Sorry folks but this blog post is a vent. Rest assured is has nothing to do with current
events that are consuming news and social media.
I am just a couple courses away from completing my Masters
degree in Instructional Systems and Learning Technology. Over the last few years on this path, I have
learned about interesting technology tools that can help create good
curriculum. Most importantly, I have learned
to develop materials that engage the learner in the higher Bloom levels to
maximize the opportunity to improve their ability to do the tasks required of
them in the real world. It has been
exciting to look for ways to apply this to my work in the courses I have in my
portfolio.
Part of our work is to review material for other developers
before it goes up to final review.
Recently I have been reviewed other material and have been very
frustrated. They are rote learning, with
supporting presentations that have lots of words and very little imagery. Even the testing is knowledge based with
questions that are at the lowest Bloom verbs.
It is everything that I have been learning not to do.
The most frustrating part is that leadership at the very top
of the organization says they want to use new methods, get learning out of the
classroom, challenge our learners. But
the lower level management guys that actually supervise us, direct the course
content, and approve our work are stuck in the classroom methods they
experienced 20 years ago or more. So I
review the material to my standard and they all say “Yeah but my team leader
said...”
In the end, it is a disservice to the learners at the end of
the process. They are digital natives,
ready to learn in innovative ways that are not being produced.
Thus ends my rant for the day.
This is a great rant! The ISLT program has been eye-opening. I sit through a lot of meetings and training programs now analyzing how the current design is a disservice to the learners.
ReplyDeleteHi Bayraider. Even though I'm not in your field your post resonates with me as a musicologist. I think sometimes in our learning environments we are encouraged to accomplish things that our colleagues, and even instructors, are not prepared for which puts us in a precarious situation when it comes to innovating learning practices. I agrees with JFoxx...it's definitely a disservice to students.
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