Implementation and Evaluation: A dream or a blueprint

The final phases of ADDIE are often our "ultimate goal" when trying to incorporate an innovation into our teaching and learning practice. I would like to suggest that we rather look at the IE as our blueprint. A blueprint for what the next cycle of ADDIE should be in this particular scenario.

Instructional design should be, and almost always is, an iterative process. Just because you have completed one cycle of ADDIE, does not mean that you have now successfully implemented an innovative prototype and can move on. We should be using the implementation phase to document EVERYTHING that happens when we are able to put our plan from the first 3 phases into action. With the evaluation phase, everything that has come before, especially your notes from the implementation phase, is very important. Here you take time to reflect on where you have come from, what the initial problem and assumptions were, how you expected the change to be accepted and adopted, and what has actually happened. Once this is done, you are more than likely to come up with new questions for analysis, and so the cycle begins again.

As a reflection of this, and guideline, here is the completed diagram for this module:

Hopefully, this completed diagram is one that you are able to plot your assignment on. If not, that is OKAY! Context is important, theory is important, and as a result, your assignment should be different from that in another institution, department or module. The important thing is for you to be able to philosophically discuss why yours is different and why it should remain that way.

Congratulations on completing your first cycle, or at least a part of it, with ADDIE. From here we can only move forward, and back, and forward again :)