Section 7: New Directions in Instructional Design and Technology

In my future position as a teacher I would apply distributed learning due to the fact that it would provide a universal learning environment that would cater to all different learning capabilities. This approach helps delivery a variety of learning methods that my students could have their choice in choosing how they want to learn. Allowing the students to have a say in how they want to learn is key in promoting self-learning and obtaining their interest in learning.

Learning objects is something that is very familiar in the education setting because it falls in track with guideline structure that is used to identify areas of certain content that needs to be learned by a specific grade and we know this as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. The curriculum that is provided within the TEKS addresses many single learning objectives and has been the back bone for preparing students each year to take the state-mandated standardized tests. The teachers rely on the re-usability the TEKS curriculum provide so having this resource in a digital format and structured into self-contained sections seems to be the same way I would apply it to get the maximum benefit in teaching the contents in parts.

Once again with the direction that secondary education is going rich media is headed to be the center of attention as a main source in developing educational skills and peak the interest of students to be more involved in their educational growth. Rich media has been on the raise for many of years and the self-thinking that it provides help enrich the development of students and create a higher retention of acquired knowledge.

Through my course of study Web 2.0 tools seem to be the most popular technology to use in the secondary education field as of now. Devices such as iPads, tablets, cell phones and cameras are also getting their shine in today’s classrooms but even with the multiple benefits that these technologies provide they still have their limitations of use and can be affected by the diminutive budgets of many school districts.

Section 6: Getting an IDT Position and Succeeding at It

I am currently going through my Clinical Student Teaching and my last official day will be this Monday. I am enrolled in the Alternative Teacher Certification Program and due to the courses that I needed to take in this program I figured that I might as well finish up with a Master’s Degree in something. I chose Educational Technology – Leadership as my major because I believe it would be helpful in the future with instructional design and technology in secondary education and with the classrooms being integrated with technology to promote learning this could put me a step ahead in that direction. This program with allow me to use the 18 credit hours from the ATCP towards this master’s program and I wanted to take advantage of the situation at this time. I really don’t have any plans yet in this field but I have learned where it could take me if I choose to go. As for now my plans are to work as a coach or math teacher at the middle school level so I really couldn't tell you what type of organization or institution I would want to work in or even plan on working for in the near future. At point in time before and after I received my Bachelors Degree I wasn't certain then on what I really wanted to have as a career but as time moved on and I realized that for a long time I had been teaching others in a variety of setting, it became clear of what I needed to pursue as a career. Not everyone has the same objective in this course or degree program so, I hope that I am understood and that achievement of knowledge is something that we all pursue but use in different ways that satisfies ourselves.

Section 5: Trends and Issues in Various Setting

Pursuing a career in education was not a plan of mine during my first semester in college. I knew that I was good with my hands and fixing on anything that I could take apart and troubleshoot the problem. Even though I wasn't clear with my choice of career, it has lead me down a long path to find myself were I am today. It started back in the summer of 2010 were I made the decision in becoming a teacher and it’s been non-stop with chipping away at obtaining my new found passion. It has been a blessing for me to work with the group of students that I have this semester. They've taught me how to be a better teacher within this education setting. Even though I know all has not been learned, I will always be a student of evolution because as time changes and new developments arise I shall also adapt with it.

After reading over each of the different settings that incorporate instructional design and technology, it is the effectiveness and efficiency that it provides to each setting that I have learned is the connection to the success or disaster for any of the work settings. As most things start out it is the dependency of knowledge that is know to help advance any situation. Just as students grow up they learn through their environment and education system and when those are lacking the enriched knowledge that is needed, we tend to see the results of the low quality education that has been acquired. In all the different fields of careers that are out there they all have one thing in common and that’s the needs of effective and quick training. As the world evolves into these technology drive nation, saving time to delivery proper training is what has been a techniques to quickly place people into their career or advance them to the top. We all know that education has taken a turn for the best and instructional design and technology plays a big part of the success in learning and keeping our next generation in this global technology race. Just as they need to keep up so do we as teachers and the training that we receive needs to be effective and efficient. Independent School Districts already have a touch time with budgets for each school so enhancing training effectiveness and efficiency plays a big role in helping keep cost down. By using technology to reduce training time that is required and more refined evaluation techniques to guarantee training effectiveness, the need for retraining is avoided which also saves time in the training delivery. This concept of enhancing training effectiveness and efficiency can also be applied in education in a variety of situations that can benefit from it. Through technology training administration, teachers and auxiliary professional personnel has proven that the effectiveness and efficiency of their training can provide a better enrichment of learning for students. This then explains why instructional design and technology is being incorporated in the classroom because of the effectiveness and efficiency that it has on the learning development.

