Well, it appears that the blog prompts are a bit off of the current status of the class; which is no problem, really. Things change and rearrange as the semester goes. It is often quite irritating to be in a course that still forces everyone into the pre-arranged schedule no matter what happens. SO, since we still are working on the proto-type and have not had a change to submit it to peers for feedback, I will focus on reflecting on where we are at now with the prototype.

Of course, there really is not much of a prototype to blog on right now. Our group seems to be experiencing the fragmentation that happens to groups that stay together for a while. Some members seem to be busy with other projects right now, while others seem to be on completely different pages. Reining this in over the next couple of weeks may prove to be a major undertaking.

Luckily, we do have someone in the group that can work on the technical side of the prototype. I knew all along that we would need some kind of LMS or CMS or something to put the prototype in. But my fear was that since I have some experience with installing and running Moodle and WordPress, that this duty would also fall to me. But we have a Joomla expert in the group… or at least someone that knows how to do Joomla and has a server for us to use. That is awesome. I don’t know enough about Joomla to know if it will work in the long run for learning, but I know that people have made it work in other situations, so it should work just fine.

I think the biggest task ahead will be pulling everything together into a cohesive unit. We are still all so new to sociocultural learning that it is hard to keep that paradigm in focus. We (including myself here) seem to keep drifting back to the basic, standard course and lesson structures. Hopefully we will pull everything away from that enough to get fully into the sociocultural realm.

Assessment is also a tough nut to crack in the sociocultural world. Somehow, numeral grades do not seem to be appropriate for this course. Are you really going to score a personal success plan? How do you assign a letter grade to creating a personal learning network? I am thinking that rubrics will just be a basic way to rate different areas – something like “excellent”, “acceptable”, and “improve”. Then we tell students that they need to get at least “acceptable” in all lines of all rubrics to complete the course. Sounds a little open-ended, but  maybe that is what will make it advanced?

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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So far the feedback we have received is just from the peer groups. I think maybe we are now a bit behind from the Schoology calendar? In general, the peer feedback was very good – other than they seemed to have a huge beef with blogging. Three short reflection assignments were labeled as “too much” by a few. We left those in as we felt that it would help the students reflect on their progress as well as give their mentors and/or major professors a good window into how they were doing on in the course. There were also considerable questions about finding people to teach this course or to serve as mentors. That was a weird one for us, as the same questions could be leveled against our peer groups design document. But usually, when you get to the design part of creating a course, whoever is hiring you to design already has that in place (or at least a plan to get them in place). There was also one set of feedback from some that just didn’t like our idea, sociocultural theory, or open-ended processes in general. Most of that feedback seemed to be based on just telling us how much they didn’t like it with little constructive feedback (or at least little that just wasn’t a repeat of what other people had said).

All of this did lead us to clarify our document to point out that the mentors will be selected and motivated by the department, and the other work was designed to help the major professor know their students better and not add work. I also attended a session about surviving the PhD process that really opened my eyes to see that there is a need for this course to be a reality.

We are just starting to work through how to structure the prototype. I envision it to be a self-paced course or group on Schoology or Moodle or something like that. We need to discuss more as a group, and that may change. But in there would be a basic set of brief modules that introduces all of the parts of the PHD program that students need to be successful.  Questions and concerns would be addressed to social networking tools that are already in place. Students would be directed on how to start a Personal Learning Network or Informal Cohort to help with the rest of the assignments, and then the rest of the course would be a series of benchmarks for students to check their progress through creating their plans. Our design document really helped us clarify the order much of this would happen and what goes where in the course.

As of now, we are still clarifying our roles in the creation of the prototype. I seem to still be leading this process – never was elected to do that, but I seem to be the one that is getting the ball rolling. I am comfortable with that, but I would feel better if there were quicker responses to the emails I send out and people were stepping up to take on different parts of the prototype. That is what is difficult so far – I wonder if my group understands that there are only 4-5 weeks left and they all need to step up and take a significant part of the prototype or else it just won’t get done. Now, we all get along great and I don’t have any personality problems with anyone on the team. We just need everyone to step up and say “I will take on ______.”

As far as the prototype itself, the main concern is just collecting the information. We don’t want to get to the presentation and have someone ask “ummmm…. Why is there nothing in here about publications” or some other major part that we just missed because we were pushing so fast. That is my biggest concern – missing a big piece because we get tunnel-visioned on a smaller piece that is hard to figure out.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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As of today, our instructional design is getting cleaned up and revised based on peer feedback. Hopefully we will have it ready to turn in today, also. But group work always tends to move slower than I would like, so that may not happen.

