Instruction Design Blog Reflection


"Education has missed the boat, with respect to instructional design. Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly, with little thought to why they are presenting information or even who their audience is. Teacher training, at the university level and during Professional development, needs to focus on helping teachers become comfortable with instructional design principles."


Wow! This quote hits the nail on the head. I read it and thought of several teachers, but also myself in some cases, especially at the beginning of my teaching career.

When I graduated I thought my classes would prepare me for teaching meaningful lessons, but the more time that I've spent in the classroom, the more wrong was. I loved my undergrad experience, but it didn't quite get me ready for real life classroom experience. I knew the standards, how to test, how to make extremely long lesson plans and was even armed with some great ideas. But college classes aren't a real classroom. I started my teaching career unsure of what I was even doing. I knew what worked for the grade I was teaching, but how to present it and why I was doing it that way were things I wasn't too sure about.

The first part of this quote: "Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly..." reigns true with so many educators I know. We claim they are just Type B, but that's not always the case. Some just don't know how to create effective lessons. They haven't been armed with the tools for instructional design. You can really see a difference in lessons that have been given a lot of thought and lessons that were thrown together. The learning is usually ineffective and the behavior of the students is much different, usually less controlled.

I had never heard of either of these models until this course, and there are good sides to both. The one that I can most relate my lesson planning to would be the Morrison, Ross and Kemp Model. I feel that I am constantly revising as I go. If something doesn't work I will tweak it mid lesson and go with whatever is really working with the kids. I don't think my time is best used teaching something in a way that just isn't working.

The more I taught, did professional development and collaborated with other educators, the more I began to understand ways to create lessons designed in a way that worked for my students. I started to understand why I was teaching it in the order I was and even why teaching these things were important. I could tell that when I spent time really researching lessons and ideas, my kids understood them more. They enjoyed my lessons more, and they were more meaningful. My students were learning and I could see it and understand it. It was an amazing thing to experience. That's what teaching should be!

We all have ways to improve upon our teaching methods. We have to be open to change and know that we aren't perfect. With a little time and devotion, we can focus on instructional design to give our lessons meaning.