Section 4: Human Performance Technology

Chapter 14 - Human Performance Improvement

In my student teaching my classes all have to participate in running the Pacer. After a few weeks the students stop having concerns of how many laps that they would get and there performance decreased tremendously. We started with give those students who run a pre-determine amount of laps a Run Free Pass that will allow them to use it any time they did not feel like running. This non-instructional solution seems to work well and students are giving their best effort in the Pacer Run to receive a pass.

Chapter 15 - Performance Support Systems

Performance support systems are systems that are designed to support performance of an individual or group in an organization. The performance support system that my school has with improvement in the Pacer Run has been proven to work in the past many years and the results will show how a better performance is given when the passes are used as a non-instructional solution.

Chapter 16 - Knowledge Management

As I could see that knowledge of the pasted students who participated in the Pacer Run has come to be significant proof of the predictions of how the students respond to the Pacer Run over time throughout the semester. I believe that the knowledge is not collected but yet passed on through informal learning among the department of physical education teachers.

Chapter 17 - Informal Learning

I have participated in viewing many of staff development videos with my mentor and new thing that are going on within the school district. The informal learning experiences are not limited and can be shared with others. The knowledge that we gained from those videos were managed and codified; the videos were in steps and each had to be watched under your login name to get credit for viewing them. I would say that it should be managed because each teacher needed to watch the videos in order to gain the correct knowledge and I am sure that the videos are replicated and used the out the school districts within the United States.

Section 3: Evaluating, Implementing and Managing Instructional Programs and Projects

In searching for evaluation models I came across two that I would use to evaluate a instructional design for my class. The Judicial/Adversary Evaluation and Goals-Oriented/Objective-Based models were the two that stuck out when searching, this seem like the more nature approach in trying to evaluate and determine if my instruction will have any value to the success of my students’ education growth.

The Judicial/Adversary Evaluation is based on comparing both positive and negative sides of any innovation because having both sides evaluated rules out any potential bias from a single evaluation. This sets up a system of checks and balances, which allows each side to be heard and by showing the positive and negative facets of a instructional design your able the examine the strengths and weaknesses of that design.

A Goals-Oriented/Objectives-Based (Tyler, 1949) describes whether or not students have met their goals, with the results informing how to handle a new instructional strategy (i.e., revise, adopt, reject). One weakness is the evaluator may overlook unexpected outcomes or benefits of instruction beyond original goals (Virginia Tech, Learning Technology (2011). Evaluation Models. Retrieved Sept. 14, 2013, from http://www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/eval/eval_models.html).

When reflecting on what other questions an evaluation model should address, I would think that it depends on what model is being used and each can bring about questions that another model has answered in its own particular evaluation. So to say what will be useful to know can only be answered with knowing the type of instructional design that you are going to delivery to your learners. Using more then one evaluation model could help narrow down or eliminate questions outside of the instructional design capability of effective learning and learner satisfaction. Every evaluation model will have outliers but to successful utilizes an evaluation it will need to be paired closely to an instructional design to delivery validity and value.

Situational Leadership evolves four-phase comprehensive models to help develop leadership skills and the ability to influence individuals on a project team. I will use each phase as a guideline to develop myself in facilitating the project and manage scarce resources. My first responsibility will be in learning my team and knowing how to motivate and direct each individual to get a level of commitment that they will be willing to give. With commitment, trust and involvement falls in place with each of my team members having a sense of belonging to the team. This allows me to give them understanding of their roles and the placement of each within our organization. I understand that we are people of different walks of life and the ability to adapt my leadership style is vital in responding to different situations correctly that may arise within the team. This falls back on the communication that my team and I give to one another to ensure situations are handled quickly and that communicating any concerns is open for listening. Lastly, for everything we do there is a guide or process that needs to be followed and with any team this process needs to be established so that everyone is headed in the same direction. Now with having my team 100% behind me the resources that is available will be use to its extent to develop the best professional development sessions that we can with what we were able to use. Through this process evaluation tools will be used to determine the each resource that we find can and we delivery the results that we were looking for.

