Week 5: Instructional Design in Business and in Schools

While instructional design used to mainly focus on instruction in the business setting, it has now expanded to encompass more of examining some of the issues that can arise with learners in the workplace.  Of course, it can be applied to my line of work in the elementary classroom, not just in an industry sense.  One of the ways I liked that instructional design was being used, and probably the most pertinent to my line of work, was the notion of cross-cultural training.  Much like businesses have to address a variety of cultures in the workplace, we do in the classroom as well.  While I think designing instruction around societal culture is important, I would place a greater focus on learner culture.  As I would be considered the "instructional designer" in my classroom, I am always looking at how my teaching is impacting my students.  I make clear my expectations, yet make a conscious effort to learn how my students will best learn the material, altering my instruction appropriately.  A great help to me is a lot of the professional development I have received, specifically an Asperger's training I went to a few months ago that helped me be able to target learners that have this disorder in an effective manner.

Along with that, the idea of developing advanced evaluation techniques is something that is consistently going on in education.  The idea in business is that the training will produce improved performance and more efficient output.  In education, I am looking for evaluation techniques that will bring out what my students have learned.  We look to see if what we are doing is research based.  For example, I am a part of the ELA department in my district, and we receive instruction on interventions and assessments to use to produce better learners.

With the 21st century classroom looking more and more advanced, instructional design is playing more and more of a role in schools.  While reading chapter 21 of the text, I found a few trends that hit home for where I am teaching 4th grade.  No Child Left Behind has had a huge influence on how instructional design is implemented, and how educational technology can offer flexibility in the classroom when it comes to teaching objectives.  In my district, we are getting into Common Core standard-based report cards.  Needing to teach each objective is important, and having new ways of reaching students is always a positive.

Another trend that was looked at in chapter 21 was closing achievement gaps.  Some alarming statistics as late as 2009 show that only 21 states require technology coursework to become a licensed teacher.  If the teachers aren't using technology in their own education, they won't be equipped to teach using technology.  I would hope this trend is moving in a more positive direction, as available technology in the classroom is increasing.  One advantage in taking this class for me is that I am learning how to use several different tools that can help me close achievement gaps in my own classroom.