Trends and Issues in IDT

Part A:

This week we learned about the many different trends and issues in IDT.  Many of them in my opinion are very big issues that are discussed on a regular basis, especially on social media.  Social media being the best way to keep in touch with the issues and trends in IDT.  I know for me personal that is how I keep up with day to day issues, because its almost real time information as it happens. 

The three trends and issues that I picked for this assignment are P-12 Education, post-secondary education, and business and industry.  Let’s start by talking about how each three are different and then talk about how they are same.

Business and Industry

·         Has different roles for which a person can play in instructional design, example a person can do it alone or do it in a team format

·         As a person you can be in the role of client, where you hire someone to create something for your team to learn from

·         The subject matter for most instructional design would focus on the day to day operations of the business

·         The tools used for instructional design do not often get prove to be test or correct, its more here is a theory you can use in your business and then the business tests it

·         The whole goal of instructional design is to ensure that the business makes more money but runs more efficiently

P-12 Education

·         This issues focus on three types of development the system, the product, but ultimately how will it affect the classroom

·         This issue also deals about how to integrate technology into the classroom to facilitate the learning of the student

·         All methods are backed up with research and when the teacher gets hold of the different methods he or she evaluates how it affects their students

·         Teachers think of technology as a tool to help facilitate learning and when they do it changes the classroom behavior

·         Unlike in some areas there is still a huge gap between the technology in the classroom, example while businesses may keep up to date in some districts they cannot afford this so technology in the classroom is less to be desired

Post-Secondary Education

·         This issues deals with the working environment and analyzing the different job roles

·         It also focuses on how to become a better researcher, I know that when I was doing my graduate level work and even currently with my doctoral studies.  They focused on this because they were describing how it would help me when I published academic research in scholarly journals

·         This issue could also deals with how one is also learning and teaching, I equal this to apply what you learned

·         While other issues and jobs are straight forward and most people know what they do on a day to day basis in common terms

·         While others just borrow research from others on ways they do integrate technology into the classroom, in the post-secondary level they curve out time to do research on their own

In many ways these three issues are very similar to my job teaching social studies in high school.  For the most part just like in the business world where it focuses on efficiency, I find that in my classroom that I want my lesson to run as efficiently and smoothly as possible to ensure that my time but ultimately my students time is used wisely. In the P-12 education community I know that technology can change the behavior in the classroom, because it engages students.  I will play kahoot games with my students as a way to review them and I can see that most students are engaged and there are less behavior problems in the classroom.  In post-secondary I think the biggest difference is the fact that I do not do my own research for my classroom, I rely on other people’s research.

Part B:

As the world keeps growing as educators we need to prepare our students to enter a ever changing world.  In relation to the growing number of people and the lack of resources, I think one way we can prepare our youth is teaching them about conservation.  I know in US History, we talk about this subject when we talk about Teddy Roosevelt setting up national parks.  However, if we could teach them about it on a global scale and what it truly means to conserve resources, this could have a lasting effect on the planet. Unfortunately, I do not think our current educational system helps them problem solve.  Depending on what grade level they are in depends on what is taught and if they are in a STAAR test subject for the most part most educators teach toward a test.  I know that when I try to get my students to do this they cannot and it’s hard to teach them the higher level problem solving when they don’t have basic problem solving.  Lastly, I know that in some classroom around the world they have small classrooms but they have more teachers in the school, and still have money to fund other programs.  I think that a smaller classroom size would benefit students in the United States because they would get that one on one instruction.

Evaluating Programs & Human Performance

Evaluation Methods

As I started to write this blog it kind of amazed me how many evaluation models were out there to evaluate my teaching style.  I knew of a few that my colleagues had discussed with me but nothing in too much detail.

The first method that I chose was the Marzano Evaluation Model I have used Marzano teaching methods for vocabulary in my classroom and have found it to be very beneficial to my students.  So if he can create a good method for students, he must have a way to creating something for the teachers to be more successful in the classroom. There are four parts to this method of evaluation, the first step is to identify classroom strategies and behaviors that you want to see happen during your lesson. The second step is how well did you plan or prep for the lesson.  The third step reflecting on teaching, which gets you think that if you lesson was not successful in class then what type of professional development will you do to grow as an educator, it also includes setting goals for yourself as a teaching to accomplish your professional growth in your area of need. The forth step requires you to find a mentor or ask a colleague to come watch your lesson to get a second pair of eyes to evaluate what they saw during your lesson.  I can see me using this method in the classroom because it is really easy to follow.  It also brings out my need to have others see me teach, I am very self-critical about my teaching tend to be harder on myself than other people when they come and observe my lesson.  So this method could have me reevaluate perhaps my level of engagement with the students, because it does bring in that outside view.

