The Accidental Instructional Designer: Learning Design for the Digital Age

by Cammy Bean

The argument for this model is that it saves time and speeds up development. By empowering experts to author the content directly, we can more quickly get the necessary information to our employees so they can do their jobs better. On the other hand, most SMEs don’t know much about adult learning and instructional design. Their expertise revolves around content. With such a narrow focus on the details and intricacies of their content, SMEs typically don’t have a sense of the big picture or the expertise to structure content and activities in a meaningful way to teach skills and transfer knowledge. So instead of meaningful training experiences, they create slide after slide of text bullets, uninspired clip art, and a few poorly written multiple choice questions to test “understanding” at the end of the program. Let’s face it, the CBT Lady is probably a SME turned instructional designer.

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