IDE651. Message Design rocks!

Here is the chronology of what we did in IDE 651 "Message Design" class yesterday:

1. Come to class, bring a print out of presentation slides of our past work.
2. Jerry showed examples of redesigned presentation slides. He showed the "before" and "after" examples.
3. Then we discuss the presentation design principles by Nancy Duarte*. Good points were delivered:
   • Before making the presentation slides, decide: is it suppose to be a Presentation or Document?
   • Know your audience (Duarte listed 7 questions that can guide us to know our audience)
   • Do we want the audience to: Listen or Read?
   • Don't use graphics/ animation that will distract our audience from getting your points. Use one that will support it.
4. Then we were given a time to brainstorm our presentation slides. How do we want to re-design it?
5. To help us do that, Jerry discussed Duarte's point about using Post-It-Notes to brainstorm. Rule: draw/ write our ideas in the sticky notes, one or two (key) words per sticky note. Stick it on the wall or wherever we want, then re-arrange our ideas (sticky notes) later. This way we can be as impulsive as we can when throwing out our ideas.
   
6. So, for about 45 minutes we were trying to redesign our old presentation slides. There are four points for us to consider, as we rethink our presentation ideas: what's the Story, who's the Audience, what are the Verbs of our presentation, what do you want them to learn/ take away at the end your presentation? The layout, font's type & size, spacing, graphic images, animation, should also support our goals.
7. Ten minutes intermission (eat my choc chip cookie and drink my ice tea)
   
8. Then we were finishing up the sticky notes activity as Jerry prepared the videos he wanted to show. I truly enjoy 'playing' around with marker and sticky notes on the wall, as I constantly rearrange the notes. (oh you should see our class walls! So cool!)
9. Class discussion. As Jerry commenting and giving inputs for each of us, he showed us couple videos from TED to support his points and to give us examples of great presentation. Guess what we watch? Sir Ken Robinson and Hans Rosling presentations. I've seen the first one (never got bored by Mr.Robinson's jokes tho'), and the latter was just mind-blowing.
10. At the end of the class, Jerry (with the help of Yan) took picture of each of our "wall" -with all the sticky notes-!!

To sum it up, here's what we do in class:

1. See examples of redesigned presentation slides
   
2. "Play" with sticky notes
3. Watch (cool) TED videos
   
4. (end of class)

There goes my 3 hours class.
...

[my wall]

...
I want more.

Note:
*Nancy Duarte is the author of Slide:ology, whose work was Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth presentation slides. Her starting price for design/ redesigning presentation is $10,000.- at the minimum. (ckckck)

Quoting Mrs.Kirkhart on Evaluation

Today is my first day of Fall Semester. Yup, summer break is over. A lot of things happened during this summer. First, I got an internship in Say Yes to Education Summer Program (Syracuse). I taught Kindergarten Kids in Dr.King Elementary School. We promoted the university life and environments (of course the great and good ones). The kids called every teacher "Professor" (yup, Prof. Mehkta!) We went to lots of museums in Syracuse. We learned together, but we also had fun together. It was great. I miss the kids already. I learned great things from the teachers, from the kids, from everyone.

Second, I moved in to new apartment house. I moved in with my church friend. I have three other housemates. The house is nice; air-conditioned living room with TV and cable, free internet, and of course it's a non-smoking house. But what actually attracted me to move in to this place was the family who owned this house (aka. my landlord family, which is my church friend's family). I see this family as my family in US. They are very nice and warm.

Third, I got an on-campus employment in CDL (Center for Digital Literacy) in iSchool. I love the work and I expect to learn a lot from this work (which I'm sure I will). This work is one year project work, so my employment will last until next Spring (2010). Yippie!

Fourth, I'm excited to be enrolled in these two courses (for my Fall semester): IST 616 Information Resources: Organization and Access (in iSchool) & IDE 651 Message Design. I hope I will feel engaged and motivated to learn more and to go beyond the syllabus/ requirements. I will start the IST 616 class in 30 minutes! *finger crossed*

Anyway, when I unpacked my stuff a week ago, I found my post-it notes from the Evaluation class I took last Spring semester. I quoted Mrs.Kirkhart (Professor Nick Smith's dearly wife) when she substituted her husband in my class.

This is what I quote from her:

"Doing evaluation will keep you humble"

God bless Mrs.Kirkhart!

