Susan M. Land

Cheat Sheet / Updated 04-12-2024

Instructional design is a profession within the field of education. It focuses on how to create effective instructional experiences that can then be applied to a variety of settings, such as corporate training, the military, higher education, or other educational spaces such as museums, libraries, or nonprofit organizations. Instructional design professions are sometimes referred to using different labels, such as instructional technology, learning experience design, learning design, or training. Although slightly different, all share a common focus on education and design. In a nutshell, instructional design can be defined as a principled process of planning and creating instructional materials, activities, and technologies that support learning. The practices of instructional design are based on principles of learning and instruction, so when you use instructional design, you apply best practices for designing successful learning experiences.