, the ADDIE Model as well as many variants.

One of the more prevalent instructional design models uses the ADDIE acronym for Assessment, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. However this representation does not fully address an important phase that relates to the teaching and learning processes—which should include ongoing maintenance of the learning resource.

Having a solid instructional design plan is an important factor for assuring that learning goals have been met, but does not require you to necessarily be a professional instructional designer. The most important point is having a clear understanding of the specific need(s) being addressed prior to attempting to facilitate a solution or learning intervention, from a micro and/or macro level of the instructional lesson, unit, chapter, section, course, or program.

An instructional design process should be conducted in a non-linear fashion. This means that processes and steps should be revisited as necessary throughout the process. However a needs assessment should be clearly established in order to determine why and what the instructional focus will be from the onset, prior to moving forward. Following these basic steps will go a long way in assuring that instructional goals are being met in an efficient way that is most conducive to meeting educational goals through clearly established learning objectives.