Open systems metaphor in instructional design

In the information age innovative instructional deign is essential for every country. Instructional design has to be a continuous research and development process for the refinement and reorganization of information intent and the activity content of educational attempts. Systems concepts are adopted to illustrate the organized complexity of instructional process. The physical setting, the network of social interactions, instructional media, teaching methods and the teacher are identified as the major structural components of the instructional system. Every kind of stimulation from the external environment of any instructional unit in any form is an input to the system. Money, material, information and people are just a few examples of inputs. The ultimate expected outputs of an instructional system are wisdom and virtue. The work done by the system between the input and the output is called the thruput. Communication and interaction are primary thruput processes in instructional systems as learning being the expected result. None of the components by themselves can be an alternative to the whole system but complement each other in a dynamic interrelationship. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved