This guide is designed to help teachers and administrators in higher education who are responsible for developing courses and other instructional products to become more aware of current research and thinking on systematic instructional development. Taken together, the five modules of the guide present a model for planning instruction and offer a set of activities to explore how this process can be adapted to both the academic and corporate environments. Each module of the guide focuses on a particular facet of systematic instructional development, and provides practical suggestions for addressing institutional requirements and learner needs in each step of the process. The basic phases of the process provide the overall structure for the guide. Where issues are considered controversial, opposing points of view have been included. In some modules articles have been included at the end to provide additional depth. The titles of the five modules are as follows: (1) "A systematic Approach to Instructional Development"; (2) "Assessing the Needs of Learners"; (3) "Formulating Objectives that Encourage Achievement"; (4) "Assessing the Outcomes of Instruction"; and (5) "Designing Activities that Facilitate Learning." An index and reference list of 76 resources are provided. (JB)