IDE632. Summarize of Module 10 Class on 04/07/09

1st Session

The first session of the class was Guest Lecture, Dr. Phil Doughty. He discussed couple of important things:

First, he posed a question “Where in the model you would want to start to solve the problem?” Answers were varies; Front-End Analysis, Conceptual Framework (the how, what, who, and why), Evaluation (Rear-End), and Instruction (which he confirmed as the usual place to start, because this is where ID-ers were recruited). However, he also stated that in the real world, we can start anywhere.
Second, he discussed about the various labels people have toward people who try to solve instructional problems. Various answers came up; Instructional Designers, Learning Facilitator, Technology Writer, Information Architect, Educational Engineers (posited by Dr.Romi), Instructional Psychologist, Teachers/Coach/Mentor/Tutor, Communicator, and for this course the label is Instructional Developer. To quote Dr. Phil, he said that if anyone ask him about what his job is, he would answer “my job is to make learning occur”.
Third, he shared about what he’s been working on since two years ago, “Open Educational Resources (OER) for Vietnam Project” (detail information can be found in handouts he handed in class). He emphasized one part of the model that were used for this project, that one part/ steps are “Three Classes of Interventions” : Professional/Personal Development (PD) – Instructional Development (ID) – Organizational Development (OD). He discussed how PD-ID-OD became an important element in the ID model for this context, might be for our context too. This point is very related to the readings (Module 10).

2nd Session
The second session was Ashley’s presentation of Rapid Prototyping (RP). From what I noted, RP is an iterative design. Ashley gave example of RP; making paper airplane. Another points about RP are:

• Not for a huge scale → unit level
• For experienced ID/ expert
• Not so much FEA (expert already has the scheme/ information about FEA on his head)
• Save time/budget
• The context: should be in environment that is flexible, certain level of trust to the environment.
  

Jerry added about “prototype” vs. “products” → how people would be more tolerance and ‘open’ to a “prototype”, since it means people can keep revising. Vice versa, people tend to be less tolerance, and easier to complain if a “product” do not meet their expectation.

3rd Session
The third session was Yan Suo’s presentation of Gerlach and Ely’s model (1980). This model can be found in Gustafson’s Survey of Instructional Development Models book, page 20. It falls under Classroom-Oriented category. Some information about this model would be:

• In this model, teacher works as a coordinator, rather than presenter
• This model was designed for the teacher
• the five steps (determination of strategy, organization of groups, allocation of time, allocation of space, selection of resources) are interactive, can happen simultaneously.
  

Yan Suo’s references for this presentation were:

1. Gustafson, K.L. & Branch, R.M. (2002). Survey of Instructional Development Models, 4th Edition. ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology, Syracuse.
2. Chen, Kuan-Chung (2004). Classroom Instructional Development Model – The Gerlach and Ely Model. Retrieved from http://siderali.myweb.uga.edu/EDIT6200/UPDATE%20Model%20Critique__KUAN_CHUNG_CHEN.pdf
3. Gerald S.E., Robert C. B., Prachee M. , (1994), A Conceptual Framework for Comparing Instructional Design Models. ETR&D, Vol 42. No.4, pp. 55-72.

Module 10
Organization and Management of ID Centers
Research and Development on ID
Some important information can be found from the readings (Module 10). I will not put everything here, however I will put some notes/ excerpt from each article in Module 10.

• “Studies of faculty development programs indicate how vital it is to have an individual with the commitment, and talent to take the lead in developing, maintaining and evaluating services. Faculty do serve as directors of teaching centers, and they play other roles as well, such as rotating through as an affiliate (e.g., a faculty associate), serving on a center’s advisory board, or sharing their own expertise at center-sponsored programs. But critical to the success of many teaching centers is a high-quality staff of instructional developers who may or may not come from faculty ranks but are able to position their efforts within the context of the campus culture.” (Excerpt from POD Network in Higher Education article)
• Durzo, J article review topics on: 1) The nature of Instructional Development, 2) The Instructional Development Movement, 3) The role of Instructional Development, 4) Characteristics of Instructional Development Agencies, 5) Approaches to Instructional Development, 6) The Scope of Instructional Development Projects, 7) Project Generation and Selection, and 8) Implications for Implementing Instructional Development Programs.
• Sell & Chism (1990) article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different staffing options, the search process, and the “need” to prepare future staff. The term “Faculty Development” is used here as a general descriptor to encompass not only organized efforts to develop the knowledge and skills of faculty, but also systematic activities aimed at improving instruction through developing courses and curricula (“instructional development”) and institutional policies and practices (“organizational development”)
• Locatis and Park (1982) compared Authoring Systems (which allow course developers to build displays, specify inputs, and branch students, focus on how such course ingredients are realized in specific lessons) with ID Expert Systems (part of a family of software tools for automating course development). The major difference between the two is, Authoring Systems are meant for building the final product, while Automated ID tools are intended for planning it.
  

