Title: Exploration - Programming & Instructional Design
Course: CIT 641 1001 - 2025 Sumr > Section: Week 4

Explore

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Many things are rapidly changing for instructional designers. Technologies are advancing so quickly that it is difficult to determine how to keep abreast of the most valuable tools. For this exploration, we step back from the tools and revisit what we are doing when we conceptualize and design instructional materials. By retracing our steps to the original specifications of what we are developing, we can better address many important considerations regarding our instruction, including UDL. Watch this video where an OpenAI engineer walks us through the importance of 'specs'. While he is most directly addressing programmers, it is equally applicable to our work as instructional designers. Substitute the word programmer with instructional designer and artifact with instructional materials. Pay special attention to how Sean describes a written specification and the artifact. Consider the possibility that if we get the specification of our instruction correct, the artifacts will flow naturally, if not automatically, from that specification.

Here is a table generated by ChatGPT that provides a crosswalk of the ideas described in the video and our challenges as instructional designers seeking to implement UDL.

Programmer Instructional Designer Crosswalk
AI/Spec Design Challenge | UDL Instructional Design Parallel
Communicating clear intentions and success criteria | Defining flexible learning goals and success metrics
Aligning diverse stakeholders through shared artifacts | Coordinating across faculty, accessibility experts, and learners
Preventing ambiguity and misinterpretation in behavior | Designing inclusive learning paths that minimize confusion and bias
Specifications enabling AI alignment | UDL guidelines aligning pedagogy, materials, and assessment
Testing models against nuanced prompts | Testing learning experiences with diverse learners, contexts, and tools

Compare and contrast

Share a brief reaction to the talk and how it might change your thinking regarding the design of instruction.