ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the instructional design process in ten steps. It begins with a description of ten design activities rather than steps. The reason for this is very simple. Though—theoretically—there are ten steps which could be followed in a specific order, in real-life instructional design projects it is common to switch between activities, yielding zigzag design behaviors as in the example given. The chapter describes these system dynamics. Be that as it may, a linear description of the activities is necessary to present a workable and understandable model description for a systematic approach to the design process. M. David Merrill proposed a pebble-in-the-pond approach for instructional design that is fully consistent with the Ten Steps. It is a content-centered modification of traditional instructional design in which the contents to be learned and not the abstract learning objectives are specified first. The Ten Steps will often be applied in the context of instructional systems design (ISD).