IDE632. Model Status Report - Conceptual Framework

"ID Model for Sunday School Teachers"
(click image for enlargement)

Proposed conceptual framework based on Andrews and Goodson (1980) theory.

1. Type of Orientation: Prescriptive or Descriptive

My model orientation would be Prescriptive, because it is intended to "outline how a learning environment can be altered or constructed in order to affect the variables of interest in a certain way or bring about the desired outcome" (Edmonds et al.). My model would be to help the SST through some steps that is detailed to guide them reach the goals. Phase I model prescribes SST to build libraries (or database) of teaching related materials/ resources. Phase II model is a modification of Gerlach and Ely model (1980) -which is also Prescriptive-, because it prescribes SST in building instruction, with emphasis on the Development part (five simultaneous activities).

2. Type of Knowledge: Procedural or Declarative

The type of task my model is intended to support would be how to reach a goal or Procedural. My model is to help SST reach the goal by prescribing them to follow some procedure. Phase I is to help SST organizing teaching resources, such as collection of songs, clip-arts, games activities, videos, PowerPoint templates, etc. This phase is mainly to help them in classroom resources organization, since it's the basic problem that underline the motivational problem and affected their performance. Phase II is also procedural, because it requires SST to follow some course of actions in building instruction. Phase II follows Phase I, means: to be successfully implementing Phase II, Phase I should be started first. The key in Phase II is to help SST save more time in preparing (design/developing) teaching instructions, because the most activities that consume time (i.e, searching for resources) has been organized, handled, or managed in Phase I. The five simultaneous activities in Phase II model (determining strategy to selection of resource) is the part where teacher can save more time, because they have the option to do this steps asynchronously (means, they don't need to come to come to church to search for resources that usually being kept in church's cabinet, since if Phase I succeed, they will have access to search/ extract the resources digitally).

3. Required Expertise: Novice, Intermediate or Expert

I would say my model does not require a high level of expertise. In other word, I hope my model (both Phase I and Phase II) would be useful for Novice or inexperienced instructional designer. I realized I'm very rookie in this instructional design world, therefore, detailed and clear model would be helpful for me. That is how I want my model would be too.

4. Theoretical Origins: Hard Systems, Soft Systems or Intuition

Edmonds et al. defined the Novice/Soft-System-Based (from Figure 8 at Module 7) as an instructional design model that is meant for novice instructional designers who have knowledge and expertise in a specific context such as teachers. Since my model is to help SST that are novice in instructional design process, I think my model fits best in this category. Phase II is actually a modification of Gerlach and Ely's model (1980). There's an additional steps there:

1. Divide Responsibilities among Teachers
There will be at least two and up to four teachers for each class, and they usually divide responsibilities in searching-preparing teaching materials/aids. Even though this step tend to be perceived as part of Determination of Strategy, actually it is different, because Determination of Strategy refers more to the strategy to deliver the instruction in class, while Divide Responsibilities among Teachers refers more to strategy for teacher in preparing the teaching resources.
2. Implementation
Gerlach and Ely's model -1980- did not stated explicitly this steps, as Kuan-Chung Chen stated in the paper*; "the model is relatively weak for implementation. Though each step in the model provides some implications for implementation, it is better to specify it as a single stage", that's why I added this step)

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* Kuan Chung Chen (2004), “Classroom Instructional Development Model–The Gerlach and Ely Model”
http://siderali.myweb.uga.edu/EDIT6200/UPDATE%20Model%20Critique__KUAN_CHUNG_CHEN.pdf

IDE632. Goals and Objectives

Most of the readings in this module focused on Behavioral Objectives or Performance Objectives. Actually I'm not sure how am I going to apply that to my situation/ model, because I think the real problem with my system is not a performance problem (even though it looks like one --> SSTs do not perform as expected). I think that SSTs performance problem -their accountability-, is only the tip of the iceberg. It is only a manifestation of a larger problem, which is the complexity of SSTs responsibilities/roles.

