Design Plan and Lesson Plan

This week I read Chapter 7, Design Plan, in Hodell's book. In this chapter, Hodell lists the following important elements to include in a design plan: rationale, target population, description, objectives, evaluation strategy, participant prerequisites, facilitator prerequiesites, and, deliverables. I found the information about participant prerequisites and ranging to be particularly interesting. Hodell said that designers could use a toll called ranging to widen the gate for a course. He gave an example of a new word-processing program where participants would be required to have had at least six month's experience with any word-processing software. Participants with less experiences would be required to complete a tutorial before attending the class.

I have students with varying skills. Some of my students are overqualified. Overqualified students are offered a test, and if they pass the test, they receive credit for the course.

In Chapter 8, Lesson Plan, Hodel lists Gagne's "nine events of instruction" as the basis for a lessson plan: gaining attention, direction, recall, content, application feedback level 1, application feedback level 2, application feedback level 3, evaluation, and closure. Hodell said that lesson plans must be complete enough to allow anyone with the correct experience to lead the course.

I will have to focus more on the closure aspect of the lesson plan, particularly with regard to the transfer of learning. My students will be expected to apply what they have learned in my class to reports, charts, and slide presentations for other classes.

Chapters 6 & 7

Summary: In Chapter 6 of Chuck Hodell's book he discusses the implementation phase of the ISD process. Hodel says that the evaluation of the implementation processs must include an evaluation of the learner's impressions of the training and the validation of objectives being met by learners. He discussed Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation: Level 1, reaction; Level 2, learning; Level 3, behavior; and Level 4, results. Hodell says that the most accurate level 1 evaluation comes immediately after training. He added that the performance agreement goes a long way toward ensuring that objectives are correctly evaluated. He discussed the key elements of the performance agreement: behavior, condition, and degree.

Application: After reading this chapter, I realize that I should be doing more evaluations of my lessons and asking for student input immediately after each lesson.

Summary: In Chapter 7 of Chuck Hodell's book he discusses evaluation techniques for all five elements of the ADDIE model. Hodell recommends identifying each component of an objective. He also said that the designer should consider how difficult the objectives will be for the learner to meet and that usually you would begin with the easy objectives and work toward the more difficult. The author defined the performance agreement as the relationship between behavior and condition elements in objectives and evaluation tasks. Hodell said that posttraining evaluation is a level 3, behavior evaluation, and the most important question is -- did the training stick? Did the training transfer or did the behavior move to the workplace? He said that surveys and observation are ways to evaluate at this level. Hodell says that level 4 evaluation is about results. Did the training pay off? Were results accomplished?

Application: I was very interested in the level 3, behavior evaluation component. In my school we have conducted surveys to determine whether or not the training has transferred and students are actually using what they have learned in their subsequent classes. It is something that I think is very important and will continue to monitor.

Podcasting

July 12, 2007

In Richardson's book this week, I read that podcasting is the creation and distribution of amateur radio. The author said that in order to create a basic podcast, you need the following: a digital audio recorder that can create an MP3 file, some space on a server to host the file, a blog, and something to say. He said that teachers and students do not need to have iPods or MP3 players to create the audio files.

After reading the information in Richardson's book and reviewing the videos and captivate movies that my instructor created, I created my own podcast. First I recorded some thoughts in my sound recorder, saved the sound file and then converted the audio file into an MP3 file, uploaded it to TribalShout, and then created a widget of the podcast on our class wiki so that all members of the class could access the podcast.

Using podcasts in my computer applications class would be helpful, particularly when there may be some important instructions that go along with an assignment or simply when there is important information that is worth recording. If my podcasts are uploaded to a class wiki, my students would access the audio files.

Chapters 3 & 4 of ISD

July 6, 2007

Summary of Learning: In Chapter 3 of Chuck Hodell's book about instructional design, I learned that before designing an objective, designers should review the following four elements: audience, behavior, condition and degree.

Personal Application: When writing objectives, I will need to consider the following: describe the audience; develop a meaningful statement about the expected behavior (which should be observable and measurable); state the conditions (i.e. books, equipment); and state the expected performance (70 % on a test, successfully three times).


Summary of Learning: In Chapter 4 of Hodell's book I read about Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction: 1.) gaining attention; 2.) direction; 3.) recall; 4.) content; 5.) application feedback level 1-- guided learning; 6.) application feedback level 2 -- elicit performance; 7.) application level 3 -- progress statement; 8.) evaluation; 9.) closure -- retention and transfer.

Personal Application: Although I have included some of the above events in my instruction, I have not always included all nine. In the future, I will cetainly be mindful of the benefits of including the nine events of instruction.