What has gone well? For starters, we have discussed many aspects surrounding a sociocultural lesson design. Our discussions go well with no major personality clashes. Although, several group members are rather quiet, so I hope they don’t end up causing conflict when they do speak up. The design is taking shape and there are some great ideas in there. I went to a seminar on “Surviving the PhD Process” this week and much of what was shared there confirmed what we are doing. Many students expressed the need to form an informal cohort to help survival rates. We are labeling that a Personal Learning Network, but it is still the same idea.

Our problems with the process so far still revolve around group participation. We have several members that aren’t really joining in the discussion or revision of the material. I think they are sitting back and waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Well, the Master’s Level student is asking what to do, but I’m not sure if we know what to have him do. He already stated he doesn’t understand anything about what we are doing, and when we ask him what he wants to do, he usually throws out a particular technical skill that he has learned that won’t really fit the project. Some of these are great skills to have, but they tend to lean towards video screen capture, and we won’t really be using that. Overall, I’m just not sure what to do with people that can’t at least come up with a good idea for their own participation. I am used to having several people in a group that can and want to do several functions and then we as the group have to decide who will the best for each task. When I say “hey, we need someone to do this by the end of the week” and no one responds and then finally they come back at the end and ask “what should I do?”… not sure what to do with that.

But going forward from here, as we get into production of the prototype – this may all change. I get that we have only really had one real task up until now – design the instruction. Once we get into developing it (uh oh – just can’t seem to avoid ADDIE, huh?), I can see where there would be a large number of various tasks for different people to take on. So maybe I just need to realize that as an instructional designer by trade, that the past few weeks have been my major contribution to the project and in the next phase others will step up.

Going forward, we might also need to narrow our focus even more. We have been doing that, but even looking at what we have may be a bit too much to handle in the few weeks left. We shall see what the doc has to say about that.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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What I am excited about our instructional design project is to see how a constructivist based lesson works from a design stand point. Almost every course I have worked on has been from primarily an empirical viewpoint, focusing on papers, blog posts, and standardized testing. We picked an interesting topic to tackle – one that does not lend itself well to stereotypical design. Hopefully that is what will make it advanced instructional design. So ultimately I am excited to get to do something outside of the box.

What am I nervous about for this project? Sometimes I worry that we might have bit off more than we can chew. There are so many parts that could go into this – from outreach to potential students to alumni engagement. Thankfully we decided to focus on new students to the program. It has also been a bit difficult to get my team to stay on schedule with the initial steps. I had hoped we would get our feedback for the other team to them by today, but today is almost over and that doesn’t look to happen. We also have a silent member or two, and that makes me nervous when one or two need to step out and do something. I guess I somehow fell into the defacto leader position for the group. Or at least, I am the one prodding and emailing and reminding and initiating. I am also concerned with how we will integrate the feedback from the other group. Most of it was pretty good, but one was definitely more personal opinion from a completely different paradigm than what we are going for. I can see what Warren was referring to when he talks about making sure you review stuff from the same paradigm it was written for. When someone doesn’t, it makes it hard to figure out what the hell they are talking about.

My personal vision for the project: to become something that is different in scope and design than the typical “lesson” that comes from the ADDIE process. I want to fully embrace socio-cultural theory in a way that would almost create a true culture that people want to be a part of, not just one where they are a part of it because they applied for and were accepted to a certain program. Of course, that vision is beyond the scope of what we are doing for the project, but who knows? Maybe it will catch on. We have thought about some of the tools that would make this community work that don’t currently exist (online profile system, student peer mentoring system, etc). So far we are thinking that the creation of those might be outside of the scope of this project, meaning we may have to assume they exist for the sake of the project even though they don’t. But it would still be cool to see those things come into existence also. But to be more practical, my ultimate vision for this project is to create a high quality lesson that displays advanced instructional design techniques.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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My group chose the social-cultural theory that I presented in class. A lot of that is because I started recruiting people to my theory because I kind of liked a lot of what it said. I chose social-cultural theory mainly because I would like to see if it is possible to design a lesson using it as a model, and if so then what would that be like. Social interactions and cultural interactions are both areas of interest for me. Before I had a kid (and hopefully soon when he gets old enough), I loved to travel. I have been to India, Morocco, France, London, Spain, Jordan, Mexico, Belgium, and a few other places. Sometimes we just showed up with little plans and made our way around with a Lonely Planet book in hand. So seeing how those cultures interacted and formed social structures was an interesting thing to observe once you got off the tourist path. Seeing how those may apply to learning is interesting to me.

