Sandy Block
Final Instructional Design
Spring 2009
Question TWO:
How does the ID process reconcile two trends?
What parts of the ID process are most useful in this reconciliation?
What changes to the ID process might be useful in the future based on these ideas?
Education is changing from individualized teaching/learning for each student to a more
collaborative environment. The change is from individualized teaching where the teacher
was the only expert in her class, to an environment of an instructional design process via
“professional learning communities” (PLCs) for each grade level. In this environment,
teachers work together to create harmony and unity through common instructional design
strategies. This creates a consistent instructional learning framework for all students of one
grade level. It also allows the teacher who has expertise in one area to share her skills and
create a learning opportunity for the others - which in turn benefits all the teachers and
students of that grade level. Although the collaborative teaching and learning methods seem
to imply all students learn at a common rate, there is evidence that even in a collaborative
environment; students still continue to learn at a rate that maximizes their chance to succeed
while enriching each others learning capacity with collaborative information. Therefore, this
evidence would suggest that the two trends are not divergent in their direction.
When the other specialist teachers (art, p.e., music, etc.) and the library media specialist are
included in the PLC’s you can create harmonious and unified learning across curriculums at
all the grade levels. It has been stated that the “assignments developed in partnership
between teachers and library media specialists are known to be more ‘authentic’-exhibiting a
higher degree of meaning and significance (Gross & Kientz, 1999)” and research shows (2)
higher test scores where the librarian is actively collaborating with the classroom teachers.
The teachers at Northwest Elementary School in the Northwest Local School District of Stark
County are being asked by their principal to open their PLC’s to collaborate at some level
with the other grade levels PLC’s this will allow the students to transition smoothly from one
grade level curriculum to the next and the curriculums can harmoniously build upon each
level. Relative to the students’ learning capacity, the collaborative direction could still allow
the student to have the maximum chance to succeed but also be included in collaboration
learning with the class. Here are three very different examples of collaborative learning
environments which allow for individual/group learning in each; a global setting which
students and classrooms collaborate from all over the world at the site called Journey North
Mystery Class, a student collaborative project which allowed every student to successfully
contribute, create, and learn from each other, and an article “Extending Inclusive
Opportunities” which documents a teacher’s collaborative classroom lesson where she
successfully includes a student with learning disabilities into activity participating in
classroom activities.
The article “Extending Inclusive Opportunities” from the journal Educational Leadership/Feb
2007 shows how the ID process can help reconcile the two trends of individual learning and
collaborative learning into one direction. The teacher Ms. Santos began her instructional
design process by asking herself the important questions to clarify her own role as a team
member, understand the curricular expectations for Chris (a special needs student with many
limitations), curricular expectations for all her other students, and get vision for how to teach
a class with a wider mix of abilities than she had encountered before. This is the same as
the ID analysis phase where the need is defined, instructional analysis where curricular
expectations, goals and performance objectives are created, and the learners and content
are analyzed. Added to this original analysis phase is clarifying her role as a team
member. In addition to this, the article introduces two notions called ‘multilevel curriculum’
and ‘curriculum overlapping’. Both of these approaches will promote individual learning in a
collaborative environment. In the multilevel curriculum approach, students with disabilities
(or even simply students of lower capabilities) and their peers with average or higher
capabilities participate in a shared activity. Each student has individually appropriate
learning outcomes that are within the same curriculum area but that may be at, below, or
above grade level. (Campbell, Campbell, CoUicott, Pemer, & Stone, 1988; Peterson &r
Hittie, 2003) In curriculum overlapping the students are sharing an activity yet they
performing it in the context of different curriculum areas.
The other useful part of the ID process for collaboration is the design document where
choosing the best instructional strategies by defining overall approach, what choice of media,
and sequencing the teaching objectives. Here Ms. Santos uses a multilevel curriculum
activity and chose a game she created as the media to reinforce the students’ learning about
the Revolutionary War in social studies. It is a board game with colored spaces like the
popular Trivial Pursuit with each color representing different historical areas (persons, places,
and things) and corresponding color cards for these areas. The difference is that she
created a set of cards for Chris’s lower-level goals and another set for the other students’
age-appropriate learning goals. In fact a teacher could create as many different card sets as
she would need for her students varying learning levels and as the mastered their learning
they could move to another set which will increase their learning goals. Evaluating the
learners’ performance is another important piece of the ID process in this collaborative
activity. The important thing here is the students are participating together and still learning
at their appropriate learning goals. The article goes on with more designed lesson plans that
support the individual/group learning theory. Although this instruction practice is time
consuming it benefits all involved participants and improves the way teachers teach.
In conclusion
The parts of the ID process that will be the most useful in this reconciliation are the analysis
phase, design document, and evaluating. And the changes suggested to be made to the
ID process where to add clarifying the teacher’s role as a team member, including
multilevel curriculum and overlapping curriculum strategies all of which promote individual
learning in a collaborative environment. The end result is using the ID process to move two
different trends in the same direction which improves student learning and teachers teaching.
Bibliography
A Definition of Community
http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/communities/definition.HTM
2 - Russell, Shayne “Teachers and Librarians: Collaborative Relationships”
LibraryInstruction.Com Michael Lorenzen (c) 2002-2005
http://www.libraryinstruction.com/teachers.html
“Journey North Mystery Class” Journey North Annenberg Media 1997-2009
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/mclass/
Class project for Computers apps. “Our Technology Day: To infinity and beyond” Google
Sites 2009
http://sites.google.com/site/grouponetechnologyday/Home
Giangreco, Michael “Extending Inclusive Opportunities” Educational Leadership February
2007 (Double click the following icon)
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