I recently completed an instructional design activity using the ADDIE model, and it left me with a realization that felt both obvious and surprising at the same time. On one hand, I’ve always understood that instructional designers need to solve learning problems—that’s the whole point, right? But what this activity really revealed was how much we need systematic frameworks to do this effectively. Without them, we fall into these traps of assumption-driven design, where we think we know what learners need without actually checking. The ADDIE framework showed me that effective solutions require iteration, collaboration, and continuous evaluation—things that don’t always come naturally, even when you care deeply about education.
The Natural Flow of Problem-Solving (and Where It Goes Wrong)
Here’s the thing: the basic flow of instructional design feels intuitive. You identify problems, you address them, you design solutions, and you test if they work. It makes sense, right? But practicing ADDIE made me realize just how many ways this intuitive approach can go wrong.
First, there’s this huge gap between what we perceive as problems and what learners actually experience. I can imagine my frustrations and how I feel things would be better if only we did this, but was that really the problem? Or was I projecting my own anxieties about people and situations? This perception versus reality gap is so easy to fall into. We see surface-level behaviors and jump to conclusions without understanding the actual lived experiences of our learners.
Second, we design in isolation. When I was working with people, I had all these ideas and visions, but I wasn’t really bringing them into the conversation in a way that invited their input. I was expecting them to fill in the gaps of my vision. And that’s exactly what happens when we develop solutions without genuine insights from stakeholders: they become detached from real needs. The solutions might be elegant to us, but they’re not grounded in what people actually need or want.
Third, we assume our solutions will benefit others without actually validating through feedback. It’s this assumption trap that I fell into so completely. I thought if I just cared enough, if I just worked hard enough, if I just had the right vision, things would work out. But caring deeply doesn’t automatically translate to effective, or at least sustainable solutions. You have to check. You have to ask. You have to test.
These pitfalls aren’t signs of bad intentions or incompetence. They’re just what happens when we rely purely on intuition, even when that intuition comes from a place of genuine passion for learning.
The Value of Systematic Frameworks in Instructional Design
And here’s the paradox that the ADDIE activity made so clear: we know what instructional design should accomplish, but how to do it effectively isn’t natural or intuitive at all. It’s not enough to care about education. It’s not enough to understand that learning problems need solving. You need structure.
This is why frameworks like ADDIE matter so much. They transform implicit knowledge into explicit, actionable steps. They provide structure exactly where intuition falls short. Most importantly, they prevent us from jumping straight to solutions before we’ve really understood the problems we’re trying to solve.
The activity demonstrated this gap perfectly. I could articulate the need for good instructional design. I could talk about creating meaningful learning experiences. But actually practicing ADDIE showed me all the steps I would have skipped, all the assumptions I would have made, all the feedback I would have never sought. The framework forces you to do the hard work of actually checking your assumptions at every stage.
Core Principles ADDIE Reinforces
Working through ADDIE highlighted three principles that I intellectually understood but hadn’t really internalized.
First, iteration. Design is cyclical, not linear. You can’t just create something once and assume it works. Solutions require multiple rounds of refinement, and feedback loops need to be built into the process from the start. You’re constantly adjusting the environment, observing what happens, and adjusting again. You’re not designing once and declaring victory.
Second, collaboration. Multiple perspectives prevent blind spots. The framework explicitly engages stakeholders throughout the entire process, not just at the beginning or end. You’re incorporating insights from learners, subject matter experts, other educators, administrators, everyone who touches the learning experience. I think about those warm, collaborative professors I’ve had, the ones where people engage the most. They weren’t working in isolation. They were creating space for multiple voices, multiple perspectives. That’s collaboration built into the design itself.
Third, continuous evaluation. Assessment doesn’t just happen at the end. It happens at every single stage, during analysis, design, development, and implementation. You’re constantly validating your assumptions before they become embedded in your solutions. This was the piece I was missing most with my groupmates. I had all these ideas, but I never really stopped to evaluate whether they were landing, whether they made sense, whether they aligned with what people actually needed or wanted.
Implications for Instructional Designers
So what does all of this mean for me, and for anyone who wants to do this work?
Our expertise isn’t in having all the answers. It’s in facilitating a rigorous process. That’s a big shift in how I was thinking about things. I used to think being a good educator meant simply having the right vision, the right passion, the right ideas. But it’s actually also about having the right process. It’s about being systematic enough that your biases and assumptions don’t take over.
Frameworks like ADDIE aren’t restrictive. They’re actually liberating. They free you from the burden of having to intuitively know everything. They ground you in learner needs instead of your own projections. They help you resist that temptation to skip directly to solution-building, which is so tempting when you’re excited about an idea.
This requires a real mindset shift, from “solution provider” to “systematic problem-solver.” I can’t just show up with my passion and my ideas and expect that to be enough. I need to show up with a process, with structure, with a commitment to checking and validating and iterating. That’s what it means to meet people where they are. That’s what it means to cultivate instead of control.
Conclusion
The ADDIE activity taught me something I probably should have known all along: effective instructional design requires moving beyond intuition to embrace systematic frameworks. Even when you care deeply. Even when you have good intentions. Even when you’re genuinely passionate about learning.
ADDIE protects us against those common pitfalls—the perception gaps, the design isolation, the assumption traps. It gives us structure where structure is desperately needed. And ultimately, our commitment to frameworks like ADDIE is a commitment to serving learners authentically rather than assuming we know what they need.
Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Creating the conditions for learning, not controlling the learning itself. And you can’t create good conditions through intuition alone. You need systematic approaches. You need iteration. You need collaboration. You need continuous evaluation.