Week 5 Reflection

Chapters in Section V identify trends and issues in IDT in various contexts: business & industry;

military; health care education; P-12 education; and post-secondary education. Select at least 3
of these 5 contexts and compare/contrast the IDT trends and issues. Then explain how they are
similar or different from the IDT trends and issues in the context in which you work.

The three areas I chose to discuss were: business & industry, military and health care education.  I had some difficulty deciding how to present my thoughts so I created a graphic organizer because these three fields are vastly different. This organizer helped me to arrange my thoughts on how they are similar and different instead of trying to type it out in paragraph form.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

Trends & Issues

Business & Industry                                      Military                                   Health Care Education

Primary arena for ID                        Funding/Budget constraints                The medical field is the

                                                                                                                      leader in developing

Growth & expansion of                   Designers must develop                       ID methods

corporations beyond                        training for dissimilar audiences

country boundaries                                                                                       Knowledge advances

                                                         Training is integrated into the              rapidly change and

Time & money constraints               workplace/training represents             currency and integrity

                                                          larger day-to-day activities                 are concerns

Designers must develop

cross-cultural training                      Does not employ professional             Designers must focus

                                                          instructors like the private sector        on problem based

Designers may work solo,                so designers must create lessons          learning when creating

be part of a team, or be an                to “train the trainer.”                            trainings

external consultant

                                                                                                                       Educational methods

                                                                                                                       of multimedia and

                                                                                                                       simulation have                                                                                                                        increased

In relation to how these areas are similar to my work situation. I believe time and resource constraints are issues dealt with across the board.  Each sector must come up with ways to pay for training and someone to develop the training.  Another similarity is the cultural changes occurring around the world.  All areas must identify ways to reach dissimilar audiences. 

  

 

  

 

Week 4 Reflection

1. Chapter 14 discusses the concept and evolution of human performance improvement. Several sections of chapter 14 present a variety of non-instructional solutions to performance problems. Identify a performance problem in your area of work and identify non-instructional solutions that may help solve the problem. 

According to Internaltional Socieity for Performance Improvement, “Human Performance Improvement (HPI), uses a wide range of interventions that are drawn from many other disciplines, including total quality management, process improvement, behavioral psychology, instructional systems design, organizational development, and human resources management."

An issue I have run into this year is having students in my classroom that are from families that do not speak English as the primary language at home. While these students came to kindergarten this year knowing some basic English I have noticed they are having difficulties with ELA lessons. I am ESL certified so I am capable of helping these students in class but I find that when I am sending homework home the families may not know exactly what to do with it. I am fairly certain I am not the only teacher to have this problem on my campus so my solution would be for each grade level to host a family homework night where they can train ALL families (especially those which are culturally diverse) with explicit instructions on how to help their child at home. In kindergarten the focus could be on literacy activities. The homework we send could be changed to interactive homework so the family can be involved and to show the child that learning is fun and their family thinks it’s important.  

2. Chapter 15 presents performance support systems. Define performance support systems and explain how a performance support system might (or might not) help solve the problem you identified above.

Performance Support Systems (PPS) are tools/resources a user can utilize to solve a problem/issue when needed.  PPS could definitely be utilized to help solve the problem listed above.  Grade-level teachers would need to meet together to discuss the type of homework they intend to send home during the year and how they will train the parents. The teachers would need to create handouts with the directions for parents and even consider having the handouts translated into another language if needed.  It would also be beneficial to show parents how to access online technology available to them that their children use at school. Having typed up handouts with these instructions would also be useful.

3. Chapter 16 explains knowledge management: the way we manage information, share that information, and use it to solve organization problems. Organizations, such as schools, accumulate a great deal information/data, which must be organized in a way that we can make sense of it in order to use for making decisions. What knowledge would help solve the problem you identified above and how would that knowledge need to be collected and managed to help facilitate problem solving? 

The students I mentioned above are also non-ESL students. Meaning their parents did not indicate that another language other than English is the primary language at home. This is an entirely different problem as parents are not informed when they fill out registration papers that this information could be used to enroll students in ESL and inform them exactly what ESL is and that it is not a bilingual program and that their child would be enrolled in a general ed. classroom and pulled out for ESL instruction. Data that teachers would need to prepare for their parent homework training night would be how fluent in English all the parents in their classroom are and what language is spoken predominately at home. Since many non-English speaking parents are cautious about sharing this information it could be gathered anonymously either by questionnaire or through an online survey.  This information would be used solely for the purpose of preparing for the parent homework training night and shared just with the grade level teachers. 

4. Chapter 17 describes types of informal learning. What informal learning experiences have you participated in at your organization? Could those informal learning experiences be shared with others? Could the knowledge gained in those settings be codified and managed? And should it be managed or should the informal experiences be replicated or broadened for others?

