Instructional Design and Technology Program

The Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) program provides professionals with the knowledge and skills to design effective and innovative learning solutions to instructional and performance problems.

Table of Contents

The IDT program focus includes:

Technology-Based Learning Environments leveraging current and emerging Learning Technologies

User Experience (UX) Design, UX Research Methods, Instructional Systems Design (ISD)

Learning Theory, Design Thinking, Prototyping Learning/Training Solutions

Integrating the best of Systematic Design Processes, current Learning Theory with Applied Research to solve Complex Learning and Performance Problems and improve Business Outcomes

Emphasis on collaboration, teamwork, and real-world project based experiences

Building your personal learning trajectory as a UX Design or ISD Professional!

Instructional Design and Technology Program

IDT program students and faculty receiving awards from AECT’s Division of Distance Learning

Watch this short video to hear firsthand from successful IDT graduates.

Learn more:

Quotes from the video

About the IDT program

“Our program is unique… We are creative, practical, analytical, dynamic, innovative… all put together.”

What’s instructional design?

“I like to think about it as using what we know about teaching and learning and training with current technology… Combine technology, education, adding a design aspect… Whether you are talking about K-12 learning or you are talking about corporate training… We move them more towards boiling it down to what people need to do right away to get things done”.

Why go back to college?

“A lot of professionals are actually doing instructional design, what we find though is that knowledge hasn’t been situated in a context where they know what they are doing… We were all instructional designers but I didn’t really have the training… I had been doing instructional design without knowing and creating e-learning very poorly… The field is constantly changing and you want to make sure that you are constantly staying up with the trends and always trying to adapt to what the new learning trends are.”

Why Mason’s program?

“I like to tell people that it took me from theory to practice… Learning instructional design by doing instructional design, from the start… You are pretty much doing four or five different projects… Each project is a new adventure… It’s very much like an actual project, we’re gonna do this this and this so we’re gonna need these tools, we need training in these tools… We partnered with another company on a team of people who are working with you, which is the best case scenario as an instructional designer… And we got to apply our instructional design training to a problem that they had… That was the great thing; it was practical, a real world project… You walk out and you can say I worked on this particular design, and this is how we put it together in a conceptual design, and then we evaluated it, and I think we do that better than anybody else.”

Job prospects?

“Our graduates go out really equipped and ready… The people coming out of this program have a reputation… Whether you want to go into a corporate setting or you want to go into consulting, students have choices… You become part of a network… Jobs that I’ve been in, people have asked for people out of my program… I got a job within a couple of months… We have a student who is at the Smithsonian, NASA, Defense Acquisition University, Sprint, Verizon… In my resume, I’m like how did that happen? And it’s really because of the staff, they teach you and then they mentor you as much as you need. It’s been what you would want out of a college experience.”