10 Instructional Design Training Courses

1. Instructional Design

EdApp’s Instructional Design course contains a helpful guide on the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) model and other tips on creating course materials. Your instructional designers will learn about the key steps involved in each instructional design model’s phases. They’ll also get to explore how to develop training courses that give results and create learning maps that are suited to their learner’s training requirements. Some of the lessons even touch on how to create sample instructional materials.

One of the biggest perks of this free instructional design course is that your team can access and complete it on any device, allowing a more flexible and user-friendly training experience. And since EdApp uses a gamification approach in its lessons, they can expect interactive games and mini quizzes that are sure to make learning fun and enjoyable. 

• Cost: Free
• Certification: Available (proof of learning only)
• Scope: ADDIE model, key steps for ADDIE model phases, learning maps, creating sample instruction, training instructors

Created by EdApp

3. Instructional Design Foundations and Applications

Hosted on Coursera, the Instructional Design Foundations and Applications course is offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a foundational training program for aspiring instructional designers. It helps build the groundwork for good instructional design with conceptual, historical, and theoretical concepts. One of the lessons even talks about various analytical activities related to instructional design, including how they’re used to fine-tune the training process. 

By the end of this course, your instructional designers should be able to identify learning and instructional theories, understand the major concepts and models of instructional design, and describe its entire process. It usually takes approximately 13 hours to complete the entire course and upon passing the final assessment, your employees will have the opportunity to get a free instructional design certificate.

• Cost: Free
• Certification: Available
• Scope: Conceptual and historical foundations of instructional design, theoretical foundations of instructional design, design models, instructional design analyses

Created by Coursera

5. Learning design basics: pedagogy into practice

Learning design basics: pedagogy into practice is a comprehensive instructional design training course created by OpenLearning. In a nutshell, it aims to help instructional designers use the Constructivist theory of education in their instructional design processes and practice designing interactive learning experiences for their learners. 

As they go through the lessons, they’ll learn how to design an effective learning program structure and write measurable and attainable goals and learning objectives. They’ll also discover different ways to develop course content and evaluate the effectiveness of their learning program. 

To wrap up the course, each learner will be required to build their own instructional design project where they can apply all the lessons they’ve learned throughout the training program. OpenLearning’s course is free, but a certificate of completion is available for an additional fee of 50 AUD.

• Cost: Free
• Certification: Available (for an additional 50 AUD)
• Scope: Designing a learning program structure, writing measurable learning outcomes, developing a learning program's content, evaluating the effectiveness of a learning program

Created by OpenLearning

6. Instructional Design: Course Development

Designed by the University of California, Irvine Division of Continuing Education, this FutureLearn course helps instructional designers gain the skills needed to create courses using learning management systems (LMSs) and other external tools. First, it takes learners through course planning basics like course mapping and resource selection. 

As instructional designers progress through the 3-week course, they’ll also learn about the foundational elements of an LMS and how they can be used to align with learning needs. They’ll also gain a better understanding of the importance of using style guides and course templates and the perks of using external apps to enhance learning. 

The last few lessons focus more on quality metrics and important e learning standards used to design effective course materials. There’s also an activity where designers will learn how to do quality reviews that make sure online course design standards are met. If they want to get a digital certificate of completion from FutureLearn, they can either buy the course for 79 USD or subscribe to their paid plan, which starts at 27.99 USD per month.

• Cost: Free trial, paid plan starts at 27.99 USD or one-off course payment for 79 USD
• Certification: Digital certificate
• Scope: Course planning basics, course materials and tasks, LMS comparison, templates and style guides, external apps, and LTI tools

Created by FutureLearn

8. Instructional Design and Technology: Learning Theories

Offered on edX for free, Instructional Design and Technology: Learning Theories discusses fundamental interactive technologies and learning theories that are needed to create engaging learning environments. It tackles topics such as behaviorism, constructivism, cognitivism, and andragogy. It also explores more complex learning theories like experiential learning, project-based learning, service learning, and gamification. 

Lastly, the course delves into the role that technology plays in learning and development. By the end of the training program, learners will be able to have a solid foundation in design thinking. They’ll also know how to apply the different learning theories in their work as instructional designers.

• Cost: Free (Optional upgrade)
• Certification: Available (Only with upgraded plans)
• Scope: Learning environment, learning theories like behaviorism, constructivism, and cognitivism, complex learning theories like experiential learning, project-based learning, and gamification

Created by edX

10. Online Course Creation: Introduction to Instructional Design

Skillshare’s Online Course Creation: Introduction to Instructional Design highlights the basic online teaching principles, including pedagogies, elearning, authoring tools, and storytelling. It guides your instructional designers through quantifying learning styles and ways to immerse their learners in different learning experiences. Some of the lessons also go into more detail about important instructional design topics like storyboarding, quality checking, ROI measurement, content curation, and standardization. 

The full course has a total of 48 video lessons that your team can complete in two hours. But unfortunately, this lengthy training program can be difficult to get through if they struggle with a shorter attention span.

• Cost: 32 USD per month
• Certification: Not available
• Scope: What is instructional design, pedagogy, blending pedagogies, authoring tools, action mapping, measuring ROI, storyboarding, style guides

Created by Skillshare