Themes and Lessons Learned

A common thread among all three contexts of instructional design we have read about in our text is that a team of people is required to work together in order to create effective training/instructional design. In business and in faculty development in higher education, subject experts are needed. Then a variety of other skills are required from graphic artists, audio/video producers, material developers, instructional designers, web specialists, etc. It is the idea that no matter what field you are working in, when instruction or training is needed, it takes a group of people with a variety of skills and talents coming together to create and implement an effective means of creating and delivering knowledge and learning.

A difference between the business world and the world of higher education is that there are times in business where the client is a bit more difficult to identify. “One problem designers face when starting a new project is identifying the client . Often there is more than one client for an instruction design project” (Reiser, 2007). However, in higher education, “…the target audience (students) is a given before the ID becomes involved in the program design.” (Reiser, 2007). 

After reading these last few chapters I cannot help but think of the point my K-12 district is in at the moment. We recently achieved district-wide NCA accreditation. During that 3 year process, it became evident how critical it is for the district to think in terms of systemic change and not viewing any one building or department in isolation. A couple of the areas that were recommended to our district was to strengthen communications and to clearly delineate criteria for making major transitions. A specific area, I believe, that needs to be addressed is our math curriculum. At the K-2 building there is one curriculum, another in the 3-5 building, and yet another at the middle school. We have a golden opportunity to strengthen our communication and make the transitions between these grade levels much more clear if the administrators and teachers could come together to discuss this issue regarding the math curriculum. We see the challenges when students move from one building to the next due to the differing curriculums. We are on a five year review and purchasing cycle for math and this is the fifth year. I have been contemplating how to approach my principal about my thoughts on this issue. I am a very new teacher and this can be a tedious undertaking and one I’m not sure I should take up. However, I strongly believe that our students would benefit from a K-8 scope and sequence instead of three separate programs that are patched together. It will take those passionate leaders spoken of in chapter 21, subject experts like our hard-working curriculum director, principals, and teachers, and incorporating as many other stakeholders as we can to develop the programs that will best serve all of our students.


BUBBL.US CONCEPT MAP


A lesson in which students could use concept mapping to help them understand subject matter would be in social studies when we learn about colonization of America. In the beginning of this unit, students are exposed to the three colonial regions. I assign them one colony and they are to learn all about it and create a billboard telling others of the good things their colony has to offer to persuade others to want to settle there. (a Glog of their colony would even be better than a cardboard poster and a lot easier for me to physically handle. That will be one for next year!)


Below is a quick example of a concept map showing four major characteristics of Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
NOTE: I have noticed that when I view the concept map on my blog, some of the text seems to spill out of the bubbles in places. However, if I zoom in, the text seems to go back inside the bubbles. ???

Reflections on School Change

There are a few things that caused me to stop and think while reading this week’s chapter. The S.U.T.E model’s dependency on knowledgeable and selfless leaders, the participation of all stakeholders in the process of change, and finally the identification of the areas that are the cause of district change in the first place will be the focal points of my reflection.

The Step Up to Excellence methodology lays out several conditions in which success is based:

“Senior leaders who act on the basis of personal courage, passion, and vision; not on the basis of fear or self-survival…not a view of ‘we can’t do this because…who possess the professional intellect, change-minded attitudes, and the change management skills to move their districts toward higher levels of performance; not people without an inkling about the requirements of systemic change management.”  (Reiser, 2007)

I can see where needed change can be derailed right away in the process if there are not such leaders available in a district. Human nature comes into play. Egos and self esteem can get in the way of the change that needs to be made. If the right people in the right positions cannot effectively lead or are not willing to admit they do not have the skill set necessary to lead their district for systemic change and bring in others who can, then the change is doomed from the start.

In the beginning of the chapter I was hoping to read more about the involvement of  stakeholders in the process of change. I was pleased to read the example given from the Decatur Township School District. “To succeed with such a fundamental transformation of their school system, the facilitators believed it was important for as many stakeholders as possible to participate in the change process and feel a sense of ownership of both the process and whatever design resulted.” (Reiser, 2007) When my district was in the process of achieving district-wide NCA accreditation, we knew we must incorporate the perspectives of not only classroom teachers and administrators, but parents, students, support staff from all departments, community leaders, and business owners. Their input was instrumental in developing our vision and mission statements and improving our internal and external Quality Assurance Review evaluations that ultimately lead to K-12 accreditation.

Before any change can be made, a district must know exactly where their strengths and weakness are. I am sure that within the GSTE and SUTE models this would come into play, however, I feel strongly that a district’s first step must be to develop a comprehensive District Profile—a state of the district, if you will. Trends in learning and achievement need to be identified along with the needs of specific populations within the district. There are things that are working wonderfully and there are always areas that reveal glaring contradictions to the vision and purpose statements of the district. This document of and by itself can be challenging to produce, but I believe that any model for systemic change should explicitly include the development of a district profile to clearly illuminate the changes that are needed.

SCREENCASTING

One of the problems I have been finding my math students having is forgetting to multiply decimals by 100 to turn fractions into percentages. They look at .6 and think this is 6% instead of 60%. I thought I would create a very brief video so that kids can watch me convert fractions into decimals by using a calculator.

Please excuse the interruption of my Mac telling me the time in the middle of my screencast! :)

Instructional Design in Business & Industry and How It Applies to K-12 Education

The use of technology in training in the business world takes place to save time. This is being done by “(1) using technology to reduce training time and costs; and (2) using more sophisticated evaluation techniques to ensure training effectiveness, thereby avoiding the need for followup instruction." (Richey, 2007) I see this being used in the K-12 setting to do the same things. High schools are increasingly offering online or virtual courses. This allows for a greater number of students to enroll and create another revenue stream for a district. Homeschoolers or students from parochial schools who need broader course options can take online classes offered by public schools. The technology gives them the flexibility in their schedule or allows them to work from home if they so choose. The school receives some of the their foundation allowance and increases dollars coming into their district.

Another way in which technology use in training can be applied to education is the use of student response systems to ramp up the evaluation process. Teachers who are fortunate enough to have such a piece of technology in their rooms can immediately see if their instruction has been effective. They can target specific students with specific pieces of instruction to help move those students towards greater achievement/performance.

The globalization of training concept is one that the staff at Sylvester Elementary must apply daily. There are students from a number of different countries attending our school. English Language Learners are in nearly every single classroom and teachers, “…must address the issue of how to prepare and/or adapt instructional materials for different cultures.” (Richey, 2007) And I would like to add different languages, too. We have to continually make adjustments and accommodations in our instruction and materials to help students understand what we are trying to communicate to them. Gestures, props, electronic translators, and online resources must be utilized to communicate basic instruction to the non-native speaker. This is also another example of  how technology is used to help in the instruction process.

Map Mash-ups In Social Studies

In fifth grade social studies, we teach a chapter that deals with the early European explorers and the routes they took to come to the New World. An activity students could do with My Maps in Google is to create routes that each Explorer took.

Students would be responsible for knowing from which country each explorer traveled from, the year they made their voyage, and where in North America they arrived/traveled before heading home across the Atlantic again.


Explorer Map



View Routes of Early European Explorers to North America in a larger map