Instructional Development takes a different approach for the improvement of the institution, with a focus on the course, the curriculum and student learning. In this approach, instructors become members of a design or redesign team, working with instructional design specialists to identify appropriate course structures and teaching strategies to achieve the goals of instruction.

Instructional development programs can also examine how a course fits into the overall departmental and institutional curriculum; they help define instructional goals and methods that will maximize learning; they evaluate course effectiveness in terms of goal achievement; they support faculty in selecting and using teaching and learning technologies; and they produce or evaluate learning materials for use in the course. Many instructional development programs include a media design component.