EP61: The Cons of Instructional Design

Sep 29

Sep 29 EP61: The Cons of Instructional Design

Transcript:

Luke 0:00

Hello, everybody. Before we begin today's show, I actually have an update to a prior update about an announcement. As you might remember my friend Dr. Robin Sargent, she's the founder of IDOL Courses Academy. She is currently writing a new instructional design book called The do it messy approach. It's a step by step guide for instructional designers and online learning developers. Previously, this book was supposed to come out a couple of weeks ago. But as someone who has gone through the book writing process before, sometimes some more time is needed to really make sure that everything is perfect. So we actually have a new date for when this book is going to be coming out. And that date is October 4. Now I was fortunate enough to be one of the early readers of Robins book, I've been talking about it. I've been sharing it on LinkedIn and on Facebook. This is a book that you absolutely should pick up whether you are a newbie, or you're a veteran in the field, always hearing about other perspectives from senior instructional designers is just so important. And this is going to be another one for you to have as a resource to go back to if you have any questions about your instructional design projects, it absolutely is something that you should be picking up. And right now you can still join the waitlist, that website is still up and running for you to get a 20% discount and to get the first 15 pages of the book right now. So if you go to idolcourses.com/book, you can sign up for the waitlist and you'll be able to access all of that. And now let's start the show

Luke 1:48

Hello, learning nerds and welcome on in to the nerdiest podcast you are going to hear today. My name is Dr. Luke Hobson. I'm a senior instructional designer, a program manager at MIT. I'm also the author of the book called What I wish I knew before becoming an instructional designer. And I make a lot of content on the internet all about instructional design, with this podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel and a bunch of other things as well. My crazy passion and purpose is instructional design. I love talking about this field. And I love being able to share with you what I know about instructional design, and to bring on awesome guests into the show as well to just to talk more about everything pertaining to this field, and to help you along your instructional design journey. And of course, you can find all of this information I keep on talking about over at Dr. Luke hobson.com. So this my friends, this is the second part of the series. Last episode, we talked about the pros of instructional design, we took a deep dive into that one talking about just how much fun it really can be as an instructional designer, what is seen as meaningful, rewarding, and really just what I love the most about this job. If you have not yet heard that episode, go back, listen to that one. There also is an entire YouTube video about the pros of instructional design, which you can also just find over on YouTube right now if you just search Luke Hobson pros of instructional design, it's going to pop right up. And today's episode well, obviously, we're already doing the pros. So now now as to come the cons. And this one was really interesting to record. And maybe you're gonna hear it inside of my voice. But I don't like negativity, I try not to be able to have that come about. But something that is very important to me is that I want you to have realistic perspectives and expectations about the instructional design field. Because of course, it's a job. And I'm going to be talking about that a lot in the episode. So I'm not going to go too much into that one. But really, I just want you to have a well rounded actual perspective about to the instructional design field. And of course, there are some awesome things but also there are some cons. So that is what we're going to be diving on into today. Now, once again, there's also going to be a YouTube video that goes along with this as well. So if you would prefer to still see me in my office with my beard about is completely gone now, because I recorded these episodes a long time ago. So it's still it's actually really weird editing these videos and seeing myself and like, wow, I look a lot different nowadays. Anyway, but that video is going to be up and running by the time that this episode is out too. So however you prefer to get your content, there should be something out there for everybody. And my last update for you is that I am still working on the audio book. It's taking a bit of time, understandably because it is a lot of obviously me reading and going through every single thing page by page, piece by piece, and it's just taking quite a bit of time. Also, the way that I talk and speak is well loud and energetic and it's not going to be a normal type of

