IB and Instructional Design

The school I taught a few years ago became an IB school. I started to teach IB courses in 2017. I often think that it is not easy to ask students to learn so many things in such a short time. In particular, there is really not much time for IB test-takers to learn all of the assigned topics in the class before taking the exam. If you want to ask your students to learn so many different topics and be able to prepare adequately and cope with the exams, it is really necessary to implement an efficient teaching method. I deeply understand that good instructional design can be used to transfer information to learners efficiently. Instruction is the arrangement of information and the environment to facilitate learning.

An instructional design framework, such as the ADDIE model allow me to learn the specific steps of designing a good instructional design. The first step of ADDIE is analysis, which includes analysis of learners and content. In the past, my teaching experience often did not include learner analysis prior to the start of the school year. The speed of the course and the adjustment of the steps had to be modified after the school year began. I would check the students' reactions to the class and content to make adjustments. One of the obstacles to doing learner analysis prior to the beginning of classes is that I am not able to learn about the students who choose my class before the start of the semester. It is difficult to implement the learners' analysis before the lessons begin. According to the ADDIE model, the learner's analysis consists of four domains: cognitive, personality, social, and physical. Such a comprehensive analysis must be achieved through professional work. I agree with the idea that it is an investment of time and effort to understand your learners.

In addition, in terms of development, as a teacher, in reality, Prototype development is also limited. So, ID is a very professional field. And designing ID is a step-by-step procedure.

Another important part of ID is to set up performance objectives. "An objective describes an intended result of instruction." It offers a clear direction of where the instruction is going.

Using ADDIE components to do ID allows the start-up ID designers to have very clear steps and make the entire design more organized and systematic. This also echoes the beginning of this article. The ID is a very systematic design. It also makes the learning process systematic and has clear directions and goals. Learners' learning is, therefore, more efficient.  I realized that to be able to successfully teach IB courses, I must have a very systematic and efficient instructional design, so that my learners can be effective during their learning time, and then pass the exam.