Week4-ExpertsSpeak

Here’s our virtual panel again, giving you their take on how the Design Phase of the instructional design process is actually implemented in each of the three representative environments. At first, it was really hard for me not to write “understand” or “comprehend” in my instructional objectives. It seemed to me then that I wanted my students to “understand” what I was teaching! But now, I see that the tie to evaluation is what drives this – I can’t evaluate “understanding” because I can’t see or interpret brainwaves. So in order to deduce that my students understand a concept, I have to see them // do // something that provides that evidence. Instructional objectives have become much more important to me since I gained that “understanding” myself! ** We hang everything we do on performance objectives. In the corporate world, it’s all about what people can // do // at the end of a training experience. I don’t have the budget or the staff for anything that doesn’t produce clear, measurable results! Speed is another key driver of our programs, and that’s why we use advance organizers and job aids so much – they help novice learners learn and perform more quickly. We especially notice that graphical organizers work well, and we use a lot of color. Even our non-native English speakers are able to use color-coded visuals pretty easily. Looking back, I realize how much I’ve learned about this “teacher stuff” since I taught my first intro-to-business class at the community college. Back then, I read the objectives set up for the class, and they seemed pretty logical to me, but I didn’t really see that they were the structure for the whole class. I guess I thought of them as guidelines. Now, though, I take objectives seriously. In department meetings, we sometimes really debate the fine points of a set of objectives, because we’re focused on helping our students achieve exactly those goals. Getting the objectives wrong in a foundational class can affect much more than that one course, too – we can find ourselves either re-teaching material that’s already been covered – wasting valuable time – or discovering that we’ve allowed a gap to occur, confusing our students. I’ve also found that the order in which I present material – the sequence – and the way the material is taught – the instructional strategies – are really important to students’ understanding key concepts. If the sequence starts at too high a level, students are nearly always lost, at least for a while. For example, if we start out talking about macroeconomics before they have a solid understanding of the basics of econ, students get frustrated and, even worse, demotivated. Actually, that’s one of the reasons I like using instructional strategies that are highly interactive – most students enjoy them and are therefore more motivated to learn.
 * Experts Speak – Week 4 **
 * Fifth-grade Teacher Soraya **
 * Corporate Training Manager Cathy
 * College Professor Jim  **