IDT 7052 - Reflection

Reflecting on Chapters 10 -13

Reading through chapters 12 and 13 in our Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology textbook literally took me on a walk down memory lane. I obtained my BS in Business Administration with a major in Marketing fourteen years ago. I spent some time working out in corporate (I was in sales with the Thomas J Lipton Company) and seven years teaching Marketing and other business courses at Henry County High School. So, the material in these chapters that related to topics such as management techniques and economic principles tied into what I studied as an undergraduate as well as some of my previous work experience.

I also found myself relating information from the assigned reading to my current position with the ALC as an Academic Technology Consultant. As I read through the material, I noted some specific statements that led me to think back on and reflect on experiences from my current job as well as previous positions that I've held.

Chapter 10 – Evaluation in Instructional Design

“Kirkpatrick found from his experience that just because learning occurs in the classroom or other training setting, there is no guarantee that a person will demonstrate those same skills in the real-world setting.”

I taught a unit on marketing mathematics in the Intro to Marketing course that I taught each semester. One concern that I constantly heard from employers in the community was that many of their employees (student and adult workers) could not correctly make change. I decided to incorporate some instruction on this skill into my unit. I had concerns that my students might think I was being a bit too “elementary” the first day I walked into the classroom with some cash register drawers and play money, but I soon learned that many were lacking in their ability to give correct change without a calculator or cash register display indicating the amount due back to the customer. I was quite proud that I was teaching them a valuable skill that many could immediately begin utilizing in the retail jobs they worked after school and on weekends. However, my joy was short lived when one Saturday at a local retail business one of my students rung up some purchases for me. I decided to give them a quick “real time” quiz on their newly acquired change making skills. There were no customers or other employees within earshot, so I felt confident that she would not feel intimidated. This particular student had mastered this skill in class, but sadly enough was not utilizing the skill in the workplace. She fumbled through attempting to determine the correct amount of change to return to me without looking at the cash register display and also had difficulty in using the proper “count back” procedure. Needless to say, I left the business feeling a bit defeated. Although my student had mastered the skill in the classroom, she was unable to easily transfer the knowledge to her current job after school as a cashier.

Chapter 11 – Adoption, Diffusion, Implementation, and Institutionalization of Instructional Innovations

"The ultimate criterion for a successful innovation is that it is routinely used in settings for which it was designed. It has become integral to the organization or the social system and is no longer considered to be an innovation.”

When I began my work in the Advanced Learning Center nearly three years ago, I had no idea what a wiki was or what purpose it served. Wikis were still a relatively new tool and were beginning to be utilized more in the field of education. The ALC made a couple of attempts to incorporate wikis into our daily work and projects, but the concept wasn’t catching on with our group. A few staff members would make attempts to post materials to the site, but we always seemed to fall back on the standard e-mail option that was familiar and comfortable to everyone. It finally took a huge project (the implementation of eCourseware) to make us sit down and rethink the way we communicated and shared information with one another. E-mails were getting lost in the shuffle and inboxes were packed with information to sort through to find specific e-mails that were needed. We revisited the idea of using a group wiki for the ALC and decided to give it one more try. PBWiki has helped our office cut down on the number of e-mails sent daily and also provided organization for information that we all need to share. What was once considered innovative a few years ago is now an integral part of the ALC daily operations.