Instructional Analysis Assignment


Prepare a goal analysis and an instructional analysis for your project. If your project is fairly large, you may hand in a partial analysis at this time to get feedback on its form and content. A partial analysis might consist of an analysis of the subordinate skills and objectives of just one or two of the steps identified in the goal analysis. I recommend choosing what looks like the hardest part of the analysis. You should do this because it ensures that you get feedback on the part where you probably need it most. After completing the hardest part, the rest will go much more smoothly. At the end of the semester, your project should contain the complete instructional analysis.

The instructional analysis should contain

  1. The overall instructional goal of the project
  2. The basic steps identified in the goal analysis, plus an identification of the type
    of learning involved in each one.
  3. A complete analysis of the subordinate skills and concepts that make up
    each of the steps. This should be carried through the first level of
    prerequisite skills and concepts (entry behaviors) you identify.

The format of your instructional analysis may vary widely, depending on the nature of your goals. Goals that are all verbal information and concepts may be presented most usefully as an outline. Skills of various sorts might be a flowchart, with tasks and decision points. If you are teaching a decision-making process, you might use a table of criteria and decisions.

The length of your analysis may vary widely as well. Obviously, the longer it is, the more you will have to teach later in the semester. If you find yours growing very long, we might want to find ways to cut it down.

Many of you will find that you need to combine different types of formats. Fine. Use the examples from the textbook and from class to help guide you. Remember: the key point is to convey the structure of what you want your students to learn. Your aim is to lay out a complete understanding of this small piece of knowledge and skills. This will be used to guide your development of the instruction that will teach it. In other circumstances it would also be used to communicate with subject-matter experts or other members of an instructional development team.

Classifying the Types of Learning in Your Project

Grading Criteria

 


© Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. Revised: February 13, 2008