So how are we going to approach it? That is a bit more unclear. We are going to look at how to take advantage of social connections that can be formed inside of the existing culture of the Learning Technologies program. The “more knowledgeable others” of current students and faculty will serve as guides to take new students through the zone of proximal development. I know that sounds a little generic, but that is our goal so far. We are thinking that there will be a need for a place to have new students self-reflect, ask questions, see examples, and interact with others in the program. So I am assuming there will be a blogging piece, a social network, a set of webpages, and other tools of that nature. We may even have to look at how students could be placed in loose “cohorts” each semester they begin for peer support. Much of this is up for change since we are just tapping into this idea.

Work division seems to not be happening as well as it needs to. I keep bringing up different ideas for work division, but then everyone points out “I want to contribute to that part, too.” Well, of course we all will contribute to every part, but we need to divide and conquer the initial writing to get something going. Hopefully this issue will resolve itself as we get a clearer idea of what the exact training will look like.

Timeline for completion would seem to follow along with the calendar in class. Are there other options? I like to stay on the schedule that is suggested personally, but I hope that other students want to also. That was a problem I had a lot last semester – always asking my partner to get something done, but he would always say “it’s not big deal.” Well, it was to me to stay on schedule. But the goal I am trying to set is to get the rough draft finished by Monday to get to the peer review group, then get those changes finished in time to get the document turned in for professor review. And then there will be much fear and trembling.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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From this week’s presentations, the one I was most baffled with was the Summerville Integrated Model. Even after reading about it online some more, I didn’t really find a good description of how the layers worked. It seems like there is maybe a class out there that teaches this process more in depth. If it is a circular model that goes from the outside in, then you basically have an analysis layer, a design/develop layer, and evaluation layer, and then an implementation layer. Sounds familiar right? I have to wonder if the creators of this method realize that ADDIE is no longer considered a linear model and that evaluation can come before implementation (and during, and after). Even if you were to lay out all of the sub-steps to each layer, you would have something that looks a lot like Dick & Carey. So, basically, we see that most new ID methods are just a remix of ADDIE.

Behaviorism makes sense to me (at least the basics of it), but Heather did share some very good examples and explanations that helped me to clarify my understanding more. Since I lean towards constructivism myself, most of my problems with behaviorism have been covered by a billion constructivists. But I do try to pull myself more towards the pragmatic side and Heather’s presentation helped me to see the need for that, as there are many important ideas in behaviorism theory. Still, as a new parent I do get a bit tired of the ultra-behaviorist parenting methods that get lobbed my way. “You can tell exactly what a child is thinking at any time by how they are acting.” If that was true ALL the time, parenting would be so much easier.

The Problem Based Learning model was a good presentation, and I am not just saying that because Beth had food. Or maybe I am, but I still have always liked Problem Based Learning because it provides opportunities for exploring real life problems. I think in the overall scheme of design, Problem Based Learning is part of the larger process (say, the Design/Develop stages of ADDIE) and not necessarily a complete design model. But maybe I don’t know enough about the literature on it. Since not every educational problem would best be solved with Problem Based Learning, it seems like at least part of the analysis part of ID would be outside of the Problem Based Learning approach. But that kind of goes back to what Chris and I have discussed – are we labeling advanced instructional design as something that is a “better” model to replace basic ones like ADDIE all the time, or we labeling something an advanced design because we use it in situations where we need a more advanced educational solution? Also, if Analysis has to happen before any design, does that mean we assume that it will always happen and therefore things like Problem Based Learning are advanced instructional design because they solve advanced educational problems where the analysis identifies them? But then again, we all know that in education you can never assume that something will happen just because it is obvious.

I am not sure if I am totally clear what specific ID model Susan was presenting on, mainly because I didn’t have time to read through the articles before the class started (but I will solve that today). I enjoyed the activity where we brainstormed about what we thought advanced instruction design could be, even if we didn’t have time to finish the activity and come to a conclusion. What we did as an activity made sense, and it would be a method I would use in group setting where constructing a meaning or set of ideas for each other is needed. As with other models we are looking at, I am still not sure that TPCK is a design method. It still fits more into a theoretical framework for how we think and learn more than a design method.

Inquiry Based Learning gave us a bit of a challenge since we did not really know what the Scratch programming language was capable of. But maybe this was part of the IBL approach – an ill-structured problem to solve? Or maybe it was just that we were supposed to have that background in a real class. I like the basic ideas of IBL, especially how it is student centered and that students share what they learn. Kashieka gave a good overview of the problems and criticisms of her design model – something we all seem to have been forgetting. I think we all get it in our mind that since we are presenting something, then we have to defend it. Not necessarily true, though.

