Week 1 Blog: Defining the Field

Week 1 Blog Post: Defining the Field

            Instructional technology and design is a term that I originally defined as the use of technology to facilitate the learning of an objective. After reading the first three chapters in Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology by Robert A. Reiser and John V. Dempsey, I feel that my original definition inadequately defines the field.

            My definition of instructional technology and design has been predominantly shaped by the professional development that I’ve received at my job. Often during training sessions, the presenter would demonstrate a particular instructional media and place emphasis on how it would help our students learn.

            However, all the trainings that I have attended focus on the instructional media itself and not the instructional design process. After examining the various definitions of instructional technology, I realized that my original definition is most closely aligned with the early definitions that focus on instructional media. It was not surprising to me that “many individuals both within and outside of the field of instructional technology equate the field with instructional media” (Reiser, 2012, p. 2). I myself made this same assumption.

            Despite my original misunderstanding of instructional technology and design, my definition has changed to one that reflects both the use of instructional media and the instructional design process. I now view instructional technology as a process in which systematic instructional design methods and instructional media combine to facilitate learning. During the instructional design process, there is analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.

Characteristics of Instructional Design

            The six characteristics of instructional design are as follows:

1. Instructional design is student centered.

2. Instructional design is goal oriented.

3. Instructional design focuses on meaningful performance.

4. Instructional design assumes outcomes can be measured in a reliable and valid way.

5. Instructional design is empirical, iterative, and self-correcting.

6. Instructional design typically is a team effort.

During my career in education, I often designed lesson plans. One lesson plan that I would like to evaluate using the six characteristics of instructional design is a lesson that I used for 3^rd grade math review of heavily tested TEKS that would most likely show up on the STAAR test.

            During this lesson, students were divided into groups of four students with various levels and abilities. I preselected every group to ensure that they were well balanced. Each group was given a real-world math problem to solve. First, the groups had to solve the problems individually. Then, the group came together to see if they got the same answer. If they didn’t, they had to discuss the problem and come to a solution as a team. As this process was going on, I walked throughout the classroom and stepped in to provide assistance and support where needed.

Then, the groups had to write down their problem on a large piece of paper. After all groups finished their problems, they then had to become the teachers and present the problem to the class.

My math review lesson adhered well to five out of the six characteristics of instructional design. The lesson was student centered, as I only stepped in and provided instruction when it was required to move the learning process forward. The students were the focal point of the lesson and ultimately took control of the learning process. The lesson focused on meaningful performance since the objectives were clearly stated. Not only were the students aware of the need to learn the desired skill for assessment purposes, but all the questions were meaningful. All the problems pertained to situations that could occur at school or at home that they would need to be able to solve. This also indicates that the lesson could be measured in a reliable and valid way. The students solved problems that they would need to know for both the school environment and the real world, and they produced a product as evidence of their learning (their posters/teaching the skills to peers).

Throughout the entire process, I was able to collect informal and formal assessments. As I monitored the students, I was able to further question students to assess whether or not they were truly grasping the information. I also was able to find areas of the lesson that could be improved upon. After my observations of all stages of the lesson and the students’ final products, I was able to evaluate and revise the lesson as needed.

My lesson could have been improved by collaborating with other specialists to make it a team effort. For example, I could have consulted with the technology specialist on campus to incorporate instructional technology to the lesson.

Should Teachers, Textbooks, and Chalkboards be Considered Instructional Media?

Reiser describes instructional medias “the physical means, other than the teacher, chalkboard, and textbook, via which instruction is presented to learners” (2012, p.17). This distinction is made because teachers, textbooks, and chalkboards are the three primary means of instruction that have been constant. While I believe that textbooks and chalkboards should be considered instructional media, teachers should not. Textbooks and chalkboards are physical means of instruction that, although commonly used, can easily be replace by another medium. For instance, I’ve taken courses in which textbooks are not used at all. I’ve witnessed math teachers use journaling, online classroom settings, and various other means of instruction without ever referring to a textbook. In the growing online learning community, chalkboards are never used.

Teachers, however, are instructional media that is constant and common place in almost every learning situation. Whether on the job, in a school setting, or online, a teacher is a constant and therefore should be categorized differently.

Works Cited

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2012). Trends and issues in instructional design and

            technology. Boston: Pearson Education.