Understanding the ADDIE Model: A Guide for New Instructional Designers (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: So, if you're new to instructional design and e-learning, you may have heard about the ADDIE model. But what exactly is that? And what does it stand for? And more importantly, how is it actually applied in the real world? Well, these are all questions we're going to tackle in this video. So stick around. Hey there folks, Tim Slade here from the E-Learning Designers Academy. You know, when you're new to the world of instructional design or e-learning development, it can be hard navigating everything that we have to do on a day-to-day and project-by-project basis. And, you know, if you think about the act of instructional design or the act of an instructional designer, regardless of what your role might be or what your title might be as a learning professional, it goes far beyond simply creating training or learning content. It involves analyzing performance issues, identifying knowledge and skills gaps, identifying and ideating on different solutions to solve those problems, actually building and developing those solutions, implementing them with your learners, and of course, evaluating the effectiveness of them at the end of the day. It's a lot. And, you know, figuring out how to do all of that stuff in a repeatable and scalable way is enough to make anyone overwhelmed, especially if you're new to it all. But, you know, this is where different instructional design and development models can come into play. And I can't think of any model that's more widely known and used in our industry than the ADDIE model. So, first, what is the ADDIE model? Well, you know, to put it simply, the ADDIE model is a sequential processor framework designed to guide instructional designers, e-learning developers, and other learning professionals through the process of designing and developing training and learning solutions. And that's it. I mean, it's pretty simple. But within the ADDIE model consists various steps or phases that define the ADDIE acronym – analysis, design, development, implementation, and of course, evaluation. Now, you know, before we dive into each of these steps in more detail, let me say this. While ADDIE, like similar models like SAM, are often defined as instructional design models, it's important to know that there's nothing inherently special about ADDIE as a whole that results in better learning or performance outcomes. And as such, the ADDIE process shouldn't be viewed as something that's going to help you design better learning content. It's the actions you take within each step of the ADDIE process that really matter, all of which we're going to explore here in a moment. Now, you know, you have to remember, ADDIE is just a process or framework that makes it easier for us to get from point A to point B in a repeatable and scalable way. And you could theoretically apply the ADDIE model to anything from designing and developing a training or learning experience to designing and building a house. It's just a process to guide you through the steps. And you know, in that sense, I often say the ADDIE or SAM models are more akin to project management models than anything else, but that's a separate video for a separate debate for a separate day. But you know what, speaking of building a house, that's actually a fantastic analogy to help us better understand each step of the ADDIE model. So let's do that by looking at the first phase, which is analysis. You know, when you're tasked with a new learning project, or when you receive a new training request from a stakeholder or a subject matter expert, the first thing you need to do is determine why a performance issue exists and whether or not training is the actual solution to fixing that issue. And typically during the analysis phase of the ADDIE model, this is done by conducting some sort of needs analysis to help you evaluate and understand the who, the what, the why, the when, the where, and the how of the issue or issues you're trying to fix. That way you can gain enough context to determine why those issues exist and more importantly, make informed recommendations as to how to fix them. So you know, if we think about our analogy of building a house, the analysis phase is all about determining the needs of the future homeowner. We're not ready to start building the house yet. We need to start to understand what type of house they might actually need so that we can design the one that meets those needs. Now speaking of design, that's the second phase in the ADDIE model. Now in this step, this is where after you've done your needs analysis and determined if a training solution is needed, you begin to ideate and design your proposed solution. And this includes determining your desired performance goals, your learning objectives, the delivery methods and modalities, the structure of the training along with how it will be implemented and of course measured. Again, we're not building the training just yet. We're just ideating on the specific details of the training solution that we will build in the future. And to do all of this, you might go about creating an action map to make sure you're aligning your training efforts towards measurable business goals along with drafting a design document which outlines the training solution or solutions you're proposing to build, whether that's a single training object or a blended training solution. And so again, if we think along the lines of building a house, the design phase would be like drawing a blueprint for the house you were about to build. It's something that gives the future homeowners a way to preview their house while also being able to make edits. All right, this brings us to the next phase, which is development. Now after you've analyzed an issue, designed and proposed a solution, the development phase is where you actually start building the thing or things that you've designed. And so for example, if you were creating an e-learning course, that would include drafting a storyboard, developing a prototype and developing the full course with an e-learning authoring tool like Articulate Storyline. Or on the other hand, if you're building an in-person workshop, that might include creating slides and PowerPoint, writing a participant guide or other handouts, developing activities and everything else. And as I'm sure you can already imagine, thinking back to our house building analogy, development would be like the actual construction of the house. We're taking that blueprint that we drafted in the design phase, and now we're actually building it all. All right, so after development, this brings us to the next step in the ADDIE model, which is implementation. Now from a training perspective, implementation is where we actually deliver our training and learning solutions to our target audience, our learners. However, implementation is going to look different depending on the nature of the training solution you've designed and developed. So for example, if you're implementing an e-learning course, implementation might involve publishing your course into a learning management system, perhaps in collaboration with an LMS admin. That way, you can assign and distribute that course to your learners and track completion. Or if you've designed and developed an in-person workshop, that might mean collaborating with a team of facilitators to conduct a train-the-trainer, scheduling training sessions and assisting with the delivery of the training. Or if you've built something as simple as a job aid, implementation might simply mean publishing that job aid online or emailing it out to your learners. My point is, it all depends on what you built. All right, the fifth and final step of the ADDIE model is evaluation. Now this is where you dedicate time to evaluating and analyzing whether or not you met the goals you sought to achieve at the start of the project. And this is where you might use Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation to determine whether or not you were able to fix the performance issues you analyzed during the analysis phase and to what extent you were able to fix them. How did your learners react to the training and did you increase their knowledge or skills as a result? And were you able to achieve any sort of measurable business goal? All right, so that's an overview of the ADDIE model of instructional design, analysis, design, development, implementation, and of course, evaluation. And what I want you to know and remember is that the ADDIE model itself doesn't result in good learning outcomes. It's the instructional design principles, the theories, and the best practices that you utilize in each of those five steps that result in the creation of effective training and learning outcomes. And of course, as I've already alluded to, the ADDIE model isn't the only model out there that you have to follow. There are other models and processes out there like SAM and many more. All right, so I want to know what you think. Do you use the ADDIE model when designing, training, or learning? What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? What has been your experience with the ADDIE model? Share your thoughts by commenting down below. Otherwise, as always, I want to thank you so much for watching. If you haven't done so already, make sure to click that like, subscribe, and of course, that bell button to get alerted the next time I publish a video just like this one. And of course, join me inside the eLearning Designers Academy with the link down below to connect, network, and learn with others who are working to grow their instructional design and eLearning careers by focusing on their skills first. Otherwise, my name is Tim Slade, and until next time, I'll see you around.