An Educational Philosophy

Education is one of the most important aspects of life; it is a journey that is constant and always satisfying. Each person must hold their intelligence in balance with their long and short-term goals. I grow older and see education as a door that opens up a multitude of possibilities in life; education is a bond every person shares. A person’s willingness to learn and experience is measured by how they live and seek out information. In life, I am not only an educator but also a student.

People tend to measure their life in goals, whether they are reached or fade into darkness; goals give us sense and direction in our lives. It is my firm belief that education is not a short term but a long-term goal. It forms our image or what life means, at its peak education can inspire great love, and it can lift people to a higher plane. For all of these reasons and more, I believe that education is one of the noblest pursuits.

To be a successful educator, a person needs to connect with their desire to grow and learn. Every person has something to be taught, and every person needs to keep an open mind. An educator acts as a conduit through which information, desire, and dreams flow. A teacher is a shinning lighthouse that glows in the dark sea, leading students to their dreams and desires in life, and through education a person can become a better human being. Education is not a career choice, but it is a righteous requirement in life. However, there are several important aspects that educators need to develop and learn.

To better suit their students and establish a life long commitment and fascination to subject matters, a teacher needs to be able to adapt technologies, different learning processes, and be able to connect with students on multiple levels. Technology should not be disowned by teachers, but embraced as a new means to reach and connect with students. I believe the World Wide Web will become on of the worlds greatest learning achievements in the years to come. It is my responsibility to do everything in my power to find creative ways to unlock potential in the minds of students. Educators need to utilize every aspect of technology in their pursuits and lessons. In education, there are many theories and processes that all educators need to use and adapt to their students. The most important goal of a teacher is to form a connection to their students. They need to find, inspire, and grow a life long hunger for learning. Through activities and lectures it is possible to teachers to inspire and connect to many students; educators need to shape their lesson plans to be engaging and inspiring. I believe, that one teacher can make an extreme difference in the mindset of a student. This notion and attitude needs to be cultivated in teachers in order for them to reach more students.

Educators need to constantly research and pursue new learning strategies. Teachers discover new ways to reach students and provide engaging and interactive lessons. Over the course of my career in education I plan to continually advance my understanding of lesson plans and incorporate new technologies into the learning process.

Education is a process of constantly learning and gaining new concepts and information; to be a successful teacher, one needs to inspire, adapt, and create concepts. These concepts should be created and used with the learning process in mind; teachers need to refine their lesson plans and information to reflect and make better use of the technological advances. Teaching requires a lifetime commitment.

A History of Instructional Design

A History of Instructional Design
By. Kyle M. Wright

Technology expands and people look toward a horizon, but one only needs to look backwards to become aware of the effect of technology. Most major technological advancements, from the advent of motion pictures to the use of the World Wide Web, have altered professional’s opinions about the state of instructional design.

In 1905, the nations first school museum opened up in St. Louis. The museum had many visual elements, including slides and stereographs. Following the opening of the St. Louis school museum, there was an abundance of museum openings. School museums were constructed at an unprecedented rate; since then, there has been very little construction of them within the United States (R. A. Reiser, Dempsey, John V. , 2007).

Within the years, 1908 – 1913, there were several major events that helped to define and shape instructional technology. In 1908, the Keystone View Company published the first visual education catalogue (R. A. Reiser, 2001). The publication of the Keystone catalogue was a catalyst for the visual education movement. One of the proponents of visual education, Thomas Edison, observed that visual education will be at the forefront and motion pictures will have a resounding effect on the educational system, and books will no longer be necessary (R. A. Reiser, Dempsey, John V. , 2007).

The visual education movement lasted for several decades and helped to catapult instructional design to a serious form of study. Five professional organizations and journals were started, and a host of public school systems instituted visual education departments. Among the developments that occurred during this period, was the first catalog of instructional films; the catalog was published in 1910 and was first used by the school system of Rochester, New York (R. A. Reiser, Dempsey, John V. , 2007). Among the tools developed during this period were the magic lantern (used as a slide projector), motion picture projectors, and stereopticons.

The next technological advancement to have an effect on the instructional field was broadcast radio. The use of sound and film led to another revolution in instructional design, which brought about the audiovisual instructional period. In 1932, several organizations formed the Department of Visual Instruction, which was part of the National Education Association (R. A. Reiser, 2001). The audiovisual movement lasted through the Great Depression; however, a led figure in the movement, McCluskey, estimated that investors lost millions of dollars in instructional innovations such as radio. Thus, broadcast radio failed to transform instructional education.

