How Educators Can Use The RID Model In Their Own Classrooms.

 

How Educators Can Use The RID Model In Their Own Classrooms.

by Oni Washington 

    Imagine spending hours studying something and attempting to learn it, only to have critics greatly minimize its importance by finding tons of faults in it. That's how it feels after reading about how the classic ISD model is being criticized for it's lack of speed, it's time consuming nature, and its tendency to be too narrow in it's cognitive approach. Meier 2020, states that a change is needed regarding the approach to instructional design in making sure it satisfies the goal of being accessible to a wide variety of learners. While also taking into consideration the rapid pace society moves today. 

With the RID - Rapid Instructional Design Model, feedback is heralded over reading and skimming written materials. There is also an emphasis placed on activity based learning. Educators should take special consideration to provide feedback quickly to the learner thereby facilitating the learning process. Some of the principles of the RID model are: 

1). Use the 4-phase learning cycle (as seen above) These phases should be in balance in order for the instruction to be more effective. 

2). Accesibility for a variety of learning styles. Whether tactile, auditory, or somatic learners should have differentiation in the lessons they utilize. 

3) Implement Activity based design. Figure out which activities learners can do in order to master a skill quickly. This step can be effectively used in the classroom through a variety of games, puzzles, and other items. In the marketing class I teach, we have used Jenga, Monopoly, and playing cards to master math and financing lessons. 

4) Encourage a community-like environment - Research shows that peer-teaching is the best form of teaching and learning currently being under utlized. Linking, and connecting individuals who will subsequently communicate and learn from each other is an effective practice. 

5) Follow the 30/70 rule: This rule states that in a learning environment only 30% of activities should be lecture based, while the other 70 should be group, activity, and project based. Allowing learners the opportunity to communicate and collaborate. 

While designing my eLearning solution I followed these steps while determining my target audience. The solution was for the SAT and PSAT, so the target audience was obviously high school students and their parents. This group is most likely to purchase this type of eLearning solution. During my storyboard process, google slides was used to illustrate the steps and elements included in the program. 

To create the assessments I did a reverse course design, and started with the assessments. Formative assessments were used in different formats throughout the course, while a Summative assessment was admnistered towards the end to ascertain mastery. 

As a fan of ADDIE (since we spent so much time studying) it is difficult to judge whether the rapid design model should replace my current approach to instructional design, which does implement ADDIE, as well as Blooms Taxonomy. How much change is truly required with some of the tried and true methods such as SAM? Isn't all this updating just leading to more confusion and a steeper learning curve? It's like my grandma used to say.."Hey! If it aint broke, don't fix it."