The second method that I chose wasn’t as good as the Marzano method but it still provided an interesting approach to evaluating your teaching.  The method was called The Framework of Teaching, and like the Marzano method it also had four steps to evaluating your progress. There process starts with you planning and prepping a lesson that you will be teaching, and evaluating how you prepped for that lesson. Second step is to evaluate the classroom environment that you have placed for your students. The third step is to given instruction and evaluate how you gave the instruction to your students. Then lastly you are to evaluate areas of growth so that you can attend professional growth. This would be good for me when I am giving instruction to my students when it comes to independent practice.  I can give instructions and then evaluate how well I gave the instruction to my students on who to complete their assignment.

Reflection on Evaluation

As I was researching the different evaluation methods and reading this week’s chapters I really did enjoy this week’s reading.  My school this year adopted an evaluation method for students, but I did not really think about this in relationship to teachers.  However, when looking at the different method I think that one thing that needs to be address in any of the education models, and that is engagement of student in the classroom.  I know that some might think that this is implied in the learning outcome but to me I do not think that it is implied, and that needs to be address.  A good lesson might teach the students something but if there is no higher level engagement occurring then the lesson will not be retained very well.  Now to answer the question:  Should return on investment and management of resources also be considered in evaluations of instructional programs?  I think that classroom management should be included because if you have a class with a lot of misbehavior then this can harm the learning.  I had a class that I would teach in different ways to and because of a few students no learning would be achieved.  I can always remember who was in that class, but I tried everything but still no results.  I had a teacher come observe my lesson to see if it was the lesson, ultimately the teacher evaluated classroom management.  We discussed this and I changed some things up but still the class was just the wrong people together. But I would have kept changing my lesson over and over again, if she did not evaluate the management as well.  So this is important when evaluating and reflecting upon yourself.

 Human Performance

I never thought about non instructional solutions to human performance.  One performance problem that I know that I have at work is the amount of emails that people send on a regular basis.  Most of these do not pertain to education or the business and even if they did most of the teachers are going to hit reply all.  If you are going to reply to the person then all you have to do is hit reply, not everyone on campus needs to see the congratulations.  I think a solution to do this is a policy change that states that you need to keep emails professional.  I think that on standard I delete half of my emails because they do not pertain to the business of education.

Theories and Models of Learning & Instruction

Introduction

This weeks reading selections were really interesting especially when it talked about the different theories and models that go into learning.  I always knew that different theories made up instructional design but I did not think that there were so many.  I think these chapters really helped me as a professional, especially going for my doctorate in curriculum and instruction.  It will allow me to better perform my duties in the future, especially future course work dealing with curriculum and instruction.

 

Epistemology vs. Theories & Models of Learning

I believe that Epistemology is very different from instructional methods and theories.  Theories are something that one comes up with that they think might work in the classroom based on research that they might have done for a paper or book.  Theories are what people put into practice that sometimes might not work for them because in the previous research they did this with a class that were maybe AP/GT students, or had very few SPED or LEP students in the populations.  I know in my personal teaching career I have utilized a lot of theories that I have found did not work well in an actual classroom setting.   So unlike epistemology which is what you know will work every time, theories are what you think might work.  Methods are not what you know these are in my opinion the tools that you utilize on a regular basis, you may know the tools work but its not knowledge.  Models are just that, it models a lesson for you as it works out.  This is again not knowledge.  For me epistemology is utilizing all of three things of theories, methods, and models and studying it to find out how a theory came to be or method came to be used.  It can be a study on how educational models where created to help teachers in the classroom.  I equate epistemology to be like the study of history.  When we study history we are looking at the past to come up with our future.  Epistemology can be the same, we look at the past of education to figure out how we come to teach the way we do today.

Positivists, Relativists, and Contextualist

As I was reading these chapters these really got me thinking about my own personal stance on education.  When I first started to read the chapters especially when it talked about theories and methods I thought that I fell into multiple theories of knowledge.  However, as I really thought about it I thought that I based my thought more constructively because of how I want to make sense of the word around us, but that wasn’t the case.  I base my thought process on a more positivist’s view, where the only knowledge is objective truth.  I base my knowledge on this because of my study in history where personal feelings and bias just need to stay out of the study of history.  Then I thought about it more closely and realized that I also apply this to education, that feelings about a certain method of teaching or even bias just needs to stay out of education.  This really hasn’t come into conflict with an instructor because I like learning about new thought process but still hold tight to my belief system.  However, this has had me come into conflict with people who run my school and of course plan the curriculum for the district.  One particular moment comes to mind when I was first starting out in my district.  The curriculum coordinator for my district at the time asked me to sit on the curriculum planning committee because he wanted to get someone who was new to take a look at it.  During the whole meeting they were talking about how we needed to get the students to learn in different ways, and that they needed all these hands on activities and games.  I looked at these ideas and did not say anything at the time, because I was new and did not want to rock the boat.  When the next school year came around I did not follow their curriculum and neither did the people on my team they liked my method better. However, when I got observed one day by the curriculum coordinator he saw what we were doing at my school and he did not like what he saw.  We were doing more lecture and discussion based lessons than games and station activities.  Now don’t get me wrong I do believe they have a place but I put knowledge and objective truth above those ideas.  He called me in for meeting and told me I had to change the way I taught in to fit the district and he was going to inform my Principal.  I did not change, then comes time for the district assessment and my school scored higher than those who followed the district curriculum.  I proved that my method was working and did not hear another word from the curriculum coordinator.  I do believe that this fight resulted from an epistemic difference, while he believed that truth was subjective to someone perception of the content,  mine was more this is how you learn history the truth is one way and only one way.  To this day I haven’t had any other problems because of the results that my team and I show.

