Evolving Into Studio

Instructional design is practiced in a real-world setting; it should be learned in a setting like the one where it is practiced. As the practices themselves change, it becomes more natural for this to happen. This study of one design instructor’s experience over nearly 50 years demonstrates a path of evolution out of teaching design in a standard classroom, in which practice is secondary to didactics, into a studio setting, where didactics tend to occur after the student has experienced a need. This study uses the changing landscape of instructional design from about 1970 to show why training that includes studio experience is becoming a new imperative. I will describe four historical stages in the evolution of the designer’s working environment to illustrate how design has acquired a more social aspect than ever before. Today’s emerging views of design are more likely to take into account how expert designers think and how teams work together collaboratively. In a changed professional world, studio training has become a new standard: one that supplies many of the intangible skills that can no longer be taken for granted. The Evolution of Instructional Design Knowing where design and design training should go depends on where it has been. My personal view of the past is framed, of course, by my own experience. For me, the evolution of instructional design as a field of practice can be summarized in four general phases: • A revolutionary phase in which the idea of designed instruction was fresh and new and began to form into a body of practice. • A tooling phase in which computers and authoring tools became the