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manifesto

A few principles have guided us every time we've undertaken a seminar, prepared a lecture for an audience, or began to design a course or lesson: participation is better than presentation, get the audience involved by asking them to pull out knowledge from their experiences, have a clear idea of what you expect your audience/learners will be able to do at the conclusion of the course, and so on. Over time, as we developed some insight into how people learned, we changed from being engaging lecturers to effective teachers and, ultimately, we began to think of ourselves as adventuresome guides rather than instructors and developers.

At the most basic, that role and these principles inform our understanding of instructional design, and therefore underlie the approach in this effort:

•   Different competencies require different learning strategies
  
•   Learners need to know what's expected of them
  
•   Learners rarely learn skills without repeated practice and relevant feedback
  
•   Active responding produces more effective learning than reading or listening
  
•   Learners repeat behaviors that are reinforced, but the reinforcement does not
    have to be overt—in may be the inner satisfaction that occurs when you know
    you got it right
  
•   Effective learning is linked to the adult learner's life and work; there is often
    little distinction between work and learning in many cases
  
•   Higher-level competencies (e.g., judgment) cannot be accelerated by intensive   instruction, but are largely the result of extended practice and reflection
  
•   Both the learner and the instructor are responsible for the learning outcomes

Central to our concept of instructional design are activities, experiences and assignments that engage learners in participating in tasks directly related to their work.