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.

Learning Theories

This week our group had to present an article on Learning Theories.  I thought the timing of this article was perfect, because this week was our first Learning Theories debate in our other course.  It was a great learning tool to help the class interact and talk about the learning theories of Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism.

Here is just a brief description of how learning occurs in the three learning theories that we discussed in class.

Behaviorism:      Learning occurs when there is a change in either the form or frequency of observable performance.  Behaviorist look at a stimulus, a response, and the association between the two. 

Cognitivism:       Cognitivist look at the acquisition of knowledge and internal mental structures.  The look to see what’s going on inside the black box that behaviorist do not attend to.  Learning occurs when there are changes between states of knowledge, rather than the probability of response.

Constructivism: This is an objective approach to learning.  Constructivism equate learning with creating meaning from experience.  This is a branch of Congnitivism.  Constructivists believes that the mind filters input from the world to produce its own reality. 

This is just some of the fun stuff that we are learning in our courses thus far.  I must admit, I like the hands on approach to things, like our Final project, compared to readings that I just don’t understand.  Stay tuned for information about our group project, “How to Perform CPR”, and all the stages that are associated with it.

Instructional Designer

A good friend of mine was looking at the employment website for UVU and noticed that the school is hiring an Instructional Designer.  She mentioned it to me, so I thought I’d look at it to see exactly what it is that an Instructional Designer does.  While looking at the summary of duties, I quickly realized that I actually knew what some of these words mean.  That’s a lot for me. 

Here’s the summary of duties from the job description:

“…works directly with subject matter experts to identify course goals and objectives and will work with production and development staff to design, develop, and deliver technology-based educational media and interactive learning experiences. Exercise skills in current educational and internet technology, including major learning management systems, social media, office and multimedia software, and web development skills.“ 

Looking at the job description of what this Instructional Designer will do I’m excited for all that we will be learning in the five semesters of this program. 

Backwards Design

Last week’s reading was very interesting.  It was different to have two different design views to be read and understood the same week.  The Backwards Design is a design process where you start with identifying the desired results.  This means you have to think what it is that you are trying to accomplish.  Once you figure that out, then you determine the acceptable evidence.  How will students achieve the desired results?  The last thing you do is plan the learning experiences and instruction. 

I’ve been teaching a computer class for seven semesters, and never once have I thought about using the backwards design.  Ok, I admit, I just learned about it, but it totally makes sense to use this way.  Instead teaching straight from the book (which is totally the way I have to teach), I should be looking at the course by the outcomes that I want my students to walk away with.  Next semester, I’m totally going to use the backward design, and see how different and useful it is.

Computers and ADDIE

I thoroughly enjoyed the class interaction this week. It was great to learn about ADDIE, and how all the steps relate to each other. When first starting this course, I really felt that I was in over my head. I felt that I was in the wrong major and that I was the dumbest person in the course. However, after tonight’s class, those feelings and worries are starting to go away. There were two things that we discussed tonight that really stuck out in my mind. First, was our discussion on the computer in the classroom setting, and second, was the definition and description of the ADDIE Project.


Professor Monson had a quote by Seymour Papert. The quote reads:

“There won’t be schools in the future…I think the computer will blow up the school. That is, the school defined as something where there are classes, teachers running exams, people structured in groups by age, following curriculum-all of that. The whole system is based on a set of structural concepts that are incompatible with the presence of the computer…but this will happen only in communities of children who have access to computers on a sufficient scale.” (Seymour Papert, 1984)

I find this quote really interesting. I am amazed at how much influence technology has in the school setting. When I was younger, I had to go to the library to do the research for all of my reports, and if I wanted additional practice for math homework, I received that from the teacher. Today, you can find anything out online, at anytime of the day. You can literally sit in bed, wearing your pajamas and research online. The use of the computer is just amazing. Everyone literally has access to a computer, either at home with their laptops, in an education setting with open labs, or even at the public library. With the computer, society literally has the world at their fingertips.

What does ADDIE Mean? A question that I was a little confused about last week.

Analysis: Is this a problem instruction can solve. What is the problem that you want to solve or the task that you would like your audience to learn?

DESIGN: the planning of what you are going to do. In this step, you will be clarifying the objectives, showing examples and non-examples, and identifying the means of evaluation.

DEVELOP: The stage in where you create and use media to get the content across to the student.

IMPLEMENT: The actual instruction. In my mind, this seems like it would be the easiest part of the ADDIE Process.

EVALUATION: Reviewing if and how the implementation worked. Were the objectives met, did the students understand what was going on? Did the audience answer the question you were asking? This is the purpose behind the ADDIE process.

I know that this is just the beginning of the course, but it helped me understand where I’m going with this degree, and how the whole instructional design process works.

EDPS 6430

What is technology, and what does an "instructional designer" do? These were two questions that were presented to us as students in the Instructional Design and Educational Technology master’s program at the University of Utah.


When a group of friends from Utah Valley decided to pursue a Master's degree, I don't think any of us really knew what we could do with the degree. We knew it would open doors for us in the teaching field but that was about it. My "mother-in-law" and co-workers asked me what I plan to do with this degree. My answer to them, right now anyways, is to continue what I'm doing, advising and teaching at the college level. I'm hoping this degree will prepare me to become better at what I do.

Well, enough about that....let's see if I can answer the two questions for now. First question, "what is technology?" When I hear of technology, I obviously think of computers, televisions, IPODS, and all the cool things that are available now that wasn't available when I was growing up. It wasn't until further thinking, and "googleing" that I find out what technology really is.

Technology is the usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology). After reading this definition of technology, I realized, I'm so narrow minded. Technology isn't just the big and new things that we have; it's the actual tool of how we obtain information. There are a lot of different technological tools that are available, and it's definitely not a one size fits all.

I must say that this acquired knowledge of what technology really is, changes my outlook of what this degree can do for me.