Our purpose in this book is twofold. First, we introduce the basic skill set and knowledge base used by practicing instructional designers. We do this through chapters contributed by experts in the field who have either academic, research-based backgrounds, or practical, on-the-job experience (or both). Our goal is that students in introductory instructional design courses will be able to use this book as a guide for completing a basic instructional design project. We also hope the book is useful as a ready resource for more advanced students or others seeking to develop their instructional design knowledge and skills.

Our second purpose complements the first: to introduce instructional designers to some of the most current views on how the practices of design thinking contribute towards the development of effective and engaging learning environments. While some previous books have incorporated elements of design thinking (for example, processes like prototyping), to date no instructional design textbook focuses on design-oriented thinking as the dominant approach for creating innovative learning systems. Our aim is to provide resources to faculty and students for learning instructional design in a manner consistent with a design-oriented worldview. But because the classic approaches to instructional design are still important for many professionals, we also include chapters that introduce some of the traditional, systematic processes for designing instructional environments. We hope this blend of traditional and innovative views provides readers with a competitive advantage in their own work, providing them with a larger set of conceptual tools to draw on as they address the professional challenges they face.