As a DBL blog author, I will be focusing on how instructional design and technology theories and principles can help libraries better design and provide instruction to their patrons. I hope to take you on a journey with me as we look at what instructional design and technology is all about and how we as librarians can integrate it into our instructional processes.

So where do we start our journey. I suggest we start with what it is we hope to accomplish, that is by integrating these techniques and tools into our instructional process – we improve learning. A favorite quote of mine from John Dewey comes to mind.

“Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone’s knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.”

So might it be useful to have a philosophy of teaching to help guide us as we apply instructional design and technology theories and principles? I think it could help all of us to have our own basic philosophy.  The following is an excerpt I wrote for a Penn State University Libraries Instruction Tips and Techniques Blog.

“Because our instruction sessions are constrained by many factors which limit our ability to teach and reinforce information literacy skills and knowledge – what I believe is most important is that we are “guides by the side” of the student purposely creating conditions that allow students to experience first hand the ideas we are trying to teach. If we as librarians at the university were to have a general teaching philosophy I think that it would have to be broad enough to allow for flexibility and creativity while not being too broad so that it would be rendered meaningless. Here is my own teaching philosophy… to enable the learner to actively experience the concepts, knowledge, or skills, that are being presented through the use of appropriate learning theories, instructional strategies, learning tools, and activities which results in the learner attaining a better comprehension of the presented material.” http://www.instruction.motime.com/post/547992#comment

In my next blog we will look at what basic instructional design is.