Section 5: Trends and Issues in Various Settings

The chapters in this section identify trends and issues with instructional design and technology in a variety of settings: military, health care, P-12, higher education, and around the world. In this week’s blog post, tell which setting you are working in or intend to work in. Then identify one thing that you learned from reading about each of the other settings and explain how that concept, idea, or approach could be adapted to your setting.

My area of work is in P-12 as an elementary librarian for the past four years and before that, ten years as an art teacher. Recently when I completed my LIS courses, passed the test, and completed the majority of my technology coursework, my administration decided to give me the responsibility of District Librarian. I am excited about my new role, but I am also apprehensive about how I will manage the other three libraries as well as my own.  Besides being a media specialist, I also collaborate with teachers on my campus to integrate technology and other resources into the curriculum. Fortunately the library aides on the other three campuses have been patient and understanding with me as I learn how to juggle all of my responsibilities. This week’s reading has been one of my favorites, because it has forced me to think about what happens beyond my P-12 domain. As an educator I believe that is exactly what we need to do because we are supposed to be preparing students for life after P-12 and our instruction should reflect what students will experience in their future careers. 

The chapter about ID in business and industry states, “demands for increased efficiency, lower training budgets and globalized instruction are stimulating the evolution of instruction design” (pg. 184). As a provider of resources for my district, I would like to follow the business and industry’s focus on identifying the learners’ societal and cultural factors. In the library this means having a collection of materials that appeals to the various cultures represented in our district. Another implication for P-12 is the focus on needs assessment before instruction begins. Identifying and researching the cultural factors that require differentiated instruction will help create a better instructional intervention.  

 

The military presents a different type of instructional design scenario than P-12 because of the pervasiveness of training in the military’s day-to-day activities (p. 190). The example on pg. 194 describes a facility in which service-members train in a replicated city to experience and practice actual humanitarian and peacekeeping situations. This can be applied to P-12 by employing contextual teaching methods in the classroom.  A  3^rd grade social studies teacher could help her students make more connections during an economics unit if she uses real-world situations that the students are accustomed to, for example the students become entrepreneurs by creating their own business-babysitting, etc.- to apply the concepts of earning, spending, saving and budgeting.

 

 

Duplicating the practices of health care educators, especially the recent trend of Evidence-based learning would be beneficial in P-12 education.  Instructional designers for health care must help prepare professionals who will be able to make life-and-death judgments; consequently the movement of evidence-based-learning requires medical students to make decisions based on a systematic analysis of empirical research to find the best possible solution.  This method is incorporated in such a way that students become accustomed to consulting information sources so they will continue to do so in practice (p. 200). The movement of EBL in medicine reminds me of the need for educators to teach 21^st century skills at a time when students need it the most. A teaching method like EBS in education should emphasize identifying, locating and evaluating information found on the internet and should be a requirement for students as early as elementary school.

After reading the chapter about trends in higher education around the world, I see a greater need for P-12 educators to incorporate aspects of distant ed into their instruction. Students need to be prepared for this type of instruction and modeling aspects of online education in the lower grades will help prepare them for education after high school, for example, requiring students to post responses in blogs and social media. The section written by Brenda Litchfield was also insightful for my field of work: “I find out what (faculty) considers to be the most important goals and objectives for their courses and then help them design, develop, and implement strategies and activities that will keep their students’ attention and increase learning” (p. 224). My new role as district librarian should reflect her philosophy of being an innovator for my campus and district.