Google Classroom Training

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Great Training Design - Makes Me Wanna Dance!

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            Great instructional design is a training method that is goal oriented and learner centered.  This systematic approach provides the foundation needed for trainees to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to successfully complete a job related task or produce a product.  The ADDIE model is an instructional design tool often used to plan training and activities.  This model contains five stages that guide the designer in providing a well organized, purposeful, and meaningful experience related to the training goals.  A skilled instructional designer spends a great deal of time in the analysis portion of the ADDIE model.  During this first phase, the creator must seek to understand the characteristics of their audience and identify the objectives or goals of the training.  There are constraints such as time allowed, costs, and facility availability that must also be considered.  Furthermore, there are options in the delivery that can impact the presentation. Careful consideration should be given to the type of delivery system as one delivery system might work better than another based on the task and audience needs.  Great instructional design should always be student centered and focus on the objectives.  In his book, Piskurich (2015), spends a great deal of time explaining the importance of student centered and objective focused training. Training which is planned with this is forethought will lead to a design that is meaningful, engaging, and purposeful. 

            During the design phase, objectives and assessments are chosen and correlated. Just as with the analysis phase, this phase is done in a logical and systematic way with great attention to details.  These details are important in the next phase of the model, the development phase.  Content created is assemble, reviewed and revised during the development phase of the ADDIE model. For the implementation phase, the training is presented to the learners according to methods and strategies outlined in the first three.  Then the trainees are asked to provide feedback and suggestions for improving any aspects of the design. This information is used to evaluate and revise the training as necessary and is known as the evaluation phase. 

            Before reading Piskurich’s book about instructional design, I did not know that the needs of adult learners were as important as students' needs in a learning environment.  I, also, did not know there was an specific systematic approach for design training for the industrial environment. One thing I changed after reflecting on my own instructional design is the way in which my learners will engage with the content.  My training will cover Google Classroom and how to implement it in a classroom setting.  During my research into the needs of my audience, I discovered that my they did not have the prerequisite skills needed in order to set up their Google Classroom.  I had chosen this as my topic because I had implemented into my classroom and they had asked me to help them do so as well.   So, I had to revise my design to fit my students' needs.  I will begin my training with Google email (Gmail) and chunk pieces of it together until we accomplish the goal of implementing Google Classroom into their classrooms.  Another change as well is the addition of a blended learning experience where trainees will be enrolled in my Google Classroom. This will allow them to see and experience what their students will after they setup their own. I will also follow up with them after training is complete and require them to provide evidence of their classroom experiences.  I look forward to seeing them go paperless and experience the ease of grading.

         I recently attended a training session about how to disrupt poverty in our schools as part of professional development in my school.  As a teacher, I have attended many training sessions over the years. Yet, this one was different as I found myself checking to see if it contained great instructional design and it did. This presenter had done her homework and we were engaged and actively participating in the learning process.  She blended the learning experiences, used many different visuals, provided us with graphic organizer, and had us moving and talking with one another through various activities. The time flew by and we learned much.  After the meeting was over, a friend and I asked her if she had ever heard of instructional design and she stated she had not.  Then we explained to her about the components of her training and how those components were exciting for us to note.       

Works Cited

Davis, A. (2013). Using instructional design principles to develop effective information literacy instruction: The ADDIE model. College & Research Libraries News, 74(4) 205-207. Retrieved from http://crln.acrl.org/content/74/4/205.full.pdf+html

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting web texts. In T. Antao (Ed.), Crafting digital writing: Composing  texts across media and genres. (pp. 36-60). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Teachers be like...Flipped Out!

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In Chapter 11 of Piskurich’s book about instructional design, I was interested in the flipped classroom portion (p. 453).  Being a classroom teacher with students who have one to one devices, I have been curious about flipping my classroom.  My understanding is that in this type of classroom setting students do the opposite of what they would usually do in the traditional classroom.  In a flipped classroom, students view lectures, watch videos, and read at home prior to attending class. Then in the classroom, students participate in discussions or projects. One could describe the flipped classroom as an environment where the homework is done at school and the school work (lectures or videos) is done at home. I have experienced the flipped classroom as part of professional development offered over the summer in my school district.  For our PD, we had to view videos and complete a science notebook prior to attending training.  By completing these assignments at home, it allowed us to spend valuable time in discussing how we might use some of the tools and techniques  effectively in our classroom.  Learning is a social activity, so I enjoyed learning from other teachers and discussing how we would implement the PD skills into our classrooms. Throughout a week of training, I gained essential knowledge and skills to take back to my classroom. Through this type of PD, the participants, including myself, developed the background knowledge about strategies and methods for teaching science through hands on experiences. This allowed us to spend more time discussing and experimenting with less time spent in lecture or reading. Furthermore, we spent more time actively engaged in meaningful, hands on learning experiences that we could take back to the classroom to our students. 

            

            For me, Piskurich offered another important tip about developing effective instructional design. In Chapter 8 of his book, he mentions software.  I found it interesting that he does not expect an instructional designer to reinvent the wheel (so to speak).  He mentions that there are some “really great packages out there that can help you mightily” as an instructional designer (p. 354).  This has caused me think about my own training content.  My first thought was that everything had to be reinvented or started from scratch which seemed like an overwhelming task in developing content.  Yet, in his book, he conveys the idea that is permissible to use software in your design as long as it “matches the way you like to do instructional design” (p.354). This could be helpful to the instructional designer, especially, when planning multiple trainings across many discipline areas with various types of learners and learning environments. 

