Key Issues Surrounding Faculty Development of Expertise In Instructional Design

Despite many successes in engineering education today, a need exists for transformational change that embraces current best-practices, meets expectations of industry, the NAE, NSF, and ABET, and produces faculty buy-in. This paper explores the following question: What are key elements faculty consider as they begin to develop expertise and implement the process of systematic instructional design? A qualitative case study of nine faculty participants in a five part workshop series was conducted. A holistic pattern analysis was performed on 217 pieces of data triangulated among a pre-workshop survey, focus group discussions, and document examination to reveal main themes. During the workshop series, a transformational shift towards a focus on outcome behaviors and skills rather than how to deliver content occurred in how faculty viewed their role in the delivery of instruction. Perceived benefits of utilizing systematic instructional design included the relevance of an outcomes based approach, elevated quality of instruction, and the utility of instructional design at multiple levels. These perceptions significantly outweighed perceived costs of time investment, frustration as learners, and risks due to the use of techniques outside of cultural norms.