The goal of the model is actually to simplified the system (SSTs working mechanism). As I put in the graphic in my "module two" posting, my model's purpose would be to help SSTs create a simpler course deliverables and simpler system of class preparation. So that they don't have to spend too much time to prepare the class.

However, if I think again, my model should help SSTs have better performance. Hence, the behavioral objectives/ performance objectives would be:

1. SSTs will be able to prepare each Sunday's lesson-plan according to the steps indicated in the model
   
2. SSTs will be able to utilize the resources provided to prepare game activity as part of the lesson-plan
3. SSTs will be able to utilize the resources provided to prepare songs to be sang as part of the Sunday School activity.
4. SSTs will come regularly at Sunday School
5. SSTs will report to coordinator if cannot come to Sunday School
6. SSTs will be able to welcome new children in class, and encourage class to blend in with the new-comers
   

IDE632. Conditions of Change

Now, that we know the problems and the needs. What next is a plan for CHANGE. It is certain that "change" is needed in order to implement and facilitate the ID plan. There are Eight Conditions for Change described by Donald P. Ely*. These condition will work as a catalyst for the change to happen.

I will try to describe Ely's Eight Conditions for Change according to my context.

1. Dissatisfaction With the Status Quo

• Indicator: Something is not right. Things could be better. There are needs for improvement.
• Situation: SSTs often feel overwhelmed with their responsibilities. There are too much things to do in order to fulfil their role, while most of them are busy person. Besides, there has been complaints from children’s parents.

2. Knowledge and Skills Exist

• Indicator: The people who will implement any innovation must possess sufficient knowledge and skills to do the job. Knowledge & skills can be acquired in many ways.
  
• Situation: The SSTs (people who will implement the innovation), are people who are not incompetence. The incompetence they seemed to have were because they do not have sufficient time to study the material comprehensively, or to prepare the job/visual aids. A better system that can help them fulfill their responsibilities, while saving their time, is needed.

3. Resources are Available

• Indicator: Tools and other relevant materials that are accessible to assist learners to acquire learning objectives.
• Situation: Tools and materials are not a problem here. “TIME” to explore those materials is what the SSTs lack.

4. Time is Available

• Indicator: Good time. Implementers must have time to learn, adapt, integrate, and reflect on what they are doing.
  
• Situation: This condition is surely a challenge for the SSTs, since the roots of the problem is their lack of time. However, if only they want to reserve some of their time (at the beginning) to learn, and adapt, it will save more of their time in the future.
  

5. Rewards or Incentives Exist for Participants

• Indicator: A satisfaction for a job well done, more (or better) resources, etc.
• Situation: In this context, the rewards or incentives would be a more efficient and effective teaching preparation and teaching in class method. If they can fulfill their SSTs responsibilities while saving their time to do their other activities/ work, it will surely be a reward for them. Since they are actually a passionate SSTs who just lack of time. The absence of complaints (or even a positive feedback) from parents would definitely be incentives for them.

6. Participation is Expected and Encouraged

• Indicator: Shared decision making, communication among all parties involved, and representation where individual participation is difficult.
  
• Situation: This is not something impossible to put in realization. SSTs coordinator will first communicate this idea to the church board, and then with their help this idea can be communicated to all SSTs. This is obviously something that can't be done without group participation.

7. Commitment by Those Who are Involved

• Indicator: Commitment should occurs at all levels.
  
• Situation: This is also not something that is impossible to happen. With extra effort from the SSTs coordinator to persuade, and then maintain the SSTs motivation to keep their commitment in adapting the new method, hopefully change will eventually occur.

8. Leadership is Evident

• Indicator: Leaders should provide initial encouragement to consider new ideas; they insure that the necessary training is given and that the materials to do the job are easily available; they are available for consultation when discouragement or failure occur; and they continually communicate their enthusiasm for the work at hand.
  
• Situation: I believe in this case the leaders could be the SSTs coordinator, as well as the Church Board (or specifically the SSTs supervisor). If they both can really understand how critical is this process, then the SSTs coordinator can propose for necessary training for the SSTs. With the help from SSTs supervisor (who represent the churh board), they can submit this proposal to the church board, and then organize the training.
  

