The Instructional Designer's Toolkit

The purpose of the Instructional Designer's Tookit is to provide a basic instructional design methodology that will help you create effective training. This methodology is learner-centered, focusing on the needs of the student, not just the delivery of content. The Toolkit provides the basic tools you will need, including tools for analyzing your workgroup or company for training needs, evaluating programs to make sure that those needs have been met, and all the design and development steps in between.

The Toolkit provides an overview of the Instructional Design process, broken down into the primary phases of Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. The Tools section includes the basic tools you'll need, such as forms, templates, and reference material. Links to a number of external resources can be found on the Links page.

If you are an occasional developer of instructional materials, a subject-matter or content expert that's been asked to develop a course, or a training professional that creates materials, then this toolkit is for you. Likewise, if you are a manager or administrator that must make decisions about what training their work groups require and how to do it most efficiently, or a human resources professional who needs to understand a little about instructional design, then the ID Toolkit is for you too. While the ID Toolkit does contain some theory, its focus is on the practical application of instructional design.

The primary means of navigation is by the pop-up menus at the top of each page. The menus are divided into the main phases of the instructional design process, so if you're looking for information about conducting a Task Analysis, you'll find it in the Analyze section. There is also a navigation bar at the bottom of each page. Some pages have additional links to more information.

If this is the first time that you have used the ID Toolkit, start with What is Instructional Design. After you've read the overview, feel free to browse the other topics in any order you wish.

The ID Toolkit was created by Andrew Masiewicz as a project for the Master's Degree in Education at California State University, San Bernardino, where he is also a part-time lecturer. Andrew works full-time as an Information Technology Training Specialist for a Fortune 500 company. Andrew holds a B.S. in Administration and is completing his M.A. in Education - Instructional Technology.