Class final reflection

I liked this class a lot, I learned a lot. I liked learning about the ADDIE model and all of the different parts of the instructional design process. We had really interesting discussions in class which I enjoyed. I liked how groups were given articles to present as well as different media topics. That helped make the 3-hour class into more manageable chunks :). I liked how we were able to be creative with our projects, and that we got to go through the ID process while we were learning about it. Each group came up with totally different types of projects, and I thought that was really cool. I'll definitely apply what I have learned when I am planning for my 4th graders- I still feel like I have a lot to learn about ID, but I've had a great start!

Chapter 13

Design and conduct summative evaluation

Summative evaluation helps you know if you should maintain, adapt, or adopt instruction. The primary evaluator should be unfamiliar with the materials, organization, or setting of the materials being evaluated (external evaluators). They have no personal investement.

Instructional designers can be great evaluators because of their skillset. The judgement of instruction is based on the design model of systematically designing instruction.
-Judge need and goals
-Completeness and accuracy of content presented in materials
-Instructional goal analysis with subordinate skills
-Content experts produce or verify skills diagrams
-Evaluate quality of materials with their instructional strategies and for their potential of transfer of knowledge and skills from learning environment to performance context.

Impact analysis:
-Were the needs of the organization met?
-Were employees able to transfer knowledge to the job?
-Is there an improvement in job performance or productivity?

Chapter 12

Revising instructional materials


Item analysis- I love doing item analysis on my math tests for my 4th graders. Really helps to target instruction for re-teaching.

Collect data during the formative evaluation and synthexize and analyse to locate potential ;problems in the instructional materials
Summarize the data
1. Examine compared to entry skills and draw implications
2. Review pretest and posttest data by performance and objective-by-objective performance. Compare data.
3. Examine objectives, test items, and instructional strategy for objectives in which the students failed to meet expectations. Analyze and make changes in instructional materials.
4. Check procedures and implementation directions
5. Develop a materials revision analysis table
6. Revise instruction based on information found in your materials revision analysis table.

Chapter 11

Formative evaluation of instructional materials
Why? To see if they are effective and you are achieving your objective. To revise instruction and pinpoint specific areas where it was lacking and should be improved.
3 phases of data collection, analysis, and revision:
1. 1:1 evaluation, to find gross errors in the material.
2. Small group evaluation.
3. Field trial. Find errors within the intended setting.

Chapter 10

Developing instructional materials
bringing the instruction to life

When developing instructional materials:
Refer to your instructional goal and instructional analysis
Performance objectives
Sample test items
Characteristics of target learners
Characteristics of learning and performance contexts

...these are things I do innately as a teacher...

Instructional strategy with ideas for:
cluster and sequence of objectives
preinstructional activities
assessments to be used
content presentation and learning guidance
learner participation-- practice, feedback
strategies for memory and transfer
activities for each individual lesson
student groupings
media selections
delivery system

Keep your resources nearby! It will help you.
Also refer to learner analysis, context analysis, and instructional strategy document.

Your product is a draft of instructional materials, draft of assessments, and instructor's manual
Consider all your materials! Are they what you need?  Keep it goal centered always.

Chapter 9

Planning logistics and management for the Instructional Strategy

1. Is the delivery system assigned or assumed?
2. Sequence the content for learning. Make clusters of logistical groupings of skills in the instructional analysis
3. Plannign the learning components of instruction.
-preinstructional
-assessment
-follow-through learning compoents
-prescribe content presentation
-prescribe student participation components
4. Specify student groupings
5. Select media
6. Assign objectives to lessons
7. Review the instructional strategy to consolidate media selections and confirm of select a delivery system.

Then you are ready to begin developing your instruction according to your plan.

Planning is key to good instruction! I really feel like these steps will insure you success.

Chapter 8

Developing an instructional strategy.
What is an instructional strategy? It is the components in a set of instructional materials and procedures used to enable mastery of learning outcomes.
So basically, it what the instructor does to make sure learning happens. But it is complex!

Table 8.1 Keller's ARCS model of student motivation is really interesting. I have never thought of motivation as having different types- attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. These are things I want to think more about when I'm teaching my 4th graders.  I think a lot of my students that I have currently lack confidence, in particular, and I like that the table addresses what you do with under-confident learners as well as overconfident learners. It also mentions that confidence can inspire them to learn more and that is amazing!
Basically the ARCS model is really, really great!  (see also figure 8.1- I'm in awe!)

I really like these follow-through activities. I think this is something that is commonly overlooked, but transfer is so important!