Much of my knowledge about using instructional technology has been acquired through informal learning. I use the website Pinterest many times during the week. I check out what my friends and fellow educators are “pinning” to use in their classrooms. I seek out more information on my own, see how they implement it in their classrooms, and try to see if I can use it and how I can use it in my own classroom.  I do not have to sit in workshops or trainings on how to use technology can I learn about it on my own and it is driven by my interest.  Many times I take these new ideas and share them with my colleagues and/or friends.  Things I learn about on Pinterest can be codifed by creating new “pins” on my boards but it is my opinion that most informal learning cannot be codified or managed.  Your personal experiences are your own and it is difficult to “manage” experiences. 

Week 3 Reflection

1. Chapter 10 discusses evaluation in instructional design and provides you with two evaluation models, the CIPP and Kirkpatrick models for evaluation. Search for at least two other models used for evaluation and summarize these models. Describe how you would use them to evaluate your instruction. According to Michael Scriven, “evaluation is the process of determining the merit, worth, and value of things, and evaluations are the products of that process.”  Why is important for educators to be concerned with evaluation?  The reason is that states and districts need a way to identify effective administrators and teachers.  The way to identify effectiveness in our schools is by measuring students’ growth by measuring their gains. Teachers cannot rely alone on how their students perform on state assessments to show their effectiveness. What about primary level teachers whose students do not take state assessments?  All educators need to reflect frequently on their instruction and evaluate it more than just once a year when STAAR testing comes around.  The two models for evaluation that I found were the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model and  Ralph Tyler’s Evaluation Model.  I chose these two models because they focus on educational evaluation and many of the other models seemed geared toward business training evaluation. 

The Marzano Model consists of four domains:

·         Domain 1:  Classroom strategies & behaviors

·         Domain 2:  Planning & preparing

·         Domain 3:  Reflecting on Teaching

·         Domain 4:  Collegiality & Professionalism

By following these domains which provide clear strategies and measureable goals educators can ensure they obtain their main goal as an educator:  Student Achievement.  What attracts me to the Marzano Model is according to the Marzano Center the main features of the model are as follows:

• Identifies the direct cause-and-effect relationship between teaching practices and student achievement .

·         Helps teachers and leaders make informed decisions to yield the greatest benefits for their students.

·         Makes steady, measurable increases in student achievement an achievable goal.

The Ralph Tyler Evaluation Model is also referred to as the Objective Model. Tyler identified four questions that must be asked for effective classroom instruction. They were:

·         What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?

·         How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives?

·         How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?

·         How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?

The Tyler Model is a goal-based model.  Before any data is collected Tyler stated that goals (learning objectives) must be established.  Next, the educator needs to establish useful learning experiences (activities).  Then, organize learning experiences to have a maximum cumulative effect. Lastly, evaluate the curriculum and revise those aspects that did not prove effective.

  

2. Reflect on what other questions that instructional design evaluation should address besides whether the instructional design leads to comparable amounts of learning and learner satisfaction as traditional methods. What else would be useful to know?

Items useful to know are: how will data be collected, how the data will be used, and what you will do with the findings.  By reflecting on these items you will better be able to measure your objectives and be able to use the information you collect.

3. Chapter's 12 & 13 focus on project management and how to manage projects when resources are scarce. You have been assigned to develop a series of professional development sessions focusing on technology use in the classroom for teachers during a time of economic decline. How will you use Situational Leadership to facilitate this project and manage scarce resources? 

Use of technology in the classroom does not require you to go out and buy equipment or software.  I would develop my professional development series around what the teachers at the school already had access to The title could be, “Classroom Tech Trends, From Beginning to End.”  Each workshop in the series would focus on different times in the course of the school year teachers could implement technology in their class.  . So many teachers have found ways to use technology in their classrooms that I would form a team of teachers to help me develop the series and find what instructional technologies we could share. Even before a student steps into the classroom there are many ways to start integrating technology in preparing the management of your classroom. For example, when students came visit me at Meet the Teacher Night this year I had their parents sign up to receive text messages from me through Remind101, a smart phone app. From both ends this cost the parents and I no extra money. We use what we already have.  Another smart phone app teachers can use is called Class Dojo. Teachers upload their students’ names to the app and use their phone throughout the day to record classroom behavior, both positive and negative.  By having the Class Dojo website opened on the teacher computer students are alerted by dings when the teacher catches someone exhibiting appropriate behavior or inappropriate behavior. The students don’t know which student the ding is going off for but they try their hardest to get recognized for good behavior. The teacher can send parents an email with information on how their child behaved in class each day. Other workshops could focus on how students can use their smart phones or tablets in class.  Not all students would have to bring in a device. You could split up the students into groups based on how many students have access to these devices. These activities would work best for older students since primary level elementary school children would not bring these types of devices to school. Using QR Readers on a scavenger hunt is a great example of using what is already available to integrate technology in your instruction.  The possibilities are endless and I could go on and on.