Final Project

This semester we have been working on our Instructional Design Project.  I can't believe how much time, effort, and energy goes into these documents.  I'm excited to turn in the final project next week, and see how we do on it.  There has been a lot of changes that we have had to make because of the "UNSEEN".  Hopefully the remaining of this week will go smoothly, and the project can be submitted!

SNOW DAY!!!!

"THE STORM OF THE CENTURY" hit Tuesday, November 23rd.  Because of this storm...the entire University of Utah closed down!!  I was very grateful for the cancellation of class, because I hate driving in snow!

Olympic Park Visit

This week we had a field trip to the Olympic Park Calderon. I was excited to do this, because I have never been to the Olympic Park.  I thought there was a lot of cool things that visitors could use to remember the Olympic experience. 

After the "field trip" we came back to class and discussed the pros and cons of the design of the park.  I felt kinda lost, because I thought that the experience was great.  After listening to the other comments, I realized that my thinking and the class thinking was not the same.  It was totally different!

It was a great experience, and I'm glad that we were able to visit and see "INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN" in life.

VISUALS in the Classroom

Tonight in class we had two presentations on visuals.  As the two groups were presenting, I started thinking back to my "younger days" and the visuals that my teachers used.  I remember having teacher's use overhead transparencies to answer tests, worksheets, or to demonstrate math problems.  Teachers used to show pictures using slide projectors, and now you can download, scan, and show pictures using a PowerPoint presentation.  I remember teachers creating posters for projects, and having them displayed in the classroom.


It has been fun to take a little trip down memory lane.  It's cool to see how visuals have changed within 15 years! 

Media vs Method...which is best??

Last night we had a great class debate between media and method.  Each group was responsible for reading an article either by Clark or Kozma.  Our small group had an article by Clark titled “Media Will NEVER Influence Learning.”  As I was reading this article, before class, I thought, “Man this guy is right on.  It doesn’t matter the type of media that is used in instruction, the instruction relies on the method of teaching.”  I have had a professor in the past that would involve the course in great discussion without using any media.  This professor’s method of teaching was straight forward, lecture.

Now I work in a department where all the professors for one particular course teach the same material and have one standard test for the course that every student takes, no matter which section they are in.  I know that some professors teach using PowerPoint, some involve class participation, and some just stand up and lecture.  No matter which media was used in the classroom, the average on the test across all sections was similar.  PowerPoint didn’t influence one section to score higher, and lecture only didn’t make one section score lower. 

The debate last night really brought this example to mind…after the fact of course, and makes me think how much does media really play a role in instruction and learning?

Writing Objectives

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to help a department chair I work with create and revise course objectives for a variety of courses.  During this time, I knew what the purpose of class objectives were, but never knew how in depth these objectives should be.  As we were working on the objectives, the department chair was in a time crunch to get the data entered and submitted.   Because of the time crunch, the department chair seemed to just be entering random text and not realizing the purpose of the objectives.

Looking back at this experience, I realize that the objectives for a course are very important, and that it should take time and a few revisions to make sure that the objective is clearly stated.

Instructional Design applied

Last week I had the opportunity to attend an advisor conference in Orlando, Florida.  I was excited to attend this conference to learn more about advising issues that are going on throughout the country, as well as to observe the presentations and see how they fit with what I’m learning in class.

The first thing that I tried to keep in mind as I attended the breakout sessions was the following:  “Is this session something that training can take care of?”  Some of the sessions I went to fit the description great, and was definitely something that training needed to fix, others were more of pure information, while a few were just boring in and of themselves. 

When getting ready to go to the breakout sessions, I would read the description about the session, and then try to see if the description really fit.  Some of the presenters were right on…while others were way out in left field from what the description said.  Also, I could tell which presenters started with the “end in sight” and those that just “threw it together.”

The one breakout session that really caught my mind, started with the end in sight.  This presentation was titled “Fast Pass Treatment:  Staff Retreats are Worth the Price of an ‘E-Ticket’.”  This course first caught my attention because of the words “STAFF RETREAT.”  It has been a long time since I have attended a staff retreat and was something that I was really interested in.  I also thought that this topic is definitely something that training or teaching could fix.  A lot of companies plan on having what they call staff retreats, but in the end they all turn out to be really long and boring staff meetings.  The ladies that presented on this topic definitely had specific goals and objects that they wanted to cover, as well as handouts and a CD for each audience member with templates, games, agendas, and everything else that a newbie would need to plan a great staff retreat.

I was excited to see that with great planning and preparation the tools that we are learning about can be applied outside the classroom setting.