ADDIE Model in Action

After listening to Terry Greene's podcast, I thought of the ADDIE framework and could pick out ways that followed it and differed from it.

September 25, 2024 by Stevie Nellenback 

Similarities:

• The first letter in ADDIE, A, analyze. The podcast mentioned how they used a focus ground and listened to 100 students' problems to see where they were struggling. 

• The second letter in ADDIE, D, design, where we refer to the backward design framework.

  • The first step in the backward design framework is to define what you want your learner to be able to do by the end. The tech group started by defining what they wanted these college students to be able to do after going through this module. They wanted a broader approach than 'How To' videos. Therefore, they knew they wanted to create a resource that could be used, only if needed. I liked to think of this as a guide on the side. 

  • The second step in backward design is to form an assessment or define a way that you will determine if the solution statement's goal is met. The actual process of this does not formally know if learners are successfully meeting the goal. There are a couple of informal ways that the learner can access themselves by creating a short example of each digital artifact with current knowledge. Since assessment can be formal or informal, I would say this counts as a way of assessment.

  • The third step is planning what material is going to be covered. The tech team followed the design process very well and created a solution that meets all aspects of the problem statement.

Differences:

• Did not have a great quantity of data. Out of the 100 college students who were willing to tell their stories, only 15 of those stories were tech-related. I think a larger group should be interviewed or asked about specific technology struggles. 

• The third letter of ADDIE, D, development stage is when you are making and producing a product. I thought this stage was a little different from the ADDIE framework because once a week all groups would meet to inform others about updates and collaborate (mesh) the context when applicable. Therefore there was some 'bouncing' when it came between the design stage and the development stage.

Note:

From the podcast itself, I did not think enough was shared to discuss the implementation or evaluation. 

Reflection

The big takeaways:

• I learned how my initial thoughts are/can be biased and to think about the problem. I can take my initial thoughts and then start to ask myself, who, what, why, where, and how questions to help me limit the biases.

• Week one was specific to the ONE individual when I should have been thinking about how others could be experiencing similar issues. And I did not even state who the individual is in terms of what role they play with the technology.

• Target specifically what kind of technology issues students are dealing with. Using just "technology skills" made it very broad and hard to make a solution. Using a backward design model helps in terms of defining what you would like your desired result to look like. Knowing this can even help understand and pinpoint what the problem is. 

Moving Forward:

• I want to record my initial thoughts of the problem and actually go through asking myself the who, what, why, where, and how questions and challenge myself to be better at making my problem statements a little more specific to details. 

• I want to apply the backward design model even more. This helps me get the full picture of what the problem is and come up with a clear understanding of what needs to happen to 'fix it'. 

• I want to keep in mind what kind of outlook we are looking for, narrow or broad. Are we helping one individual struggling or are we helping a whole campus of people? I am aware that this would most likely depend on the client and what they are looking for, but it is something to surely consider when addressing the issue.

• When it comes to any situation, I want to be more sympathetic to the learners. It is easy to see what isn't happening, but it is harder to see and take into consideration what their work is. 

References

ELM Learning. (2022 July 22). What is ADDIE? Your complete guide to the ADDIE model. eLearning Lab. https://elmlearning.com/blog/instructional-design-addie-model/ 

Greene, T. (2021, Dec. 2). Alex Venis and the Technologist Module. [Audio podcast]. Gettin' Air. https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/alex-venis-and-the-technologist-module/; Otter.ai version with transcript & audio synchronized

Greene, T. & Mackie, K. (Eds.) (2022). Liberated learners. Trent University. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/learner/

Keys, P. (2022, May 2). Backwards design and transparency at the course level. Instructional Design & Academic Technology. https://instructionaldesignthatworks.com/2022/05/02/backwards-design-and-transparency-at-the-course-level/