Sunday, June 24, 2007
ISD Is Like Building A Deli Sandwich
I think comparing Instructional Design to a deli sandwich is a great analogy. You need to complete all steps of the process in order. As a teacher you can not start the process without knowing what you want to ultimately accomplish. I have been in the education field for over 10 years and along the way I have learned some very important lessons. One key thing I learned early on is that classroom management is crucial to successful teaching. You can have the greatest lesson plan on paper, but when delivering instruction, if your classroom doesn't have good discipline, you will not be successful. I have also learned that after teaching a lessons it is important to be a reflective practitioner. Another thing about being a technology teacher is that things change very quickly. I feel it is important to make sure teachers and myself are using all the every available technology. I teach periodic staff development workshops to keep teacher current on what is available at our school. One example of this is using laptop carts in their classrooms. Last year my school had one laptop cart with 16 laptops, a wireless printer, and a data projector. The neat thing was I showed them how to use it and the teachers ran with it. After documenting the use of the cart the district gave us another cart based on our heavy use. Overall, when planning for teachers or students instructional design is at the heart of every lesson I teach.
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3 comments:
I have to agree with you on the classroom management. If you are not in control of you class, the lesson is pointless. Being a reflective practitioner is not something I do very well, but I am learning and getting better at it. Things in technology do change very quickly and if you do not keep up, you can very easily fall behind.
I think you need to complete all the steps in order, but the evaluation is supposed to be ongoing, right? I mean, at least that’s what I read about in the deli sandwich analogy. I also am not quite sure where the classroom management came from in that particular piece of writing I guess in the instructional part.
Anyway, I totally agree that without being able to manage a classroom, the students can not and will not function in an orderly way. It’s very akin to managing a business. You have to make sure you are consistent and fair. And you have to maintain an atmosphere of respect towards each other.
I would be very curious to work in a similar situation as you. I have taken my class to our computer lab, and because of funding, we didn’t have a lab teacher. It was basically left up to me to facilitate. Actually it was kind of funny. My students, at least a couple of them, were helping me to navigate through a power point. Aren’t kids great?
You made a couple of really insightful comments. One being that you have to be a reflective practitioner. My first year teaching, which was a learning experience in so many ways, I gave my students a feedback survey without putting their name on it, because I wanted truthful information from them. Now mind you, I know they are teenagers, but it really opened my eyes to some of my methods that were not necessarily working and those that were. The other is the discipline issue. Why should we even have to bring that up? Discipline should not be an issue, but it always is at my high school. I want a zero tolerance policy on discipline. :)
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