Is your design story limiting you? Purposefully perturbing our practices through instructional design "mashups"

Instructional designers are trained to choose instructional methods rationally by considering the conditions and outcomes associated with an instructional situation. However, designers come to these situations with their own design stories as well. Our design stories, constructed over time through learning and practice, not only provide meaning to what we do but also influence why we might perceive one instructional method as more useful than another. The authors argue that our stories, when blithely followed, can limit us from considering unconventional, creative solutions to instructional problems. To overcome this situation, the authors suggest that designers mash-up theory, content, and context in order to perturb their practices and create trouble from which innovative instructional solutions can emerge.