Trends and Concerns

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.



With the Health care education sector it seems that technology has become more of a real-time practice.  In our modern day, when a person has an x-ray for whatever reason and partnered with the technology that is around, doctors and radiologists can see results and confer with each other almost instantly instead of waiting an hour or more for the film to be processed.  Surgeries have also become much less evasive and more precise as the result of new technology.  When I had my hysterectomy a few years back the doctors had technology available that made my incision from being hip to hip to 3 small one inch incisions.  This makes recover time quicker, cuts cost on the hospital stay and reduces the pain involved. 

With P-12 education it seems that technology is forging its way through into the education process by students having on to one device access.  In addition, textbooks are becoming accessible through technology and can be revised, edited and updated overnight instead of over several years at an expensive burden to districts. Some teachers have even embraced technology by using it for quick, real time communication with students and parents.  The drawback is that education, in general, tends to hesitate to embrace technology, as educators I feel that we want to test drive technology before we truly depend on it as viable to student learning.

Post-secondary education, for the most part, has embraced technology.  I have seen web-seminars, podcast, and links to outside video and colleges who offer on line classes in place of the traditional face-to-face classes as a medium of teaching.  These methods bring far more resources into the classroom and with the technology available more people can access higher education while being flexible in meeting time compared to a face to face setting.
The similarities between, heath care, P-12 education and Post-secondary education and where I work is that technology seems to have hasted the pace while being able to teach using a wider range of resources become available.  



Chapters in Section VI discuss global trends and issues in IDT. As the world’s population grows exponentially, we face unprecedented challenges that have implications for learning. How and can we prepare our youth to address the problems of living in a world with 9 billion people when the earth’s resources cannot sustain that many? Does our current education system, curriculum, and instructional practices help learners foster the complex problem-solving skills necessary to tackle these issues? Are there methods and practices used in European and Asian countries that we should use here in the US? Why or why not?

 We can prepare our youth to address problems of living in a world where resources cannot sustain the population by having a clear vision of what is needed to be learned and by having a plan in place, and staying committed to the plan.  I believe that teachers do not allow our primary aged students to problem-solve independently.  I see teachers, for many different reasons, enabling students by solving problems for them or by not allowing them to have a safe environment in order to fail and thus hindering the student’s ability to problem solve and learn from mistakes.  I think that the US could learn from other countries different techniques and expectations for learning and implement them in a way that is appropriate for us.   Europeans take a more traditional learning modality of lecture and listen and Japan and Korea take a more technology learning style.  I feel that there is a balance that needs to be reached between different styles.  No one method used as a totality will be the most effective.  I feel that learning by using both a traditional and technological modes and integrating those modes to fit our needs will be the best solution.

 

Human Performance

Identify a performance problem in your area of work and identify non-instructional solutions that may help solve the problem.

My classroom has multiple grade levels and each cohort would follow a specific schedule for going to music, art, PE and lunch all on top of balancing the need to teach all academic content at multiple academic levels.  I have had substantial difficulties maintaining a schedule for teaching and addressing the schedule for special classes simply due to having so many schedules to maintain.  The solution I designed to address the schedule was to create a visual and interactive daily schedule and placing it on each student’s desk.  I also had to group some grades together so that either the instructional aides or I could accompany students that needed to be monitored.  The students place a marker on the portion of the schedule that they are currently involved.  This has helped immensely as the students have begun to help keeping on a timely schedule.  

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

I define Performance support system as the tools that support performers at their time of need as well as the tool needed to successfully complete the task.  The performance support system would help me in the fact that I have a visual cue for my students and they can maintain their schedule by moving their cues around as they finish a task and move on to the next activity.

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?

First, I gathered all the scheduling data and compared the schedule matrices side by side so that I might see conflicts.  I tried color coding them and stacking them, but it did not work so I stayed with the side by side method.  I was working with four different grade levels ranging from 2^nd through 6^th.  I also gathered information concerning the size of classrooms, teachers on maternity leave and other issues I might see arising.  Next, I started working with these grade levels to compare which ones were similar in schedule, for example 2^nd grade does not have art but 3^rd grade only goes to music one time a week.  I also looked at the amount of time a specials class would last such as art, music and PE last some classes lasted 30 minutes while others lasted 45.  Once I gathered all this data I could start putting a schedule together. Other factors I had to consider were Speech session duration and times per week not being consistent and if that wasn't enough I had to look at ESL groups.

Evaluation and Implementation

Describe how you would use them to evaluate your instruction. 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.

Rossi’s Five Domain Evaluation - this is a model where the focus of the evaluation should be personalized to fit the need of the school.  A key component of this model is the evaluative questions.  They are the essence by which the evaluation derives its validity.  There are five primary domains for evaluation and they are:  needs assessment, theory assessment, implementation assessment, impact assessment and efficiency assessment.   With my classroom being a special needs unit an important part of this model would be the needs assessment.  I often look at my students and think that they will do better than they usually do so I tend to plan higher than they are capable and have to re-plan my lessons.  I also overlook evaluation questioning because regardless of my questions my students simply do not have the ability to recall much of their background knowledge efficiently.  I pre-teach often in order to build background knowledge in hopes that it can be recalled; however, it doesn't always stick.  I do tend to evaluate my lessons as I am teaching in hopes of improving the lesson and to see if it is too rigorous and in need of adjusting for my class.  I typically assess heavily in the beginning and throughout the lesson, but do not assess at the end of a lesson as many of my lessons are directly influenced by behaviors that are not easy to manage for either the students or myself.  I feel that needs assessment is something that I do well in my classroom albeit in a modified form from a general classroom.  I focus on using technology integration within a lesson and not as the primary method of delivery.  By making the needs assessment a priority in this theory supports this goal.  The next part focuses on the design of the instruction.  Is the instruction that I am given cognitively appropriate for my students?  My students have specially designed curriculum that meets their specific needs, but at times it does not so my job is to make sure the instruction is modified to meet the needs of my group while also being engaging.  I feel that I do well in this area because I have to evaluate the lesson for each child that I am teaching and by constantly evaluating the design of the instruction I learn what hurdles I need to overcome in order to be the best teacher I can be for my students.   The remaining three parts are definite areas that I can improve upon.  Implementation assessment is something I can improve upon because I tend to veer off my scheduled plan.  I need to focus more on what I need to accomplish and a reasonably time allotment for this to happen.  The implementation portion will help me to evaluate my instruction by letting me know if I was successful with my instruction.  I live in world that is constantly collecting data and no matter how much I collect I feel that I could improve this by being more efficient and streamlined with my data collection to judge my effectiveness or the impact assessment.        

