After learning more about instructional design (ID) and how it is used for teachers, business administrators, and the military I agree with statement below:
"Education has missed the boat, with respect to instructional design. Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly, with little thought to why they are presenting information or even who their audience is. Teacher training, at the university level and during Professional development, needs to focus on helping teachers become comfortable with instructional design principles."
The instructional design should be taught directly during teacher training because I'm many districts and school buildings teachers are being asked to create their own modules or units; however these teachers are not forming their modules following the ID ideas. Michael Molenda mentioned in his work titled "The ADDIE Model", that many teacher instructional materials being used for teacher training does not mention the ADDIE model or ID. Modenda also stated that the ADDIE model should be followed in order (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation).
I believe that the ADDIE model is the ID I would follow because it makes sense to anaylsis data and create a pretest or an observation before designing a lesson. This is a reason why I agree to the statement above saying that teachers do not always know their audience before teaching. The anaylsis part of ADDIE covers this idea of making sure the students or staff you are teaching or training know the background of the lesson but can grow in the lesson.
Another part of the ADDIE model that is commonly missing in teacher ID is the evaluation. The evaluation part of ADDIE is not my favorite part because of where it is place. When I think evaluation I think of assessments, standards met, and data of growth. In the ADDIE model the evaluation process means to self reflected and question students about their learning. I found that this is an area I am lacking in. I find that I self reflect but do not write down or take action on improvements. I have started to question students and have them reflect on how they believe a unit or model has gone. Molenda stated that the evaluation process is to find the next step in instruction, meaning to review, reteach, or deepen the learning. This is where many teachers fail to follow through, including myself. We as teachers reflect but do not always have the time or thought to reteach if the concept was not completely understood by the audience.
Overall I learning about ID and the ADDIE model has given me a new view on how to design and create engaging appropriate models. Teacher training should including more of the understanding of ID and how to fully create lessons that will advance the audiences knowledge. If teachers were given more training on ID it might decrease the number of teachers throwing together lessons without thinking about background knowledge, audience, and evaluation.
I believe that the ADDIE model is the ID I would follow because it makes sense to anaylsis data and create a pretest or an observation before designing a lesson. This is a reason why I agree to the statement above saying that teachers do not always know their audience before teaching. The anaylsis part of ADDIE covers this idea of making sure the students or staff you are teaching or training know the background of the lesson but can grow in the lesson.
Another part of the ADDIE model that is commonly missing in teacher ID is the evaluation. The evaluation part of ADDIE is not my favorite part because of where it is place. When I think evaluation I think of assessments, standards met, and data of growth. In the ADDIE model the evaluation process means to self reflected and question students about their learning. I found that this is an area I am lacking in. I find that I self reflect but do not write down or take action on improvements. I have started to question students and have them reflect on how they believe a unit or model has gone. Molenda stated that the evaluation process is to find the next step in instruction, meaning to review, reteach, or deepen the learning. This is where many teachers fail to follow through, including myself. We as teachers reflect but do not always have the time or thought to reteach if the concept was not completely understood by the audience.
Overall I learning about ID and the ADDIE model has given me a new view on how to design and create engaging appropriate models. Teacher training should including more of the understanding of ID and how to fully create lessons that will advance the audiences knowledge. If teachers were given more training on ID it might decrease the number of teachers throwing together lessons without thinking about background knowledge, audience, and evaluation.
I agree that teacher training is lacking in this regard. I have been to many PD days where the focus is always on the new curriculum and not so much on how to appropriately use it with our students. I think many presenters believe that we already know this and we honestly really should. Perhaps this is where teacher programs in colleges and universities need to go more in depth. In my teacher program, I was taught a lot about how to plan a strong lesson, but this is much more than that.
ReplyDeleteAlso, evaluation as reflection can be difficult. You could try having your students complete a simple survey for you at the end of a lesson or a unit. Since you work with 2nd graders, you could have them put their heads down and give you a 1-5 on their hands with 1 being they need more help and 5 being they have mastered the content. This allows them to reflect on their learning which is important to teach them to do.
One last thing, you may want to go back and edit your post where it says "ABBIE" instead of "ADDIE." I am assuming that auto-correct was being snarky for you. It does that to me sometimes as well. :)
Thanks for the catch with ADDIE, Tiffany! I agreed that most of my teaching experience with PD is always about new curriculum or teaching evaluation rubrics. I have thad my students do a reflective writing but it was at the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteHi Brittany. I enjoyed reading your post. While I was not taught the ADDIE model specifically in college, the method we were taught did cover these steps. Being a person who likes orderliness, I like the step-by-step aspect of ADDIE. I agree completely with you about the reflection and evaluation aspect of instructional design. I do my item analysis to see the areas that students did not grasp, and think that I will change how I teach it the next time. Occasionally, I have students write reflections on how they feel they are doing and where they need help. I need to work on this more.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the idea that really excited me was the "What is Backward Design?" chapter by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. This is odd for me to think of doing lesson plans backward, but it makes so much sense to have the end result in mind before you even begin to plan! I also liked the way the authors classified information that you teach to students as "worth begin familiar with", "important to know and do", and "enduring understanding". Sometimes I am overwhelmed thinking that I have to teach everything thoroughly, and wondering how I will ever manage this in the time allotted. Just the realization that some things can be introduced to the students while others will be learned more deeply was eyeopening.
I agree with your final thoughts on ID. It forces the teacher to think through each stage of the lesson plan. Effective instruction is the result.
ReplyDeleteIt is always a complaint of mine that teachers are not given time to adequately plan, especially when a district is asking them to start from scratch and create units. You are correct in saying that most teachers don't follow a plan when creating such activities, therefore they lack elements of effective instruction. I agree with you in that I often reflect on how a lesson went, but I seldom write it down and only make mental notes for improvement. It really is essential to keep these written notes to avoid the same problems reoccurring,
ReplyDelete