Section 4: Human Performance Technology

According to the text book, a “performance problem” is workers not performing adequately on the job.  I teach PE. I am the only teacher in my classes and I have anywhere from 28 to 35 students in all my classes. It’s nearly impossible for me to efficiently get all my students within their healthy fitness level as required in a state mandated test called the Fitnessgram, due to the time and lack of personnel. This I feel is a performance problem. I desire the results of good health for all my students, but my energy, patients, lack of resources, and environmental support defeats me and my goals for my students. I believe if I had and more staffing, like an aide, I could be able to accomplish these state goals

  A performance support system (PSS) is “a system that provides the user with information, guidance, and learning experiences where ever and whenever a user needs it”.  (http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwitr/docs/nextgen/index.html The Fitnessgram is my performance support systems that helps aid and guide me to know where my students are health/fit wise or where they need to go to be fit and healthy. The Fitnessgram is a good PSS because it gives me the flexibility to customize the program to my students needs.

 Having explicit knowledge along with tacit knowledge will help me manage my lessons and students.  Explicit knowledge will help me document each student’s strengths and weakness. And tacit knowledge will help me know what lessons/exercises are the most successful in getting my students performance ready for the Fitnessgram.

 Keeping with the same topic of the “Fitnessgram”, I believe that all six factors of informal learning help me be a better PE teacher for my students. I’ve experienced all six different types of informal learning in my organization or school while facilitating the Fitnessgram. First there is “nature of the outcomes”. Through informal learning you can gauge and measure the outcome of the student using the Fitnessgram pre-setup program. Second, is “experience”. Year after year of giving the Fitnessgram test, I’ve come to find out the fastest, most efficient ways to administer the test to the students for maximum results or performance. It’s a trial and error at its best. The “origin” is the outside of school training the students do themselves to get their body ready for the test. The “role of the students” this one requires a lot of motivation on my part.  I can’t make the students want to be fit and healthy. All I can do is encourage, encourage, encourage! Next is “Role of the instructor”. This is where I collaborate with other PE teaches and see what works for them with motivation, types of exercise, and comparing notes and ideas on how to best use the Fitnessgram as a learning tool and not a tool that sets the students up for failure. And finally, the “role of the instructional designer”, this is where I as the PE teacher will crunch my numbers and send the results to the state. I will report to the stakeholders the positive and negative things of the Fitnessgram program.

 All in all, fitness and technology seem like two opposite ends of the spectrum. But with quality training and high-quality programs, I think they can work side by side to accomplish unbelievable results.  

 

Section 3: Evaluation, Implementing and Managing Instructional Programs and Projects

Part 1
The first part of section 3 discusses evaluations in instructional design. There are two basic types of evaluation: Formative = evaluates the materials during the process and Summative =  evaluates after materials have been implemented. Reading chapter 10 gave me some personal anxiety thinking about the PDAS evaluation that I have to go through every year. YUCK! But now I understand the process better after reading the reasons behind using an evaluating to monitor productivity. But it’s  still stressful  to personal be evaluated and scored only on one lesson. On another note: the two models I’ve chosen to explore are The Seels & Glasgow ISD Model II and Dick and Carey’s Model.

The Seels & Glasgow model is a formative evaluation. It has three key phases it’s divided in to: needs analysis management, instructional design management and implementation and evaluation. It is a product-oriented model. This model is very user friendly and would be useful to me if I was the project manger on creating the school’s web page for example. Using this model would help assist me to evaluate if the web site was ready to be launched or distributed to learners.

 

 

The Dick and Carey’s Model is a summative type of evaluation. It has nine basic steps in an iterative cycle that evaluates the effectiveness of the instruction. The nine steps are: assess needs to identify instructional goal(s), conduct instructional analysis, analyze learners and contexts, write performance objectives, develop assessment instruments, develop instructional strategy, develop and select instruction, design and conduct formative evaluation, and revise instruction. The final process is to conduct a summative evaluation.  The best part of this model is its systems approach, its goal-directed, interdependencies, the feedback mechanism and its self-regulation. I could use the Dick and Carey Design Model after the web site was launched to determine if the expectations and goals of the stakeholders are being successfully addressed.

Part 2

Other questions that would be useful to address are: What are the biggest obstacles? What is the type environment that the learning will occur in? What does the employees feel about the new product? What issues do I want to address with the training?

Part 3

Below is a scenario I’ve created to explain how I would use Situational Leadership to establish a project and manage it during scarce resource times.  

 One day my principal came to me and told me that due to the lack of school budget this year, I had to create our professional developments (PD). The PD had to be about technology because of the grant we received in the past requires each teacher have so many hours a year.  After I think and ponder on what would be the most cost-effect PD in technology, I’ve come up with a series of PD using Google tools. Google tools are free and there are endless ways the teachers can implement the Google tools into their day to day instruction. Situational Leadership would require me to implement Google tools in 4 phases. In phase 1, I need to determine my leadership style. I need to be directive, detailed and confident on my decision-making without being to over bearing. In other words, I would need to decide what Google tools we are going to learn about  and how to implement in our PD trainings. Next is phase 2, as the teachers gain confidents in me and using Google tools, we can move on to more advance learning and setting goals. Then phase 3, as a leader I would reward those teaches using Google tools daily and encourage the teachers that are not using them. Last is phase 4, I would monitor the usage of Google tools in daily instruction; continue to communicate with the teachers and their needs and mostly MOTIVATE them continually about the importance of using Google tools in their daily instructions.