 
Behaviorist vs. Constructivist

Problem solving seems to be the big push in education recently that is all I hear about when I am in staff developments.  This I have to believe is due to the fact that many states are pushing their state assessment like STAAR.  Now given what we have learned in these chapters this week, I think that there can be a big conflict between behaviorists and constructivist perspectives, especially when it comes to learning and instruction.  The difference between the two are pretty straight forward, however based on how I read these chapters a behaviorist wants the objective truth, so they will approach a problem with there is only one answer and that is the correct answer.  While a constructivist could say there is multiple ways to come at an answer or problem, it all depends on the person’s perspective.  I think this has played a big part in learning motivation because students are learning multiple methods and are having problems deciding for themselves.  It can get very confusing to students and I think just about everyone.  I had to really take each chapter this week slowly because it was information overload.  In schools today students are met with both methods of problem solving and I think this plays a big part into some students not being motivated to learn, again my opinion. 

Defining the IDT Field

Introduction

These three chapters discussed the history of Instructional Design and Technology.  After reading these chapters I have learned a lot.  It also caused me to reevaluate my classroom and ultimately my district and how it designs the use instructional technology.  In the past I have not be overly impressed and have chosen not to use this in the classroom.  However, these chapters have inspired me to reconsider how I can use technology in the classroom.

Definition of IDT

When I first started out as a teacher five years ago, I thought that instructional technology meant that you were using the document camera or showing some sort of instructional media.  As I begin to continue learning about how I needed to use technology and that idea began to change as my school would show the staff different technologies, most of the designed for one specific subject however, so it did not change that much. My definition of what instructional technology was developed over years of me watching my teachers in high school and of course my undergraduate studies.  When I was a student in high school most of the time I saw my teachers using instructional media and for a while there I thought that was what teacher used as technology.  The only classes that I actually used technology was the computer business classes or English writing papers.  When I was doing my undergraduate studies through the history department they wanted to focus on content and not technology.  So when I first started out as a teacher all I had to base it on was what I saw in my history classes in high school. After reading the definitions in the first chapter of the book my perspective was that I was not too far off in realizing that I was using a form of technology.  I was using instructional media, which according to what I read does not lead to a lot of student engagement.  The impression that I got was that technology should foster be based on student centered learning.

Six Characteristics of Instructional Design

The six characteristics of instructional design seems to be the basis for which curriculum coordinators use to create curriculum.  Now in my own lessons, I tend to do what is best for my students.  Now in most of the lessons that I can think of that I could present here, none of them actually fit into the six characteristics of instructional design.  I contribute a lot of this to the fact that in my district particularly US History, where it is STAAR tested we tend to focus on the content over anything else.  Here is the lesson, where I would teach the subject and then have the students do a primary source analysis or guided reading to reinforce their knowledge of the content.  Now this is how I would change this lesson to ensure that it would better adhere to the six characteristics of instructional design. I would still start out with me teaching the content, because in US History and in nay history class the content is very important, and I have done my own research and showed that many of my students remember their history after I teach them because of how I teach it and I teach in as if it was a story.  The student centered portion of the lesson will still be the primary source analysis, but instead of giving them a worksheet, I would turn it into a gallery walk to where they would have to find the next primary document based on the clue that they are given.  This lesson can be measured by how well the student would perform on the class test and of course district set tests. Unfortunately, I would still not have time to change in of the lesson and correct the problems until in my curriculum there is a day where I can, which are built into the lessons.  This is how I would change the lesson to ensure that it adhered to the six characteristics of instructional design.

 Instructional media vs. Instructional Design

The reason that I think that Reiser needs to distinguish instructional media from instructional deign is because instructional media is usually like a historical documentary.  It does not really lead to a student centered learning.  I use them in class because it backs up what you are teaching and presents the information in another format.  However, it does not fit very well into the six characteristics of instructional design. I would not consider chalkboards or textbooks as instructional media because it really does not give good information.  Teachers at least will design a lecture in a way to make it more instructionally beneficial to the students.  Like in my class where we learn the history by telling the story of how our country was created to the present day.  However, the other does not lead to very good critical thinking skills and that is the whole goal of teaching to develop the skills students need to be successful.  However, I do believe that part of instructional design is to incorporate media into instruction because it does at least present instructional information in a different light.

Conclusion

In conclusion I think that there is still a lot for me into learn about technology and instructional design and look forward to learning new things.