Luke 5:00

audible book that you're probably used to listening to where the author is talking in a very type of normal tone and volume and whatnot. I'm like, No, I'm actually going to be talking this to you with passion and care. And this is going to be something that is is going to be enjoyable. Because of course, if you like anything about this podcast, the YouTube channel or whatnot, I definitely speak in an interesting way. And I want to make sure to bring to you that 100% level of effort with the audio book as well. And this is taking some time. And also it kind of strains my voice after talking like that for like an hour or two. So takes a little bit of time. But anyway, that is still in the works, that is still going strong. So I promise that will be coming out for you. And once I have more information, absolutely, I'll be sure to let you know. And without my friends, I am not going to waste any more time. So let's dive on in. And let's talk about the cons of instructional design. Today we're talking about the cons of instructional design, this Youtube series has already covered the pros about what it is to be an instructional designer. But also I want you to have realistic perspectives and expectations about the role. So of course, I need to now talk about the cons, the not so great parts about instructional design. Now, warning Warning, warning Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer, I am not trying to dissuade you from becoming an instructional designer, I just want you to have this information, just have it that way you know about the cons of the job. Because of course, let's be realistic here. It's still a job, there are good days and bad days when it comes to any job. And this definitely is the same thing. So let's go and dive on it and talk about these. And once again, before I go any further to these are my cons, you may have a friend or colleague or a fellow Pierre, watch this video and actually say like that con is actually my pro, or vice versa, I totally understand. But these are my cons. This is my perspective. And I hope it helps you out. So let's dive on into these con number one is your schedule and stability. I remember when I first going into instructional design, and I just Googled pros and cons about instructional design. And one of those blogs that I read a long time ago, it mentioned that the number one Pro was the schedule. And I was like so

Luke 7:27

by doing something wrong, like because my schedule is never the typical nine to five, and then I just shut my laptop and then never think about something again until the next day. That is never happens to me ever, when it comes to my schedule, it very much depends around the team with who I am working with. So if I am working with multiple subject matter experts, and let's say that for one person, they work best in the mornings. That's when they are the most creative fast when they have availability within their schedule. But I'm going to try to do something in the mornings for other people where if their creativity is actually at the end of the day, they're winding down, and then they can do a type of a call way at the end of the day, then yeah, I'm going to put a call at the end of the day. And other times you're going to be going into meetings that are longer in nature, if I am filming if I need to go and travel to campus or to a different type of location, and it's a long day of filming and then still doing other things on top of that, then yeah, that's going to happen, man. As of right now, with recording this video, I am working on seven, I think seven different programs that I am currently working with the team on. And yeah, that's a lot of projects, a lot of different subject matter experts and a whole bunch of different types of team members. So oftentimes I am double booked. Sometimes I'm triple booked. I'm aware but this is definitely more of a me thing when it comes to being double booked and triple booked. That's not very common. It's only been recently that things have been ramping up in my instructional design world. So I have been very busy lately. But even beyond that, I have always been quite busy within my job. So the scheduling the stability that really is never been a pro for me at all. Now keep in mind so you I work in higher education. So I find this always funny. And for the teachers out there who are watching this video you can 100% relate to this statement is that when people ask me about like, Oh, what are you doing for the summer? Do you have any plans? You're going on vacation? I'm like, no, no, no, I don't have any plans or time to do anything. Because this summer is actually my busiest month as an instructional designer. You might be saying well, why like Well, it's because that for other people, they have vacation, they're a little bit more on a easier streak. Things are a little bit more having some downtime currently. So with working with subject matter experts, if their downtime is a summer they're not so busy. Guess who's going to be working with

