Interdependence Helps with Evolution

Section 5: Trends and Issues in Various Settings

The chapters in this section identify trends and issues with instructional design and technology in a variety of settings: military, health care, P-12, higher education, and around the world. In this week’s blog post, tell which setting you are working in or intend to work in. Then identify one thing that you learned from reading about each of the other settings and explain how that concept, idea, or approach could be adapted to your setting.

Page 178 of our text makes the following declaration to start this section:

Instructional design today encompasses much more than simply producing instruction. It is now associated with analyzing human performance problems, identifying root causes of those problems, considering a variety of solutions to address the root causes,and determining and implementing the appropriate solutions (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2008).

Because of this new broad definition of instructional design, more crossover exists between different arenas and strategies that apply to broader audiences.  I am a technology/robotics teacher at a public school.  One of the things that most teachers will agree on is that “good teaching is good teaching,” meaning some standard strategies apply to most all children no matter their level.  The same tenet goes for instructional design.  This section encourages me to glean from a variety of arenas to hone my instructional design techniques. Below are the ideas from several different arenas that I plan to use in my school setting:

Ideas from business and industry: 

Businesses hire external instructional designers to assess their effectiveness and design instruction accordingly:  I think I can change the way I view observation walk-throughs by my administration.  Instead of waiting for them to randomly happen, I should proactively ask for an observation to help with my overall delivery.  That would require an increase in my humility, but would ultimately make me more prepared to effectively teach and learn.

They use technology as a training solution:  Now that we have www.edmodo.com, I could set up folders in the links and attachments library that have articles to help my students with common issues.  Also, I could do a better job of creating platforms, like blogs for them to offer technical support to each.

Ideas from the military:

The military explores high- and low-tech options as solutions to problems with training design (page 189).  I think that we as teachers are too quick to assume that a high-tech answer is the best route for delivering information.  There are sites and apps for pretty much anything that can be imagined and the accessibility to these technologies has increased with whole districts having 1:1 laptop and iPad to student ratios.  I was teaching a lesson in the computer lab where students were to post their responses to www.corkboard.me .  It is a virtual corkboard where students “pin” virtual post it notes and type their answers.  However, I spent more time correcting behavior—students were purposely typing on other student’s notes, resizing their notes so that they covered the entire screen, etc.  Since that lesson earlier this year, my new mantra is “sometimes a post-it note just needs to be a post-it note.” As I plan every lesson, I want to make sure, like the military, that I am using the most effective mode of delivery, be it low- or high-tech.

Ideas from healthcare:

Problem-Based Learning versus Evidence-Based Medicine-As I read this section, I could not help but think about the way teachers traditionally learn.  We follow an arc similar to that of med students in that we go to school for training, observe, teach under supervision, then we are deemed ready for the classroom.  However, the switch to Evidence-Based Medicine is interesting in its emphasis on physicians finding evidence from medical literature.  I have decided to become more of a scholar-teacher.  Currently, my first reflex when I encounter a problem is to talk to other teachers.  I rarely ever look for educational literature written by experts.  One of my first steps was enrolling in TAMU-C.  My next step is going to be to read Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov over the winter break with a friend who teaches my same age group.  Please list any books that have been helpful to you in the comments section.  I am looking forward to building my library and learning to do scholarly research reflexively as I encounter issues in instructional delivery and design.

 

Ideas from higher education around the world:

Instructors are content experts but may not be pedagogical experts (page 218, 221).  This was a resounding theme in this chapter from instructors around the world.  I feel like teachers in P-12 are just the opposite—we know pedagogy, but not necessarily all of the nuances of our content (theory, instructional history, etc.).  In fact, I think that pedagogy prowess is valued more highly than content expertise.  That would explain how districts can so easily reassign teachers to new content and grade levels for arbitrary reasons like fluctuating enrollment numbers. My goal is to continue to dive deeper into my content until I am a true subject matter expert and resource for my students and colleagues.