            Throughout his book, Piskurich never forgets the importance of the learner, their needs, and how they learn best. Although, he presents a systematic way to design instruction, he focuses on ways to engage the trainee in the process of active learning. He has included activities and game ideas which could be added into training sessions making them more appealing and engaging to the learner (p. 224). As a teacher who plans classroom instruction, I also seek to include meaningful activities and games which engage my students in the learning process.  These activities and games are always planned, purposeful, and student centered.  In addition, they match my instructional objectives.   Just as any great teacher does, Piskurich never forgets to focus on the student or trainee first and he emphasizes the importance of great objectives. My belief is that these are key to great instructional design.   

Works Cited

Flipped Learning Organization. (2016). What is flipped learning? Retrieved from http://flippedlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FLIP_handout_FNL_Web.pdf

Piskurich, G. (2015). Doing it right: Development. Rapid Instructional Design: Learning ID Fast and Right (pp. 203-261). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. 

Flipped Classroom Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4RkudFzlc

Learning by Design with Advanced Organizers

Before beginning each lesson and as a best practice, I use advance organizers because I want the learner to understand what is taught, retain the information, and remember the material.  Advance organizers help to orient the student to learning goals and expectations and relate to the learning tasks.  During Learning Focus training that was offered within my school district, I was introduced to advance organizers and their uses in improving student knowledge and skills.  There are several types of advance organizers such as graphic organizers, narrative, and expository.  Advance organizers are to be presented during the lesson introduction. During the lesson, an advance organizer can help students to stay focused or be used as a review of ideas and content taught. Advance organizers are a great way to organize new information about a topic. Moreover, as a cognitive strategy, they help students to merge what they already know with new information they have just learned.  The most frequently used advance organizer in my classroom is the KWL chart. My students tell me what they know (K), what they want to know (W), and what they learned (L). Thus, the KWL is used before, during, and after instruction to bridge the gap between what the learner knows and what they need to know. Advance organizers that are relevant to the learning task facilitate and promote the transfer of learning.  One interesting­­­­­ advance organizer that I stumbled upon is the use of cartoons as advance organizers.
 

 Another teaching strategy for my classroom is the think, pair, share.  I use the think, pair, share strategy because it allows for cooperative and collaborative learning experiences.  I encourage my students to share their thoughts and ideas about a topic with another student, their partner.  Together they discuss and think about questions related to the topic.  Then we come together in a whole group and discuss their thoughts.  This type of learning strategy gives a student support from their partner during discussion and make them more comfortable about sharing their ideas and thoughts.  Many students who are “shy” about sharing their ideas and thoughts tend to participate more in the safer environment of a think, pair, share.  This was a technique presented during an English Language Arts Workshop for teachers of reading.  Advance organizers and think, pair, share can be used as student-centered pre-instructional activities which should always “directly relate to the objectives” (p. 175). 

During my rapid instructional design reading, I was intrigued by the notion of how to design instructional training.  Many things throughout Piskurich’s (2015) book sound very familiar to me as a classroom teacher. I believe there is a hint of backward design principles embedded throughout.  This backward design of instruction is one in which you begin with the goal in mind and work backwards from there to design content. Piskurich’s book is written for the industrial setting, yet I can see it applied in a classroom setting as well.  In the design stage of the ADDIE model, an instructor begins planning using the objectives or training goals.  Piskurich states that this is “to help the designer make sure that all the content that is needed is there” for training purposes (p. 129).  As a teacher, the goals or objectives are also my starting points.  I begin with these in mind and work my way backwards to ensure that content that needs to be taught is taught and to organize that content.  In discussing objectives, Piskurich is very specific about having measurable and observable goals.  Again, something that is just as important for those who teach. My objectives have to be well designed, purposeful, linked to standards, measurable, and observable. Otherwise, I will not be able to properly assess my students or recognize when my students have (or have not) mastered their learning goals. Assessments and data drive my instruction and instructional decisions; however, it is important that I carefully link assessments and standards.  Moreover, in planning for instruction, I look at how I am going to assess my objectives before I plan units of study.  In planning for my classroom instruction, I must always meet my learners where they are.  When necessary, I may have to go back and teach (or reteach) supporting standards to scaffold my students’ knowledge acquisition. For example, if a student has not met a fourth grade standard, I may have to reteach this standard for mastery before introducing the fifth grade standard I am focusing on. Always, I am to remember to center my instruction around the learner.  During the planning of classroom experiences, I will plan for the best way to deliver important content incorporating methods and strategies will be most effective for students’ learning and achievement.

Works Cited

Gurlitt, J., Dummel, S., Schuster, S., & Nuckles, M. (2011). Differently structured advance organizers lead to different initial schemata and learning outcomes. Instructor Science.  Doi: 10.1007/s11251-011-9180-7.

Piskurich, G. (2015). Before you do anything: Pre-instructional design activities. Rapid Instructional Design: Learning ID Fast and Right (pp. 107-202). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. 

Think pair share image -

Retrieved from http://deepdesignthinking.com/visible-thinking-routines-tps-3-2-1-bridge-posters/

You tube video -

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IxWrXmTL-s