 

Section 2: Theories and Models of Learning and Instruction

If someone was to ask me to define epistemology before I read Section 2, I would have had no idea where to start.  But after my readings I discovered that epistemology is “the philosophy of how people learn”, I wouldn’t call myself a scholar in epistemology but I do know more now on how people learn than I knew last week. Yeah me!  According to the text book, epistemology “is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and understanding – their foundations, assumption and validity.” (pg. 54) There are two main theories/models that researchers developed to help better understand the way people learn and they are positivist (also called objectivist) and relativist (also called constructivist). Truths vs Beliefs. 
In a nutshell here is a basic breakdown of the differences of the two.
Positivism:  (truths)
Analyze * Content * Setting * Learner
Identify * Instructional Needs
Establish *Instructional Goals

Relativism: (beliefs)
Visualize * Learning environment *Learner * Problem * Key Concepts
Set * Learner goals * Learning Styles
Evaluate *Context-Dependent

When I study the difference of the two theories and reflect on which theory I teach more like, I would have to say relativism. I spent some time pondering why that is…. and I decided it’s because that is the way I was taught in college back in the late 90’s. That got me to wondering what method are today’s teachers are being taught to teach? Then I started to think what about the learner… are we teaching to them using the right method? Lots of things for me to consider about my teaching methods.

Just when I thought I knew all there was to know about learning theories, the text book gave me a curveball... a third method  called hermenutical. I need to explorer the hermeneutical theory more but in my research I found this definition, which I like. Hermeneutical: “Theory of interpretation and understanding that no observation or description is free from the effects of the observer's experiences, pre-suppositions, and projections of his or her personal values and expectations. Hermeneutic is Greek for, interpreter.”    (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/hermeneutic-circle.html#ixzz2BwdEpZF8) To me, it’s different from positivist and relativist theories because hermeneutic is based off of ones knowledge as a whole. One cannot understand without knowing the individual part building to the whole text. And the meaning of the text must be found within its cultural context.

We all know the old saying “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” Well this holds true when we look at one of the ultimate goals as a teacher and that goal is to teach problem solving. The difference between behaviorist and constructive perspectives is the teacher will either teach by a style that is “tell information” or “show portrayal”.  Reading section 2 got me to thinking about the way I learn, I’m more of a visual learner. Which makes "show protrayal" style the way I problem solve. And I tend to teach that way. To me, motivation is the best tool in a teacher’s tool box. We need to learn what motivates our students and tap into that behavior. It’s important to learn how to motivate students at the three levels of motivation: 1. Learn 2. Work 3. Self-motivation. I believe that good motivation will turn out good performances in the field of instructional design. I warn myself and my fellow colleges that it’s impossible to motivate all students all the time due to the variability of learners, individuals, attitudes, expectations, and/or situations. So don’t give up or get discouraged. Just keep teaching and trying!

In conclusion, knowing my students and knowing my style of teaching will help me teacher teach better and my students learn more successfully.  As educators, we must not be hung up on only one style of teaching but learn many styles. This will allow all students to succeed as well as us teachers.

Defining Educational Technology:

My personal definition of educational technology (ET) is, “any media, tools, equipment that is used to help an instructor teach a student to learn.” Which I think coincides with the first definition in the text book. My definition suggests that ET is an enhancement to help the teacher teach and the students to learn and it excludes teachers themselves as part of the ET movement. Different technology of the 21^st Century that I have been exposed to has helped me create this definition. For example: Internet, Activate White Boards, IPads, Laptops, Smartphones, & Apps (to list a few).  But the more I read in the text book the more I started to think that maybe teachers should be part of my definition. Teaches are the one presenting and teaching the information for students to learn. Our brains are the biggest technological tool that we own. Thinking about this has opened my eyes to how narrow my definition is or was…  I think this is the beauty or attraction of ET, that there is not one set definition to describe it. We as professional in the field of ET need to always be redefining, revision, and evolving ways to define educational technology. So my new definition for ET would be, “Educational technology is any media, tool, equipment, and/or instructor that supports and enhances a student to learn.”  

When I think of lessons I’ve developed and compare them to the six characteristics of instructional design, I find most all my lessons have characteristics 1-4 in them. The lessons are learner centered, goal oriented, focuses on meaningful performances and assumes outcomes can be measured in a reliable and valid way. Very few, if any of my lessons have characteristic 5 and 6 (empirical, iterative, and self-correction and typically a team effort) intertwined within them. I’m not sure why, maybe because I was unaware of these characteristics or maybe getting to that level of teaching requires more effort than I’ve been putting forth.  But now that I’ve been exposed to where my lesson should be, I’m going to make a conscious effort to include all six characteristics. I’ve typed out the six characteristics and taped them to my computer where I develop my weekly lesson plans so it will serve as a visual reminder to me of higher expectations of my lesson and self.

Before I read chapter 3, I’ve always thought of anything that had technology in the definition was something that had to be “plugged in” or required some source of electricity.  So with this mind set, teaches, chalkboards, and textbooks would be excluded from instructional media in my personal opinion.  But as I began to read chapter 3 and how instructional design/media was developed throughout the years, I tend to wonder if teaches, chalkboards and textbooks should be included.

Don’t they all contribute to each other? After looking online at a few sites about the topic, I find that it’s six one way and ½ a dozen the other. I think that as educators it’s important not to be so set in our ways that we don’t respect or have an open mind about others opinions. It’s good for us to develop our own opinion but not rule out the fact that we may be wrong or that we may need to change our views. On another note, I wonder if what generation you fall under determines what your views on instructional media/design are. Let’s say you were part of the generation that was brought up with “today’s technology” would you would agree with Reiser, or if you were part of the “older generation” would you disagree. Lots of food for thought…. After writing this reflection, I don’t really know what I think about teachers, chalkboards and textbooks. I suppose if I had to choose, I would say they should be included because they ultimately fall under the umbrella of my definition of educational technology.