Morrison Ross Kemp instructional design method

¶ … pre and post-Internet

In the 1970s, the innovative educational theorist J.E. Kemp created a model of instructional design in his book entitled Instructional design: A plan for unit and course development that stressed the need for teachers to create a lesson plan tailored to the needs of individual learners. Teachers must listen to their students and solicit creative solutions from students, rather than merely teach by rote. The objective of every lesson plan must be to foster student's innate problem-solving skills, rather than merely disseminate prescribed content. Teachers should approach every lesson plan as an experiment, as an interaction between the learner's needs and the course materials, rather than come to the classroom with preconceived notions of how to teach. Teachers should also make maximum use of all of the technology at their disposal to learn about the level of their student's abilities when designing lesson plans, as well as during and after the evolution of the pedagogical process.

Technologically, much has changed since the evolution of Kemp's model, such as the development of the Internet and the explosion of opportunities in online learning. Some teachers do not like the added physical distance of the online environment, finding it impersonal. But in many ways, the Internet can help teachers achieve Kemp's learning objectives. For example, rather than having to worry about scheduling individual meetings to discuss course content and student objectives, students and teachers can be in constant one-on-one contact through message boards and chat rooms. Teachers can also create individual assignments for students, targeted to student's specific needs, based upon what they have learned from feedback from the student's pretests, from what students have told them regarding what they wished to learn from the course, and finally through the information provided by assignments. Rather than keep a classroom of students with a variety of abilities at the same, steady pace, teachers can allow students to progress at student's own, personal levels of comfort and knowledge in an online format.

Even in 1971, Kemp's stated purpose was to be innovative, and make the maximum use of technology his era afforded, such as films, television and audiovisual materials. This is why today the Jerrold Kemp Design Model's holistic approach to instructional design is ideally suited for web-based course instruction. Virtually every possible individual factor in the learning environment us taken into consideration when creating a lesson plan -- there is no concept of a generic learner, rather every learner, and thus every class is unique. The primary purpose of instruction, according to Kemp, is that individual learner needs, goals, priorities, and constraints must be met, rather than a generalized objective of teaching a particular subject.

The student, and not the teacher is the center of the Kemp model. For example, a student taking an online course often has particular life constraints, such as a job, family, or an isolated location that can make it difficult to access materials. He or she is more often an adult or continuing student, thus these learner characteristics should be tailored, suggests the Kemp model, to the due dates and assignments given by the instructor. An online student's learning objectives are more likely to be practical or vocationally oriented, thus teaching activities and use of resources can and should be guided towards these objectives, suggests Kemp.

Also, crucial aspects of the Kemp design model are steps such as pre-testing, which ensures that the learner's needs are accommodated by the course syllabus. These steps are often more easily conveyed via an online format -- the pre-tests can be given well in advance, even before the class begins and the instructor and the pupil can even have an extended discussion through email as to what sorts of support services and methods of evaluation are most appropriate for his or her needs before the course takes place. The teaching process is creative and the course content design can be subject to constant revision, another advantage in a rapidly changing environment, where Internet courses may need to radically change their models from semester to semester, to meet new economic and technological content demands.