Business & Industry: Trends and issues include "the growth and expansion of corporations beyond individual country boundaries" (pg. 182). This means going global and an example would be Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is not just secluded to the USA but in several other countries as well. Reducing the demands of design cycle time while increasing effectiveness and efficiency in training. Instructional designers must also be able to address issues like how to work with other cultures, make sure that training design and development are created in less time, and also make sure that training is delivered quickly with results that have a positive impact on money and also profit the corporation itself.
Military: Trends and issues include international responsibilities of a multinational military; new technologies; funding; technological range; delivery environment; design constraints; people and alternative training solutions. "Although working as an instructional designer in a military environment is challenging, it provides an exceptionally rich opportunity for growth as a professional" (pg. 194).
Health Care Education: Trends and issues include knowledge and research; costs and managed care; regulations, standards, and licensure and convergence. "General societal forces affect each context, and those working in a given setting have their own priorities, values, and culture" (pg. 197). Those factors affect the education and training agenda and the way that technology is used and how instruction is created.
It appears that learning and teaching are similar goals that they share. Even though I am not employed and I have not taught in an educational environment yet, I can relate as a student to the goals of learning and that is gaining knowledge. Knowledge is a requirement to succeed no matter what field you work in.
2. Chapters in Section VI discuss global trends and issues in IDT. As the world’s population grows exponentially, we face unprecedented challenges that have implications for learning. How and can we prepare our youth to address the problems of living in a world with 9 billion people when the earth’s resources cannot sustain that many? Does our current education system, curriculum, and instructional practices help learners foster the complex problem-solving skills necessary to tackle these issues? Are there methods and practices used in European and Asian countries that we should use here in the US? Why or why not?
We can teach our children today what we have learned and most of us practice and that is recycling and conserving. We can teach them to conserve our natural resources by not over-using and we can teach them to use things that we already have. Some teachers in the readings uses items that they already have in their local environment by turning them into tolls for learning. Some students also used beer cans to make a tube to emit sound waves.
I believe that there are some educational environments that do help learners foster the complex problem-solving skills that are necessary. I also firmly believe that there are also educational environments that are lacking pretty badly with delivering the problem-solving skills to learners. The ones that are lacking are generally those that are lacking in funds or do not have the resources needed to teach the learners what they need to know.
Something that I read in one of the chapters really made me think hard about methods and/or practices that we should use here in the US. "The learning landscape extends far beyond formal settings into what can be described as an excitingly beautiful wilderness of informal learning" (pg. 236). What this means to me, is that we don't have to have over-sized classrooms that are fancy or equipped with the latest technology to teach our students. We can take our students outside and teach them what we already know and/or have their fellow peers also teach each other.
Works
Cited
Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2012). Trends
and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology. Boston: Pearson
Education, Inc.
There are two points within your outline that I would like to comment on- Business and Educational aspects regarding technology. Well, I agree that the need for elaborate settings in which to instruct our students is not always necessary. Sometimes children do need to take a step back from technology and take a shot at learning from an old school, traditional perspective. Have we forgotten the importance of this? In so many ways, we have. The emphasis that is being placed on technology and learning is becoming more and more overwhelming, which is making the demand for it more and more a focus away from some important elements within the learning cycle.
ReplyDeleteRegarding business and your example to Wal-Mart, I agree that technology is crucially important within the aspect of designing a global company. It allows for faster, easier training that produces the capital gaining elements. The need and importance for technology in this particular case, is agreeably a point that I will side with. However, as it reflects our educational appeal, I think that it is going too far too fast, disallowing our children to be overall effective learners where they are grounded in the world and not just grounded in the world of technology.
I like the quote that you mentioned about informal learning. "The learning landscape extends far beyond formal settings into what can be described as an excitingly beautiful wilderness of informal learning" (pg. 236).In my opinion, I believe that your interpretation of this was quite well stated. I agree that we do not necessarily have to have classrooms equipped with the latest and newest technology in order for the students to learn. Sometimes it is the informal learning or educators being willing to "think outside the box" that has the greatest impact.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading your post.
I wanted to comment on your statement, "The ones that are lacking are generally those that are lacking in funds or do not have the resources needed to teach the learners what they need to know." I work in a Title 1 school, which means that at least 40% of our students are considered economically disadvantaged (US Department of Education, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/index.html). In reality our school has 94.3% of students who are economically disadvantaged according to the Texas Education Agency (http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/src/2013/static/campus/c057909103.pdf). This means that we get special, additional funds to try to "level the playing field". So, in reality, funds are not an issue.
ReplyDeleteSo, what do I think the issue is? It seems to me that there are a number of issues. One issue that I have seen is that many teachers do not want to work in low-socioeconomic areas. Whether they are uncomfortable with the area, do not want the added difficulties of the lack of parent support or simply want to work closer to where they live, I have spoken to many, many teachers who just aren't interested. This means that our applicant pool is reduced. That is not to say that my school does not have some amazing teachers (I believe I am one of them), but with reduced options, we struggle to find amazing teachers for many positions.
The second issue that I think our school has is a severe lack of parent volunteers. My school happens to have a large Hispanic population, which may contribute to this issue. With the fears of school shootings, came the need for all visitors to provide picture identification. Many of of our students' parents do not have picture identification due to immigration problems. Along with lack of volunteers is simply a lack of parent support. Many parents do not attend PTA meetings or even parent-teacher conferences. I have been to a PTA meeting where there were more teachers that parent and children combined.
I know that schools often struggle with funding, but I am not sure that is the main reason why children aren't getting the education that they deserve.
Thanks for your post.
Christi Abramsky