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Reconceiving ISD: Three Perspectives on Rapid Prototyping as a Paradigm Shift.

Rathbun, Gail A.; And Others

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Abstract: Confronting recent design challenges, instructional designers have latched onto adaptive procedural techniques from outside the Instructional Systems Design (ISD) field. This discussion of rapid prototyping (RP) examines the perspectives of: (1) the prototype as the designer"s cognitive tool; (2) the designer as co- inquirer; and (3) the practitioner as producer of knowledge. It brings to the foreground key issues often passed over in the discussion of instructional design models--the importance of knowledge derived in doing and the seldom-examined assumptions underlying a "scientific" approach to design. In RP, designers bring a product into being through the creation of successive prototypes. The intermediate prototypes become an important means of getting feedback as the design and development process become intertwined. Viewing RP as a "tool-for- thought" challenges the design/development hierarchy reflected in traditional instructional design models; the act of conceptualizing is integrated into the act of practice. When development is seen as "concrete knowing" or "bricolage," development can be elevated to the status that design now holds in the traditional view of ISD as "design, then development." The designer, in the act of doing, uses the prototype as a tool of inquiry and the hierarchical relationship between design and development is equalized. When rapid prototyping is viewed primarily as an inquiry tool that may be used collaboratively with nondesigners, the designer's responsibility is to support collaborative investigation. The highly iterative nature of RP involves frequent evaluation and revisiting of the problems addressed and created by the product under development. The mockup or prototype becomes the focal point for the group's critique, idea generation, and idea testing. (Contains 24 references.) (AEF)

Title: Reconceiving ISD: Three Perspectives on Rapid Prototyping as a Paradigm Shift.
Author: Rathbun, Gail A.; And Others
Note: 7p.; In: Proceedings of Selected Research and Development Presentations at the 1997 National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (19th, Albuquerque, NM, February 14-18, 1997); see IR 018 421.
Publication Year: 1997
Document Type: Project Description (141); Conference Paper (150)
Target Audience: Practitioners
ERIC Identifier: ED409862
Clearinghouse Identifier: IR018451