At the United States entrance in WWII, instructional education was poised to make a dramatic leap in terms of uses and technologies. Early, in 1941, the federal government established a division or visual aids for war training; between 1941 – 45 over 450 training films were produced. All resources were used in the development of training and instructional purposes for WWII. For instance, during a two-year period, over four million showings of training films occurred, and the United States Air Force produced over 400 training films. Several instructional tools were developed and used for the first time in WWII; this includes the overhead projector, slide projectors, and simulators. WWII also marked the first time audio training was employed; audio was used in training men for sonar (R. A. Reiser, 2001).
In 1952, the FCC set aside 242 channels that would be devoted to public broadcasting. At that time there were a total of 15 educational channels, but by 1960 there would be more than 50 channels devoted to education. With the help of the FCC and various foundations, such as the ford foundation, instructional television flourished in the 1950s. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, which set off the cold war; for decades the Soviet Union and the United States race to out perform the other. The United States realized the necessity for a strong math and science education (R. A. Reiser, 2001).

Robert M. Gagne`, who had a major influence on instructional design for several decades, wrote The Condition of Learning in 1965; he described the five domains of learning in detail (R. A. Reiser, Dempsey, John V. , 2007). His research paved the way for new design models.

As early as the 1950s, computers were being developed by IBM and incorporated into instructional design. However, it was not until computers became affordable, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, that educators harnessed the potential. In the early 1980s, instructional designers hailed the personal computer as a new technological innovation that would one day replace books; as Edison describe the moving pictures, Papert described personal computers as a shift that would dramatically transform education. In 1983, computers were used in 40% of elementary classes and 75% in secondary education (R. A. Reiser, 2001).

In the midst of the 1970s, a shift was taking place in instructional design. The advent of computers perpetuated many changes and promulgated an interest in systems approach. Several successful professional journals were renamed to reflect the changing technological and educational atmospheres. New models, including the Dick and Carey model and Gagne` and Briggs model emerged; by 1980, over 40 new instructional models were constructed (R. A. Reiser, Dempsey, John V. , 2007).

Instructional education is constantly being revamped to incorporate the next technology. With the ubiquity of the World Wide Web, instructional technology can go anywhere. One thing is certain, major events and moments in history often pivotal point in the development of instructional design.

References

Reiser, R. A. (2001). A History of Instructional Design and Technology: Part 1: A History of Instructional Media Educational Technology, Research and Development, 49(1), 53-64.
Reiser, R. A., Dempsey, John V. . (2007). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (2nd ed.): Pearson Prentice Hall

Fast Company and Learning

"Entire books have been written about learning, but the important elements for creative thinkers can be boiled down to this: Experience modifies the connections between neurons so that they become more efficient at processing information. Neuroscientists have observed that while an entire network of neurons might process a stimulus initially, by about the sixth presentation, the heavy lifting is performed by only a subset of neurons. Because fewer neurons are being used, the network becomes more efficient in carrying out its function." - Fast Company

This article can have a tremendous effect on how educators utilize visual elements in the learning process.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/rewiring-the-creative-mind.html

Comps for GSU Science Education

This is the first draft of designs I came up with for the GSU Science college. Let me know what you think. (notice, all images are the property of Kyle Wright and GSU)


External Page:






Internal Page:

Journal Article Review and Critique

Carr-Chellman, Alison A., Hoadley, Christopher M., Kirby, Joshua A. (2005) Instructional Systems Design and the Learning Sciences: A Citation Analysis. Education, Technology, Research, and Design, Vol. 53, No. 1, 37 – 48.

In recent years, a study has emerged that blends educational technology seamlessly into a scientific process and relates learning sciences to instructional design systems. Learning sciences is relatively new, it was established in a conference in the early nineties, since its creation, it has been compared to Instructional Technology. The two fields have significant similarities and differences, however there has been some argument over the past years as to just how similar or different these two fields of study are. The article, “Instructional Systems Design and the Learning Sciences: A citation Analysis”, by Kirby, Hoadley, and Carr-Chellman attempts to compare the two fields of study through a methodical measurement of similar authors and journals.