Table 8.6 is really interesting. I'm definitely gonna use that :)

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 was about Developing Assessment Instruments. This was a really interesting chapter because I deal with this stuff everyday teaching 4th grade, to the point that it's really annoying. Testing is a big deal in public schools, to parents, and to me as a teacher. I liked the table 7.1 on page 141 that breaks down the  different types of assessments and their given objectives. It was nice to see that they all really do have different purposes, I think these ideas have all been in my brain but I've never seen it on paper like that :) . I liked reading about mastery levels and have always wondered how I could teach for mastery in my classroom better. I liked reading about the different test item criteria, and also table 7.2 which shows types of behavior and related test item types. I feel like this whole chapter would be super useful when creating an assessment with varied item types.

chapter 6

Chapter 6 was about writing performance objectives. What stood out to me from this chapter is that there are a lot of things to do to write a good performance objective! What I particularly thought was interesting was when it told about specifying objective conditions. As a teacher, I probably need to think more about the conditions for learning that are taking place in my classroom. In particular, the authenticity of the performance context. Sometimes I think that 4th grade is too basic for the assessments to be authentic, but I want to try harder to think of some assessments that I can make more authentic to real life outside of school.

Analyzing learners/Chapter 5

This chapter was easy to understand for me because these are things that I do all the time as I teach 4th grade, although not as in-depth. I am constantly evaluating what the students do and don't know, and adjusting the instruction to fit needs. One thing that came to mind while reading this is a topic that comes up a lot in our school meetings. It is, focusing on what is within our circle of influence. Our school has a large at-risk population and that is sometimes frustrating. We realized that we can't control things like what the parents do, socioeconomic factors, etc. We also can't control how the media/legislature sees us, new policies that are rolled out, etc. These fall within our circle of concern.  But, we focus on what we can control- such as classroom environment, quality of instruction/instructional strategies, etc., and this is what will help us to reach our goals Really, the whole ID process will help your focus on the circle of influence rather than the circle of concern.
 

Analyzing learners and contexts/ch5

will update later

Task analysis/chapter 4

Chapter 4- Identifying Subordinate and Entry skills
Brown- Conducting Task Analysis, Essentials of Instructional Design

I really enjoyed these chapters and found them to be very informative. Task analysis is the most important part of the instructional design process and forms the basis for the instruction that is being created. I liked how the book talked about different ways that subordinate and entry skills can be identified, but it also mentioned that entry skills are very tentative. I've found this to be a great challenge in my 4th-grade classroom as I have so many students on different levels, particularly in math and reading. It's hard to really ever know where they all are at, and know how to instruct the group as a whole. Modifying instruction is a lot easier said than done! To me, the different models of task analysis were all very similar, and would get you to a similar goal with any that you decided to folllow.

Chapter 3 and readings

Chapter 3 Conducting a goal analysis.
Conducting a goal analysis consists of classifying your goal into one of the 4 domains and then identifying the major steps that learners must go through to achieve the goal. I like the focus that was put on the steps of the process of achieving the goal. It's so important to keep in mind the subskills that are required to reach a goal. I think that considering these subskills will help me more in my teaching, especially in subjects like math which is more linear. This week I found myself teaching basic borrowing in subtraction, a skill my students should have learned years ago, while the subject matter was subtracting numbers up to the hundred thousand's. Many hadn't mastered that subskill or had forgotten so I had to go over that again, which I didn't realize would need to be done until I found many kids consistently missing that skill in their practice. Another thing that I appreciated that in this chapter was that goals were broken into 4 kinds- verbal skills, intellectual skills, psychomotor skills, and attitudes. Perhaps a lot of the goals I have include two or more of these kinds of skills together and I should consider separating them so that my goals are more clear and simple.

Shiffrin- "Instructional systems design- five views of the field"
The main point of this article is to say that ISD is a field that is widely misunderstood. This is because it is very complex. It stressed that it requires Educational theory and research knowledge, systems analysis, diffusion, consulting and interpersonal relations, evaluation and assessment, and project analysis, among other skills. I liked how the article said that there are many names thrown around for programs that teach similar things and we need some standardization. I know that as I have been telling many of my fellow teachers what program they are doing, they assume I'm either writing code and doing things with computers, or learning about curriculum. It's a lot different than that! Both of those skills would be helpful in ISD but there is just more to it!