What really got me thinking this week was the Lee and Kolodner article. It seems to me, and maybe I am missing something, but it really seemed like they were advocating having the learners actually do the instructional design through the ADDIE model as they are learning. Well, through a simpler model mapped on to ADDIE to Be more accurate. Even if that is not what they were exactly advocating, that made me really think about this reversed idea. What would be the ultimate in learner-centered teaching? Have the students analyze what they need to learn. Then have them develop a map of the activities they are going to go through. Then have them develop those activities – maybe for each other as they are in groups trying to challenge each other. Then have them implement the lessons, evaluating themselves as they go through their own lessons. Of course, at the end they would also evaluate their whole process. In a lot of ways, this sounds much like some of the GT classes I was enrolled in during grade school. But it seems like there was always some attempt to “trick” us into learning while directing ourselves. But I like the idea of involving students in their learning and being transparent about it from the beginning. I also wonder how much more time it takes to plan for an effective lesson that allows students to design their own lesson. It could go very poorly if not planned well. Maybe that will be my evolving definition of advanced instructional design: the more students are involved in their own learning, the more advanced the design method is.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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I liked the presentation on Lev Vygotsky, especially since it covered the same theory I did 🙂 I would use this theory to some degree because it contains several elements that I like, such as social learning, constructivism, Zone of Proximal Development, and others. As a theory of learning that can guide how we design, I think it is great. But as a theory, I still have to ask if it is an actual instructional design model. How do we know when we have a lesson designed? We can probably evaluate a lesson in order to see if it fits within soci-cultural theory and not, say a behaviorist theory. But that would seem to be after the fact, in a summative matter or even possibly formative if performed right before the lesson as taught. With ADDIE, you have steps to follow that will indicate when you have arrived at having “a lesson” or “a class”. Not so much with socio-cultural theory (and most theories we are looking at). Scaffolding was mentioned in the presentation, and I love scaffolding. But where do you deal with that in the design process? Will you still be accomplishing socio-cultural theory if you leave out any planned scaffolds and just go ultra-constructivist?

Or maybe does all this mean that there really are no true “advanced” instructional design methods – you either have a derivative of ADDIE or a good theory with no design structure? Do we need someone to come along and create one? Or has our class (myself included) just not really accomplished our research very well? We shall see.

But that is still the bigger problem I have with so much that we are presenting (myself included). Where is the design process that produces the lesson/class that accomplishes these theories we are looking at? ADDIE tends to produce an empirically measured lesson with standardized tests and discussion forums and content consumption because it is a “process” based on empirically designing a course with measurable outcomes and goals that can be evaluated empirically. And not that this is bad – there are many topics that need to be taught empirically. If my spleen ruptures, I don’t want the doctor to socially construct a definition of what is happening with me. I want the doctor to know empirically want my organs are doing and why. I don’t even know if spleens can rupture, but the point is that there is a time in education to be empirical and times to be constructivist and times to be relative. But when we come down to needing a lesson or class that is constructivist in nature, how do we know how to design for that? We can identify it at the end for sure – as most of these theories do. But do we have a process that keeps us on track through the whole process and ensures we don’t end up with an empirical lesson instead? ADDIE seems to do a good job of (almost) ensuring an empirical lesson every time.

This is just my overall problem at this time. Hopefully someone will present something that is “more advanced design process” than “advanced learning theory.” But I think that is my emerging definition of advanced instruction design – a design process that creates a constructivist or relativist lesson instead of an empirical lesson. We’ll see how long that lasts.

So, when looking at Dual Coding Theory and Activity Theory, I would have pretty much the same problem. I would lean more towards using Activity Theory because of its Vygotskian roots. Dual Coding theory seems to use some distinctions between verbal and non-verbal that I don’t agree with. Or I guess I would disagree that images are non-verbal communications in all contexts. Images always communicate something – the greatest paintings in the world speak volumes, and many languages use pure symbols to describe scenes and occurrences rather than words and sentences.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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Component Display Theory made sense to me, but I honestly don’t think I would use it. I just can’t be sure that I would classify it as an “advanced theory” for one, and on top of that it seems mostly focused on “performance.” Overall this theory seems to be very teacher-centric and passive learning in nature, even though I guess you could technically use it for something active and learner-centered. But often in learner-centered design there are no pre-determined content or performance objectives, and it seems those two pieces have to be present in order for CDT to work. Ultimately, if ADDIE is not an advanced theory, then something that just fits inside of one part of ADDIE would be even less advanced. For those that are into lessons that are heavily focused on content and performance, I think they would find a lot to like here. My problem with it is that it seems to just be an expansion of ADDIE and not a stand-alone design model that you can use by itself.

