A Designer’s Log Case Studies in Instructional Design- P7:This book deals with the design of distance education at an emerging dual-mode university, that is, a university offering courses both on-campus and via distance education or online in a variety of manners. It was written from the point of view of an instructional designer (ID) working alongside university professors in designing their courses for distance delivery | rather than on contents was from a design standpoint essential. But my explanation didn t seem to influence him. Consequently aware of the risk that he could decide at any minute to completely stop the design of his course I decided to forego development temporarily. We spent the rest of our meeting discussing pedagogical strategies he might adopt in his course. A linear model requiring systematic precision and rigour and structured with fixed design steps - despite its being very prominent in academicbased literature on ISD design theory - is a hard sell to professors with little time or patience. Their needs are of two types immediate and specific. Even if I try to be linear and systematic in my application of the ISD model I feel pressure to answer very specific needs help in designing an exam enriching a case study designing a graphic representation for a PowerPoint etc. which normally should be addressed at a later step in the application of the ISD model. My attempts at prompting him to complete the steps of the model in sequence seem to diminish his will to carry on. He often says to me that the model is very structured doubtlessly meaning it s too structured . I thus find myself in a trade-off situation I simply can t stand firm on principle without affecting the professor s motivation to continue so I must deviate from applying the classical ISD model. This puts me in an intolerable position because on the one hand if I agree to betray the most fundamental principles of instructional design doing so will likely result in a relatively inferior course. On the other hand if I do not manage to respond to his perceived needs he may abandon the design process. It is a classic dilemma. Ultimately this situation has been created by the professor s lack of time to accomplish this task given his numerous other responsibilities. Accepting to lose this battle while still hoping to win the war I then moved on to the next step in the method that of an analysing the .
