A brief history of Instructional Development

The article by Sharon Shrock was enjoyable to me for a least two obvious reasons. First, as the name implies it was brief. And second, it is a history. I love the study of history! When I hear people say they can't stand history, I find it hard to believe. Everyone has some part of history that they find fascinating- the history of theatre, baseball, their hometown, their family, a favorite actor/actress, etc.. Part of having an interest in something is (in my opinion) knowing something of its history- what makes it the unique thing that it is.

As Shrock examines the history of instructional development (ID), she touches on hot the government and the military each influenced the emerging field of ID. I thought it was interesting to note the practice of evaluating instruction was being done for 35 years before it was called formative evaluation. It seems that parts of the ID process have been awhile since one person was trying to instruct another person in something. I like how this article gives a brief glimpse into the gathering of the different parts of ID under one umbrella.