Gagne’s Theory of Learning also made sense, and there are parts I would use. Ultimately there were many parts that closely resembled Dick & Carey, but with a few differences. So is it advanced or not? Well, I guess it depends on if the liberties that Chris took with it are his alone, or if there is evidence in the literature that others also did so. Ultimately you can take liberties with any model and make it work as an advanced method, but how far can you get away from the original intent of a theories’ creator and still consider yourself to be using that theory? Personally, I would say for many of them: not far. Gagne and others were very intelligent and there is probably a reason that they left out certain liberties. So, the biggest problem I have with this theory is that it is a very ordered and specific system that needs mostly of teacher-focused design in order to work as it was originally conceived.

Kolb’s Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Theory – a theory connected with a style? I had the least problems with this one, although I do not subscribe to the idea of learning styles. I agree that people like to learn in certain ways depending on the content, but I just don’t see that as a “style.” When learning styles were first taught to me, I remember they were supposed to be a way to help learners process their own learning. For example, visual learners should take whatever lesson they were given and find ways to process it visually. The focus was on the learner. It seems the focus has shifted on to the teacher now… so you have to wonder about the validity of all of it if they can easily switch focus to a part of the process that brings in more money. Anyways… I like how Experiential Learning is a four step process of watching, thinking, feeling, doing. This seems more “learner-centered” and advanced – to me at least. But I am not sure how you would create a full design for this and take into consideration the data that admin-types usually want out of lessons. Seems like it would be good for apprenticeship-style learning, which we need more of in education in general.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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The Dick & Carey model makes sense, mainly just because I had to learn about that one in my Master’s Classes. In fact, I probably still have Dick & Carey’s book lying around somewhere. To be honest, I have never been a fan of it. Is it 9 steps? 10? 11? Then when you read the book, there are several steps within each of those bigger steps. I remember doing a design project based on it, and it took a long time to come up with something that was just mediocre at best (you can see it here if you want to click through a billion links). So I would not use this method. A lot of that has to do with the long and detailed process to get through it. But also because I think it would just end up creating the same “rote memorization, lower thinking skills” type of course that we have all over academia. Detail begats detail, so a detailed ID process would turn out a detailed course with many objectives that can ultimately be best assessed with a standardized test. No matter how much interactivity you put in a course, or how much problem-based learning, or how cool of a educational game you put in it… teachers are just going to turn around and slap on some multiple choice questions and dump the good stuff once the pesky ID is out of the way. I know you don’t have to end up with that as a product of Dick & Carey, but that is what seems to happen the most. So that is my problem with it – it just seems to suck the life out of ID in an attempt to simplify it. I think it possibly helps students learn a whole process – I know that I learned the steps well through it – but I think it would be just too cumbersome to use in real life ID situations.

The socio-cultural theory honestly didn’t make full sense to me. And I know I was the one that presented on it. It never really seemed to decide if it was examining culture in learning or designing learning for culture. There is also very little structure around for it to be used as an actual design process. It probably serves more as a set of concepts to consider in designing lessons, or maybe even an overall approach to take to when designing a system rather than a lesson. I would still use it because it is very constructivist in nature and I like that about any model that falls in that realm. But it also seems to take into consideration how an individual connects with their culture – something that often gets lost in a focus on individual grade performance. Another problem I have is that I’m still not sure you can form a system that admins will like. Which of course is a problem faced by everything from Montessori to problem-based learning to anything that does not spit out nice grades and numbers easily – but still remains a problem to be dealt with. There are probably ways to do that with SCT, but they are not as expanded upon in the literature that I was able to find. So how can you get the powers that be on board with stuff like this? Especially after watching The Revisionaries, I know there is little chance in Texas. But you have to find a way to either make The Man happy, or go start your own school and become The Man.

Computer-Supported Collaborrative Learning makes sense as something I would use since it incorporates social aspects, problem-based learning, apprenticeship and situated learning. Epistemologically it seems to be constructivist in nature, but much more structured that socio-cultural theory. The biggest problem would be in the amount of time it would take to design a lesson with CSCL without overdoing it and making it “too scripted.” But that seems to be a common problem in many models of this nature. So it can be dealt with, but it sounds like it would not be as easy a process as ADDIE.

Reading Notes:

Click here to read my notes for this week on Evernote

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