Section 2: Theories and Models of Learning and Instruction

The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and understanding their foundations, assumptions and validity defines Epistemology in chapter 6. This field of study focuses on what is know and learned and the origin were knowledge is acquired. If I understand it right epistemology consist of two perspectives, the knowledge that exits independently of the individual (positivism) and that knowledge is not absolute but yet constructed by the learner (relativism). Methods are the various ways of using a process to accomplish a given result in respects of learning what is trying to be taught. Theories are somewhat the same with various ways but there is no process that is involved in learning just the use of an idea to build upon and gain knowledge through self construction not from a designed instruction.

Knowledge that offers an explanation to how we come to “know” is very context sensitive, meaning that different things in different context dependents on that individual’s perspective and this approach in knowing describe a contextualist epistemology. Different situations create different values semantically resulting in one different view from another. Contextualist epistemology is similar to relativist but differs from positivist because it is base upon theories which follows the search for the truth with the construction of knowledge. The behaviorist principles to instruct the absolute truth and whether it’s understood or not, it will always be true and the social constructivism is derived from a collaboration of learners working together in an environment that enable and support individual construction of learning.

The different approaches that both behaviorist and constructivist have in problem-solving are those of instructional and constructional based. The behaviorist problem-solving approach relies on the a proven instructional method that gives steps in producing only one correct answer which takes away from self-thinking when solving the problem. To focus more on learner centered problem-solving the constructivist approach would provide such an environment were the learners are more in control and self-thinking is promoted among the support from other learner to solve the problem collectively. Once again different learners need different approaches as though different problems need different ways for them to be solved. I as a student can saying one approach works better for me then the other and it can be the total opposite for another student but facilitating the problem solving process that it can benefit all learners is the best way to improve the success of learners in sync. For most learners they would all like the power of having a say so in what and how the learn things but for the most part guidelines are in place and there to adhere by for a reason. I believe the effects on the learners’ motivation will be none different from anything else; you have those that will jump on board and be motivated in an approach and those who will not like an approach and totally shut themselves out from using or liking it. As it has been said, “Different Strokes for Different Folks” and that is just the world we live in.

Section 1: Defining the Field

1. The definitions in the first chapter seem to compare with pieces of what I believed my own definition was. Educational Technology is something I believe that has educational value with the use of technology devices such as computer, laptops, PC tablets and any other device that can connect to the internet. After reading the definitions throughout the first chapter I can see how the field changes and therefore the definition changing with it. Even though I seldom think about the systematic process, technology if delivered correctly has a n educational value that helps prepare our future generation to keep up and compete in this global technology economics of today and the future to come. The experiences that I'm having with my graduate courses have helped shape a better definition of what educational technology is and that a device alone does not constitute as a benefit in an educational setting if it does not blend well with the material being learned. I really can't say that my definition has changed because I understand that as people we are learning something every day but it has been extended with a better understanding of its foundation and origination.

 2. Throughout my years of college I have experienced some good and bad instructional designed courses and that is just an opinion on my behalf but for the most part they all have been a learning process that will help me develop a universal curriculum that reaches all type of learning styles and not just one. I really can't pin point any one lesson or unit that I have received that would or wouldn't adhere to all six characteristics of instructional design but I can assume that those lessons and units go through on going changes to keep up with the variety of learners that change throughout the years.

 3. Reiser has understood that the history of Instructional Media has always changed and developed into something new and more innovative to enrich the interest in learning. As the years had passed instructional media has changed from museums to visual & films, to audiovisual & radio, to television and computers. Instructional media has always found a way to grow and change and this is what distinguishes its self apart from instructional design. It is a delivery method to present learners with instruction other than the teacher, chalkboard and textbooks. Instructional design blends both instructional medium and media together with each six characteristics being a guide to develop consistent and reliable education programs.