The systematic design of instruction

I’ve been working as part of an instructional design team for almost two years now, and I haven’t read The Systematic Design of Instruction by Dick and Carey. (Don’t laugh!) It’s time to correct that.

I came to instructional design not from an education background, but from applied linguistics and teaching English as a second language. So, I had prior experience designing courses, but people in those fields generally talk about “materials development,” not “instructional design,” and I have never heard anyone refer to the systems approach, ADDIE, or Dick and Carey.

So, it’s time to up my game – or at least my instructional design lingo! I bought an older edition of this canonical textbook on eBay for $1.99, and I’m going to read it (however long it may take me!) and post my thoughts on it here.

First, one note about the preface: Wow, how incredibly meta. The preface explains that the book was designed by the authors for instructors to use to teach future instructional designers to design instruction. My head is getting tangled up in that one…