Sunday, September 28, 2014

Trends & Issues Various Settings - Section 5

Trends & Issues Various Settings
Section #5

1. Chapters in Section V identify trends and issues in IDT in various contexts: business & industry; military; health care education; P-12 education; and post-secondary education. Select at least 3 of these 5 contexts and compare/contrast the IDT trends and issues. Then explain how they are similar or different from the IDT trends and issues in the context in which you work.

Business & Industry

Instruction designers in industry my find themselves in small teams or large multinational teams on global projects (Reiser & Dempsey, pp 178-184, 2012).  Because the IDT team leader may find himself in a virtual global team with multicultural members as well as a go-between the corporation and outsourced consultants.  As a secondary teacher in a local high school I would not be as concerned with multinational issues as I would be with a global business.  However, I do have many students from various cultures.  I cannot take it for granted that my students are aware of all of the local customs of our community.  Just by looking at the verity of surnames in my 150+ students you would find that many of them are first generation Americans with many different cultures at home.

Military

The military is made up of individuals from many diverse cultures.  Because the military has to operate within certain financial constrictions, it must be as efficient with its training dollars as possible.  The military would not be training its solders for future jobs as much as it would be concentrating on current military needs.  I, as a teacher of business, would be emphasizing the economy and jobs available after graduation from high school.  I have more time to spend with my students than the military because I am not preparing them for emergencies in the very near future.  The military does train solders in skill sets that will be useful in civilian life but that is only a useful consequence of the military’s major goals of supporting military missions.

Health-care

The health care industry is very broad and the students should be concentrating on a very narrow area of medical care (Reiser & Dempsey, pp 197-201, 2012).  There is a great risk in the health industry will involve lifesaving or threatening consequences (Reiser & Dempsey, p 200, 2012).  The health care person must keep current on all innovations in their field.  The cost of a health care education is usually very substantial because it is in addition to most academic studied.  I will be training my students in high school for college or entry level industrial jobs.  My job is important because it is up to me to instill a love of learning and the necessary skills for obtaining and understanding knowledge.

2. Chapters in Section VI discuss global trends and issues in IDT. As the world’s population grows exponentially, we face unprecedented challenges that have implications for learning. How and can we prepare our youth to address the problems of living in a world with 9 billion people when the earth’s resources cannot sustain that many? Does our current education system, curriculum, and instructional practices help learners foster the complex problem-solving skills necessary to tackle these issues? Are there methods and practices used in European and Asian countries that we should use here in the US? Why or why not? 

While I don’t think EDT addresses the world’s population problems it could be affected by the ever increasing cost of face-to-face education in the United States.  In chapter 24 of Trends and Issues in Instructional… ( Reiser & Dempsey, pp 244-245, 2012) we are told about advances in IDT in Japan and Korea that are taking root.  Universities in the United States is using e-learning in upper education with very good results.  I would not be able to attend a face-to-face class while earning my Master’s degree at TAMU-C.  I am only finishing college by the grace of e-learning.  I think our high schools could use e-learning for some subjects in order to shorten the number of hour at school.  Because many parents of children in the K-9 students work it would be difficult for them to arrange child care for the younger children.  I would like to see at least a trial project for e-learning in high school.  The first thing that would have to be accomplished would be getting the state education agencies to agree to certify the e-classes.  If student could do at least half of their classes at home it would immediately reduce the number of teachers and classroom needed.  I intend to champion e-classes at the high school level when I earn my Masters in Education Technology Leadership.  We could see more students graduating and a reduction in the cost per student be reduced.  I personally have seem little that would ever convince me that Europe has any advantage over the United States in the area of education.

 References

Reiser, Robert A. and Dempsey, John V. (2012). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology, 3td ed. Allyn & Bacon, 501 Boylston street, Boston, Ma, 02116. (pp. 178-255).






3 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading your post dear Carl,

    Military also educates it's soldiers. Education which most of them may not be able to achieve if they were in any other entity but that.
    I want to say; the military is a well round entity, individuals graduating high school with no other ways to make money, to support themselves their families, and make their dream come true, of going to college.
    Do I like young students in the military? no! I do not, military now looks to me as a fighting machine. Provides peace of course, what we will be without them.
    The bottom line; not only they care to provide the proper training for achieving job requirements.... but also educating their brains.

    Yes, I support e learning also, the most efficient way. I am also at an age, which I do not want to loose the human contact. The traditional contact with my professor is what I look forward every other Wednesday. Maybe because I love my e learning and vise verse. I believe one compliments the other. I can not cope with courses if I did not have both. So I will say for me the best line is the line in the middle. Courses to choose how we can learn better. Everyone learns different.

    Thank you for this interesting reading

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  2. Carl,

    I think that your comment about cutting face-to-face teaching for high school students would be a benefit for our youth is interesting. I do not totally agree with it, but I can see where you are going with it. I think that high school students (because I have worked with them) are not ready. Maybe there are a hand full that would be able to go home, log on to the online program, sit, and do their work. Many, as I see it, do not even want to do the work at school. I could not see how anyone would be able to get them to at least login in an outside education environment to do any type of homework. What I do think that our students need is more teachers, so that the ones being left behind can have more one-on-one time. My theory in which high school students act out is because they know that they do not understand or they need help, but instead of reaching out to teachers for help, they act out.

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  3. I appreciate e-learning, as I, like you, would not be able to attend master's classes without e-learning. I, however, also know that I have always been a self-motivated learner and an above average student. I think e-learning would be a problem for students who need motivation to learn. Of course, maybe I am over-estimating the ability of teachers to motivate students. I know that high-school students probably don't want to be at school or to do the work, but neither do my students with special needs. I do everything in my power to make the things we are learning amazing and exciting. I think the same could be done at the high-school level. I know that it is difficult, but if it were easy, it wouldn't be worth doing. :)

    Christi Abramsky

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