PLANETARIUM DIRECTOR AS INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNER

In many of our job descriptions you will find responsibilities listed  requiring skills such as: planetarium operation, design and delivery of presentations, or the design of outreach astronomy programs.  These descriptions many times include the selection and maintenance of related technologies.    Many of the presentations we author, coordinate, produce and deliver in the planetarium can benefit from sound principals of instructional design.  Specifically, many are Computer Assisted Presentations (CAP) rather than  Computer Based Training (CBT) normally referenced in the instructional design field.

On the job, we pull together an array of multi-media, and related technologies under a virtual sky (the planetarium).  We deliver and enhance instruction about our place within, and how we relate to the universe.  We enable visitors to construct mental and sometimes physical models demonstrating the motions of the Earth in its solar system, and the location of our solar system within the visible universe.     

The environment created by the planetariums we work in, aids in the process.    Students can identify with what they see in the sky on a daily/nightly basis, and expand their awareness of their position in the universe.  When delivered with proper instructional strategies which include aspects of entertainment, the planetarium becomes a proven effective tool.  It can increase student motivation and inspire further self exploration of astronomical science.

By description then, the planetarium director is an instructional technologist.  We can be guided to higher levels of excellence utilizing the theory of instructional systems design.  ISD (through the process of analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation) becomes integral to the success of our programs.  Many of us have intuitively figured this out whether we address it as ISD or not.  Many of us do perform to varied degrees most the the basic steps of the ISD process..

Currently we see trends that  have reduced our staffing.  School systems that do not see achievement in meeting state guidelines will close the facilities due to their inherent costs and difficulty in finding properly trained staff.  Many facilities operate with directors that were appointed, sometimes as transfers from unrelated fields.   Most of us constitute one-person planetarium operations.  This has caused the role of many planetarium directors to be multi-faceted. Many positions now require us to take the role of instructional technologist and instructional designer.  In this role, we must become familiar with emerging technologies and how to effectively use them to augment the presentations we design and deliver.

Most all within our field have an amazing dedication to what we do.  The delivery of a presentation where you know from audience feedback and interaction that is successful, can afford an amazing satisfaction and elation.  Engaging the audience in finding their place in the Universe will lead you to successful presentations.  Make it a goal to guide your audience in discovery .  It is their show, it is about their place in space, and you have the privilege to be their guide.

Originally Submitted by Ted Williams,
Instructional Design and Technology
Philadelphia University Graduate Program 2002
Updated for MAPS website 2007