Instructional design is to teaching as software engineering is to programming

Abstract

This special session will explore practical results from the educational theory of Instructional Design (ID), with particular focus on the widespread similarities between a process for creating successful courses and a process for creating successful software. We present a small set of specific practices that should be easy for CS educators to adopt. In particular, the session will cover the popular Dick & Carey model, meant for beginners to ID. This model helps instructors rigorously define who they will teach to, what they will teach, how they will assess, and (only then) how they will teach. The approach is parallel to Software Engineering techniques such as Test-Driven Development, Requirements Engineering, and Iterative Development. The session will be a blend of presentation, participation, and assessment. Participants will work in small groups both to foster discussion and to provide learning support. The content of the presentation will particularly focus on how the model can be applied practically. It is our hope that attendees, whether new to teaching or experienced, will adopt or be inuenced by the model in order to approach their courses with the same rigor they apply to software development.