Instructional design theory provides insights into evolving information technology technical curricula

  • Authors:

  • C. Richard G. Helps

  • Affiliations:

  • Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 7th conference on Information technology education
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

One of the challenges of university technological education is the constant evolution of new technologies in most high-tech disciplines. Nowhere is this more apparent than in computer-oriented disciplines that are subject to Moore's Law. New developments require frequent updating of college curricula in many fields, with the concomitant additional load on faculty members to not only constantly update their technical knowledge but to constantly invest effort into updating curricula to provide students with a sound and relevant education. Instructional Design (ID) is the educational discipline focused on the theoretical and practical problems inherent in designing curricula. As such ID has developed a number of theories and methodologies that have a bearing on the problem of rapidly changing curricula. In particular some newer evolving theories of viewing instructional design in terms of abstract layers offers a powerful paradigm that will help technology curriculum designers.There is a useful model in the work of Stewart Brand in analyzing how buildings are built in layers that age differently. His work is related to Christopher Alexander's seminal exposition on the design of buildings, which inspired the development of Design Patterns in software design. These approaches also lead to new theoretical approaches in technical educational design.These design theories enable viewing curriculum design in a layered context and thus lead to paradigms which enable updating technical courses to cater for evolutionary changes without having to completely redesign courses. This promises both better instruction and less development effort for course designers.Several related theories relating to this work with some discussion of the practical applications to creating Information Technology curricula are discussed in this paper.