Instructional systems design rapidly grew in the midst of World War II, based on a need to train and educate the military needs. In the recent decades it has permeated throughout scholastics and organizations. Learning sciences developed out of a need to understand how human beings learn and process information; the field experts were mostly concerned with the cognitive aspects of learning. The two fields of study seem to overlap at times, as if one was the subset of the other, however each has a unique aspect and should be treated independently of the other.

The premise of the study was to determine if experts in each field use similar sources of information, therefore a citation analysis is used to produce links with sources from different journal articles. Citations from various journal articles, within the two fields, were compared. The main publications that were gathered in the field of instructional systems design included two publications by the AECT, Techtrends and Educational Technology Research and Development; another journal, Educational Technology was used as well; articles and citations were pulled from these two journals. Research in Instructional Systems Design has been around since the sixties. However, learning sciences is a fairly new field that began out of a conference that took place in the early nineties, and since then it has been an established field of study with a small amount of scholarly research and periodicals. For the study, three main journals about learning sciences was used, the first conference regarding learning sciences was held at the Northwestern University in 1991, the Journal of the Learning Sciences, and Computer Supported Collaborative Learning.

A citation analysis can be used for many purposes, including measuring the relevance of a journal article as it relates to a particular field of study, showing a correlation between two fields to study, and can be used to examine how data is collect and analyzed. In the citation analysis performed in this study, a total of two thousand and ninety articles were gathered, which produced a total of 2608 independent authors.

In order to calculate the difference between the references, a random sample of ten percent of the publications were selected and the mean average was produced. To determine the cross-field references all of the two thousand and ninety articles were examined. The total number of citations that were examined was estimated at forty four thousand. I felt that the results of the citations were surprising.

Out of all 2,608 individual authors, only sixty-six had published articles in both learning sciences and instructional systems design; thirteen authors published in both peer-reviewed articles in both fields. The data collected raises certain questions about the relationship, if any between the two fields. It is plausible to predict that there would have been a greater number of cross-field authors (given the known similarities between the two fields). However, the data presented is representative of the idea that the two fields are separate and distinct.

When reviewing the citations analysis several questions are raised that the study does not answer but does address post the analysis. The first concern is the awareness of the two fields of study. I believe, at first look, this might not be deduced from the study, however after further analysis and review of the data one can surmise that there exists an overwhelming sense of unawareness between the two fields. This is the logical conclusion one can draw, because of the dearth of cross-field authors. Nevertheless, according to the data collected and the low citation score a concrete determination of the awareness or unawareness of the authors cannot be made. Thus, another question is raised; how accurate is a citation analysis and what can really be learned from the analysis.

There are several inherent risks in utilizing a citations analysis in a study to determine how fields are related. A citations analysis requires a massive amount of front-end work gathering resources and logging references. Not only does one have to be an expert in one field, but also they need to immerse themselves into another field of study. Furthermore, the citations analysis cannot accurately determine how closely related two fields are, because the amount of authorship within a given field is massive. Therefore, the sample needs to be the correct size in proportion to the field of study.

The data collected in this study identifies a difference in the two fields, however it does not take into account each fields strength and weakness; the study simply looks at similar citations. Learning sciences and instructional systems might not have many similarities in teaching and researching, but both fields have the same end goal, to improve education and instruction; each field has its own distinct means to achieve this goal.

What is Instructional Design to Me?

Instructional technology and design is a vast field that utilizes an array of media, software, and technological abilities to enhance and develop educational material. Through using and incorporating technology, education and instruction can become more interactive; students will become involved in their learning. In order to design and develop interactive instructional material, a designer needs to know how to use various software applications, and be interested in keeping up with the latest technological developments. Instructional Design and Technology is not only used for education, but is also used in training and development. In business, new processes and new machines are sometimes used, and material needs to be developed in order to see that employees fully understand the new processes or machines.

There is a myriad of different software applications that can be used to develop instructional material, for instance designers use video editing software to photo manipulation software. An instructional technologist needs to be up to date with the latest trends and resources in instructional design; they need to be on the cutting edge of technology. Nevertheless, instructional technology and design in not just about learning software applications, nor is it just about technology.

In order to educate or train an instructor needs to understand the educational process and how human beings interpret information. To correctly assemble instructional material designers follow a process by first establishing the instructional objective, researching the audience and subject matter, and creating a framework for the design. Once this is complete, the designer can form the material to fit the audiences’ needs. Instructional design and technology has many applications and a designer needs to stay on the forefront of technology to be successful.