As educators, we are all familiar with the dreaded lesson plan documents that we feel obligated to complete so others can determine what we are doing in the classroom. However, lesson plans are not the true indication of how we assist students. Instructional design may be a more pressing matter for our attention than simple lesson planning. Your question now may be, "What is the difference between instructional design and lesson planning?"
Instructional design is a process initiated by teachers that targets deep and lasting learning and investigates the way students think, learn, and perform. Lesson plans, on the other hand, focus on the details of how a teacher will carry out a particular lesson in class on a particular day. Lesson plans are not synonymous with instructional design, as instructional design is focused on the student and his or her learning process, whereas the lesson plan is more of an agenda that explains how the teacher will carry out the teaching process. Instructional design has long-term goals versus short-term objectives. It may highlight overarching missions like synthesis, overall intellectual development, critical thinking, independence, interdependence, and academic discourse. Although lesson plans may have these goals in mind, they typically zero in on subsets of learning outcomes that may build toward these goals.
Learning outcomes are integral for both instructional design and lesson planning. Part of the instructional design process will be deciding on the measurable learning outcomes that each course and the modules or units within it will address, thus narrowing the scope of course content and differentiating between necessary content and optional content. Assessment methods, both formative and summative, should be based on learning outcomes that have been established for the course. In lesson planning, the learning outcomes will identify the specific tasks and skills that students are expected to perform on that particular day. For example, in instructional design, a teacher may determine that students should be able to compose a well-researched argument essay that addresses divergent viewpoints. In a lesson plan, the teacher may decide that on that particular day, the students should be able to identify rhetorical strategies in a provided essay through class discussion and individual evaluation.
Instructional design, unlike lesson planning, is also concerned with what the students will do when they are not in the class under the direct guidance of the instructor. It may consider flipped lessons, in which the students are responsible for independent assignments that they will then discuss or practice in class. It may take into account how the course will apply to other courses, the students' lives, or the students' prospective careers. It aims to make them better learners, not just better students. It targets overall growth rather than measurable growth using a particular assessment method. Furthermore, it will examine what the students want and expect from the course and from their educational experiences in general. Educators and students are collaborators on the experiences they share, but the students will eventually move on and expand upon those experiences beyond the classroom.
The ultimate question, then, is, "How does the student's experience in a course translate into future success?" This is the question that deep instructional design seeks to answer.