Luke 10:00

Um, over the summer, this guy, so my summer is usually jam packed. And I don't take vacation because of course, we're trying to get ready for all the courses to be launching in the fall. So that is when things are going to be really ramping up. And then usually around of course, like, for winter and for the holidays, then things start to finally slow down in my world. But for the most part, things are pretty crazy over the summer. So there is no such thing as like summers off or fur or anything like that there is always something happening within the instructional design world within my schedule that I am always working on something con number two, is constantly adapting to change. Now I can see for some people why this is a pro, you don't want to be bored. So you love the idea of wearing many, many hats. And at different points of time, during different projects, you get to take on different roles. I understand the appeal of that I really do. But also, let's be honest, and saying that if one day, you need to be a researcher at this particular part of time, and the next year doing reviewing the next year designing but next year, we're coaching during the filming process. And you just basically wake up and say like, oh, what does my day look like today? Like, what is it that I'm going to be doing? That gets really tiring after a while. And sometimes you really, really just hope to have a normal week some form of stability, where you're like, Okay, I know what my week is like, things are gonna go this way, I can try to do a little bit more of a mental downshift here. And I can just focus on one or two things. Typically, that does not happen in my world. For some projects, I essentially need to put on one hats, take that off, put on a different hat. And then I keep on going and going and going until the end of the week. And once again, some people love that myself, I kind of do. But also, if I'm working on so many things at the same time, it becomes kind of overwhelming. And eventually you learn to thrive in the chaos, which is what I have now done after so many years that it has become normal to me to be able to kind of just like flip that switch and say, Okay, I am on this project right now I need to think like this, this and this. And I just kind of keep on doing that for all my different types of projects. And now speaking of change, when it comes to being an instructional designer, there is a lot of communication, because you need to communicate to different stakeholders about different things. Now, I actually like that, because I love relationships, it's the best part about the job of working with other people. So it's kind of weird to say that this is a con but where it becomes a con is more about trying to remember all the various stakeholders and who to tell about what. So hypothetically speaking, let's say something is changing within a program. Well, who do I need to tell? I essentially have to like, make a list of people where it's like, Okay, do I need to tell marketing? Do I need to tell folks in accounting? Do I need to tell customer support? Or advising do I need to tell the subject matter experts or for the facilitators or the instructors or my team members or whoever, depending upon what the change is, I want to make sure that everyone is well informed. And that's just a lot of work when it comes to communication, staying on top of things and making sure you properly identify all the stakeholders, because of course, it has happened before where I forgot to say tell one party about a change. And then all of a sudden, I felt so bad because they didn't have the correct information on hand, it makes everybody look bad. And it's like, oh, no, I'm so sorry. So that is definitely a con when it comes to making sure that everyone is well informed and updated at all times. So let me give you an example about this, by the way, just so that that way, it's not abstract, you can actually have a concrete example about this. Let's say we're working on a course and the students and the learners, they use a piece of software inside of a course. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, everything crashes, the software goes down and what are you going to do? So first thing is first, you need to communicate with the students in the learners to apologize and say I'm so sorry, but this is Crash, I don't know what's going on. I'm going to investigate immediately, please hold, then you need to talk to the vendor to be able to say, Hey, what's up? Do you have an update status for me? What is happening? Why is this going down? Then you need to tell the customer support the advising whatever team you have for learner support to make sure that they know what to say and how to respond to people have ever tickets, or questions or phone calls or emails or whatever system that you use as far as for what's coming in. And of course, you need to tell the instructor or the facilitator about this because they need to be kept in the loop as well and hypothetically speaking anyone else perhaps it or engineering or or whoever. That's just one example about something that's happening within a course that you were designing, and then hey, it's live and Oh, something broke. Now what do you do? So that has happened before actually if a bunch of different types

Luke 15:00

programs where something will either go down or crash or is inaccessible. For some reason, you didn't realize why and all of a sudden something happened. And you're trying to figure out what to do next. So that's another part of this entire con list. And then the last but absolutely not least con is being the middle person. No one likes feeling stuck in the middle of two parties arguing about something. And then now you find yourself in the middle and trying to become the Peacekeeper here. But this exact same thing keeps happening to me in the Instructional Design land. And it's so weird. Every time it happens to me, I reached out to other colleagues and friends just to say like, is this happened to you? Because it keeps happening to me? And I don't know why. And people are like, oh, yeah, my all the time. That always happens. I was like, Oh, this is so weird. So let me peel back the curtain here. And let's give you an example. Before diving in any further, let's say that you are developing a brand new MBA program for your university, you have been assigned to work with subject matter experts, some of whom have given different forms of training and coaching on the very type of subject matter that you are building this program around. So it's like, Okay, fantastic. Let's get to work. When you are working with them, they mentioned about how one simulation they use is always a hit when ever they run the live person session for the course of a training. So they actually suggest that you need to use this and they love it. And they keep on raving about it. So you say, Okay, sounds good. Let me vet this. Let me do my research. And I'll come back to you. And I'll let you know what I think. So you go and do the research, you realize that they're right, the simulation is awesome, you can easily see how it can be incorporated inside of the MBA program, you think it's an amazing idea. All your wheels inside your head are turning about what different types of activities and assessments you can build around it. So you say, Okay, this is what we're going to be using. I'm just going to go back and tell my senior team, and I'll let you know about next steps. So you go to your senior leadership, and you say, Hey, we had this simulation, it was recommended by all the subject matter experts, what do you say? And they're like, fantastic. How much does it cost? And then you give the number? And they say yeah, no.

