Designing the Future: Investigating Budding Instructional Systems Designers' Sense of Agency and Learning in a Multi-cohort Complex Community

The field of Instructional Systems Design (ISD) draws from many theoretical models that are organically connected with the learning outcomes. However, in a regular ISD course, students are not given substantial practical exposure to apply theoretical insights. Hence, here we report on an atypical ISD course that targeted a real-life complex task of designing a website for the sensitization of teachers and peers towards disabled students. The participants of the course became the default IS designers, while the Persons with Disability (PwD) Cell of the Institute was the client. The class had people with different levels of expertise and, consequently, was divided into three cohorts- ‘X’- had crediting students, ‘Y’- had 2nd and 3rd year Ph.D. (auditing) students, and ‘Z’- had students nearing graduation/post-doctoral fellows (sitting through). These cohorts were further divided into four groups with members from different cohorts, and tasked with the design of modules on ADHD, Autism, Locomotor, or Visual disability. Motivated by earlier research with the multicohort community, we were interested in investigating younger members’ (cohort ‘X’) sense of agency and learning. We used a ‘social practice theory’ lens to conduct clinical interviews with all the ‘X’ cohort students and a few ‘Y’ cohort students (n= 10 + 4= 14). The qualitative data was analyzed using grounded theory methodology which suggests that the ‘X’ cohort students were able to exercise their agency while creating a troubleshooting space for their learning to flourish. The course's design and conduct have implications for both ISD practitioners and researchers.