Chapter 2 and readings

 I think that the thing I appreciated most about these readings was that the focus is on having a clearly identified goal. "...the most critical event in the instructional design process is identifying the instructional goal... Without accurate goals, designers run the risk of planning instructional solutions for which needs do not really exist." (p. 15). Having a specific goal changes the whole process of designing instruction. It focuses it and helps the designer be able tor design the best, most effective instruction possible. The part about clarity in instructional goals and "fuzzy goals" (p. 26) stood out to me a lot, as well as the following section "Learners, context, and tools" (p. 26-27). A goal statement should have descriptions of the learners, what they should do, the performance context, and tools available.  

 In teacher trainings, we usually call the goals "objectives" but the idea is the same. Something that is always stressed in those trainings is that teachers should state and post the objectives for our lessons. I have a spot on my front white board where I post my objectives. It is a teaching practice that has helped me a lot as I plan and also as I am teaching, to stay focused on the goal. It is also helpful for students to know what the goal is and that they are expected to work toward accomplishing it. 

Week 2

In class we were shown a lot of different models for instructional design.

I liked the ADDIE model best. I like that evaluation is in the center of it. I feel like evaluation is a driving force in creating instruction. If you are not constantly evaluating what you are doing, how will you create something good?

Analysis
Development
Design
Implementation
Evaluation

Does instruction help with motivation? It can. If there is high engagement, that usually leads to higher motivation.

Systems approach-- requires that all instructional processes be viewed as interrelated parts of a whole system, to be analyzed, designed, and developed in a coordinated and interdependent process.
Beneficial because it focuses on what learners do and links all the parts together carefully.

1. Technology is value free (it does not make things faster or our lives easier)
2. The application of technological solutions to one problem may create other problems which may be more serious than the original problems.
3. Applications of technology should be selected and/or continued only after determining that desirable consequences outweigh undesirable consequences

Conclusions: I am excited to learn and apply the ADDIE model because I think it is a good system. It makes sense and is a good framework for instructional design because it focuses on an objective. Objectives are so important because if we don't have an objective, what are we even doing? We need that focus in our teaching. Also, I like ADDIE because it focuses on evaluation during the design process.

Chapter 1

The Systematic Design of Instruction-- by Walter Dick

Chapter 1 thoughts (pages 1-11

I like the Dick and Carry systems approach a lot. While reading this chapter, it explained a lot of processes that I already do daily in my job as a teacher. I like how the text emphasized that every component is crucial to successful learning (page 1).

system= a set of interrelated parts, all of which work together toward a defined goal (page 1)

My systems of learning and teaching in my classroom are constantly changing. I used to think that's because I was a bad teacher or something, but I actually think that it shows that I'm a good teacher. Continual growth and improvement is important, and also flexibility!

systems approach model= the model of instructional design referenced in this text (page 3)

Instructional systems development (ISD)= design models and processes they represent.
Instructional design (ID)= umbrella term about all phases of the ISD process (p. 3)

instruction
performance objectives
criterion referenced testing
instructional strategy
-- all parts of the ID process

Constructivism has influenced many instructional designers.


Systems approach model- steps
1. Identify instructional goal (objective)- what do you want the learners to learn?
2. Conduct instructional analysis.- what steps do you need to take? What subskills and entry skills are needed?
3. Analyze learners and contexts.
4. Write performance objectives.-- about to the skill to be learned, conditions, and criteria for success
5. Develop assessments
6. Develop instructional strategy-- preinstructional activities, presentation of content, active participation and practice, feedback, follow-through activities, real-world application
7. Develop and select instructional materials
8. Design and conduct formative evaluation of instruction
9. Revise instruction
10. Design and conduct summative evaluation.

Why is the systems approach good? It focuses on what you want the learners to do when you are finished. You have a purpose and end goal. You can design linking all the parts to the goal.

The systems approach can be applied to all ages and types of learning. It is generic.

Teachers, ID professionals, professors, instructors can all use a systems approach to ID, with some adaptations as needed.

Week 1

Here are my thoughts...

Education- teaching and learning. I thought of my job as a teacher, and the effort I put into helping my kids each day to learn new things. It really is changing lives and helping them also become good citizens.

 Instruction- what teachers do, a process, giving information to a learner so they can learn. 

Technology- electronics, and really all tools that are innovative and make life easier.

 Design- creating things that are easy to use, to understand, and that are appealing.

 Instructional designers, as I understand it, should integrate the best practices of education, instruction, technology, and design into what they are creating. What an instructional designer does should be purposeful and deliberate. I think that an instructional designer is successful when they create instruction that is not only purposeful, but also efficient, engaging, and effective.