Luke17:22

Like, wait,

What do you mean? No, no, no, no, that's that's way too much money.

Well, what do you want me to do, then? Oh, just go back to the subject matter experts and see, is there an option B? Is there anything else they would recommend we can go from there?

Luke 17:40

Okay, so you go back to your subject matter experts and be like, hey, so I heard from the senior leadership team, and they kind of went through the numbers with me with budgeting and our project scope here. And that would actually put us really way in the red, we can't use this, it costs too much. So then the subject matter experts come back to you. And they say, well, let's do bad. There's no other option. There's no Plan B, it's either we use this or nothing at all. And also, if we don't use this simulation, this program really isn't going to go so well. We wanted to make this the heart, the core, the main marketing material when it comes to this brand new program. So either we use this, or we're going to have a really tough time here. And we're not going to budge.

Luke 18:26

Cool, cool. Cool. All right. So what do you do? Well, this exact thing, kinda, I changed a few details here. But something very similar has happened to me a couple of different times, that you have two parties looking out for the best interests of the students. For learners, the organization, you have from the subject matter expert perspective, as they were saying, we've used this simulation, it is fantastic. billers are gonna get a ton out of it. We can use it for so much teaching material, we need to use this thing, which you understand. But then you go and hear from your senior leadership team about how Yeah, if we're going to be using this, then we need to increase the cost of the course of the program, whatever it is, and we need to really hike it up there. It's not smart. We shouldn't be doing this. Is there any other option any other plan B we can try to use. So you get both sides of the story. One is thinking about the learning experience. One is thinking about the costs and trying to make sure that the product is going to be affordable. You understand, however, where's the middle ground, and unfortunately, you as a middle person may have to figure this out. Now, in this case, since this was kind of based on a real story ish, I was actually able to go research more about the vendor and negotiated the price down by doing kind of a long term contract. Really weird. Definitely don't want to go into more detail about that. But the thing is, is that I did find a way to make it work. Really wasn't so fun. It was all

Luke 20:00

A lot of sleepless nights, a lot of headaches, but I did manage to get it done. Now you as an instructional designer may find yourself in this same position where essentially you are drafting up a peace treaty to hope that both parties are going to be done fighting, and you can move on to the project. But the thing which is so interesting is that you understand both perspectives of where people are coming from. In this case, I said subject matter experts, and I said, the senior level team, perhaps this is going to be the dean or the senior instructional designer or team or the senior director, or, you know, whoever it is, there's a number of different people who could potentially be arguing about different types of circumstances, who both had the best intentions in mind, but you can't make it happen. You can't please everybody, what do you do? So that's something that I really, really wish that people would tell me about before. As far as for hay, you really better work on your negotiation skills, because it very well could happen to you. But you're gonna find yourself in this very odd predicament. And it's up to you, what are you going to do? Now, this is not common. This is not like an everyday experience, I do not want to scare you, once again, not trying to dissuade you. But I really wish that someone had told me about this before, because it has happened to me a couple of different times throughout my career. And when it does happen, it's a lot. It's it's really a lot to handle a lot to make everybody happy. And unfortunately, you have to be very creative with how you're going to solve the problem. How are you going to fix the dilemma? But that folks, that is the cons of instructional design, in my perspective, I hope this was helpful. I hope it helped you to understand a little bit more about the instructional design world once again, for like the third or fourth time that I say in this video, not trying to dissuade you, but I just want you to be more well informed about the entire field itself, before you go out and try to become an instructional designer. But go down below what actually caught you by surprise with my cons list, or was there a con that you thought I should have mentioned, but I really didn't talk about it. Really curious to hear your thoughts about that one. Do all the typical stifle of liking and subscribing over to this YouTube channel but other than that, folks, that is all I have for you today. Stay nerdy out there. And I'll talk to you next time.

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