TPACK is a framework that teachers can use to help them identify knowledge they might need to focus on to be able to teach effectively while using technology.  It is comprised of three areas, Technological Knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge and Content Knowledge.  When these areas are intertwined with each other a teacher is getting the most meaningful instruction that a teacher can give and is maximizing their effectiveness.  The components are: Technological Knowledge, which is the knowledge and mastery of technology.  This will allow an educator to plan the use of technology effectively in their classroom at all times.  Pedagogical Knowledge is the teacher’s knowledge of their classroom environment such as planning and assessment of students, classroom management and knowledge of content to be taught.  Content Knowledge is the knowledge of the content and framework as well as the practices with teaching or how to lead students to learning.  When one framework combines with another a teacher is zeroing in and the students learning is broader and when the three areas are present the frameworks combine and a teacher is in the zone which will lead to student learning at a powerful level.

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?    

  

In the beginning of the professional development as a facilitator you are upfront with your staff by letting them know that we are on a limited budget.  As the facilitator you would be out front and showing them how to be effective with the resources that are available.  This would be the first phase of leadership in the Situational Leadership model and depending on the group will depend on the style of leadership that would be needed.  The second and thirds phase would be to build a committee out of my creative and resourceful teacher in regards to technology, and have them to collaborate with the staff or send them to a seminar to be trained so that they can in turn train the remaining staff.  The last phase is where I would step back as the facilitator and become the cheerleader and encourage them to work to their fullest potential. 

Foundations of Learning

1.      Epistemology is the foundation of our learning and how we learn this information, whereas instructional methods and theories are seemingly derived from this foundation but go a step farther by targeting specific needs of learning.  What I believe to be the biggest difference in the theories, methods and models of learning and epistemologies is that other modes are focused on the specifics of learning and not the base information.  I have a young student who is learning his alphabet letters and sounds.  In the beginning of our lessons it appeared that he knew a few of the letters despite only be 6 and battling disabilities.  I though he knew the letter a, but soon realized that he only knew one letter by sight.  It turned out that when I shuffled the order that every letter was “A”.  I found out that he did not recognize any of his letters.  When presented the letters after shuffling he could not tell me the letters that were displayed.  He knew the letter order but did not know the letters independently.  I also learned that despite being able to say each letter he was unable to attribute the actual letter sound. 

2.      I feel that I sway between being a Relativist and Contextualist framework in my method of teaching.  It typically depends on the instructional setting that I am teaching.  In my early career of education I was in a general education classroom and would have told you that I was a Relativist because I had to get my student to understand that the learning that was being presented to them was relevant to them and their learning.  However, having moved into a special education setting a few years ago I find that my students understood the importance to the learning but did not understand the concept being taught. 

While in college during the 90’s I experienced a negative situation regarding opposing perspectives.  I was taking psychology in college and a professor verbally attacked me based on my perspective of the concept behind Freudian Theory.  The professor was set in her position and was not going to entertain any other thoughts of this theory than her own.  She effectively kicked me out of class and reported me to the dean based on a mere question that mildly challenged her view.  The end result was that I was transferred to another class.  I do believe that the conflict was due to our opposing epistemic stances.  The professor had a belief that Freud was a joke and a pervert and would listen to nothing I was saying.  The problem all stemmed from the translation of the Austrian word for pleasure having an English meaning tied to sexual desires.  My comment in class was simply asked from a different perspective.   

3.      With behaviorist I feel that learning can take place with a negative or unpleasant experience being involved.  I once had a student that spit on his peer.   He was sent to the office and his consequence was that he had to spit in a cup until it was full.  He learned that the act of spitting on someone was not a pleasurable act and the act of spitting in a cup over and over was not pleasurable was well. Equally effective can be a positive experience.  For example, when I line by students up for lunch and I notice that not all my students are in line, as our student’s expectation state, rather than calling out the kids that are not doing as expected I will comment on the kids who are doing what is expected, “I like the way Suzie is stand in line.”  Or “I like the way Bobby is facing forward.”  I am reminding my students of the expectation without drawing negative attention on any student and over time they all come into line correctly so that they can receive the positive comments.

With the constructivist I feel that learning is being built from a foundation.  When I teach Calendar math I am constructing knowledge of a basic foundation that my student have already and I am building on that knowledge and expanding their understanding.  My students have the foundation of a calendar and understand the importance of the calendar but lack the knowledge of how the days of the week, months of the year and the different seasons are related to the calendar.  As a constructivist I am taking what they know about the calendar and building on their knowledge and expanding each time we meet and discuss the calendar and its components in relation to real would application.