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*Conditions that facilitate the implementation of educational technology innovations, by Donald P.Ely, Journal of Research on Computing in Education, vol.23, no.2, Winter 1990, pp.298-305

IDE641. Class 01 - Quoting Nick Smith

On the first class of IDE641. Techniques in Educational Evaluation, Nick Smith -the professor- has already showered us with lots of 'wisdom', which most of them are on the subject of Evaluation. I think some of these are the wisdom you won't find in textbook. If only I have my audio-recorder with me, I would asked his permission to record everything he said. Lucky enough, I managed to catch some important (and some are enlightening) lessons. (note: not all of these are verbatim)

(on Evaluation)

• This isn't evaluator merely as data-collector, instead we diagnose & serving the four function of Evaluation: measurement-evaluation-research-management.

• We do evaluation to help someone decide something.

• There are no perfect evaluation. There are trade-offs. They all have flaws.

• Evaluation is always political.*

(on making mistakes)

• These are the common problems, people make the same mistakes. Don't make the same mistakes, go on make new mistakes! (note: this is one is my favorite!)
  

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*There was further discussion about this idea in the second class. I'll save it for next posting.

IDE632. Module Two - Needs Assessment/Front-End Analysis/Discrepancy Analysis

Roger Kaufman* made a good point when he said "There are differences between 'need', 'want', 'desire', and 'require'. When we use the word 'need' as a verb we are usually risking our jumping to a solution before defining the problem." I guess this is where we usually fail when troubleshooting a situation. I admit that I was lost in a maze of my own system's problem. I felt that the situation of my system is like a tangled web. It's just hard to define the problem. Thankfully, after some discussion and brainstorming with a friend, the web can be slowly untwisted.

Before I breakdown the problem, I will describe why it is important to close the gap.

1. SSTs (Sunday School Teachers) are responsible to the community they serve (including parents' of the children), as well as to the church board who organize and sponsor/ fund all the activities in Children Ministry. Any complaints from the community should not be ignored.
2. SSTs are people who have been trusted by the community to serve in the Children Ministry, to create a warm, fun and save environment for the children so they can learn about Gospel and have a good fellowship in the Children Ministry.

So, this is how I map/ do the Discrepancy Analysis:

(please click on the image to enlarge)

Given the current situation, the model I'm going to develop is to serve only Needs #1 and #2. I am not going to focus this model on how to recruit more SSTs. Several recruitment attempts have been made, however people's responses were not quite favorable since they (most likely) realize (or have stereotyped) that being an SST requires a lot of time and energy. Hopefully when Needs #1 & 2 are met, additional SSTs will be easier to find.

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*Determining Educational Needs in Educational Systems Planning by Roger A. Kaufman, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972, pp.30

IDE632. Module One

This is some information about my context that I'm going to use for practicing Instructional Development. I will give some definitions of each part, based on Thomas E. Harries module on General Systems Theory.

Context: K-12 (Children Ministry)

System (the collection of integrated entities which have arbitrarily been designated as of central interest, such as a school) : Children Ministry of Bintaro Presbyterian Church, Indonesia

Suprasystem (the larger system of which the system of interest is embedded) : Bintaro Presbyterian Church, Indonesia

Subsystem (a smaller collection of entities which comprise a portion of the system of central interest) : Sunday School Teachers, the children, children's parents, church board

Information Channels (Information: input of sensory data to a system which creates order, reduces uncertainty, and makes predictable) : SSTs regular meeting, e-mail, Parents-SSTs meeting, post-mail, weekly bulletin.

Subsystem Interface (the boundary between subsystems which has the option of accepting or rejecting information) : the church's administrator, beadle, Children Ministry co-ordinator.

System Dissonance (an inefficient, unsatisfactory feature or phenomenon of a system which renders it less functional or more inefficient than it could be) : SSTs' accountability

Symptom (the overt events or visible evidence of a problem/ system dissonance) : decrease in SSTs quantity, inconsistency in attendance, complaints from children's parents.

IDE632. Introduction of My ID Model

As part of completing the course requirements, I will design an ID Process Model that fits a context in which I am working now or expect to work in the future. My Professional Context is actually K-12, because most of my works in the past, in the present, also in the future (I hope) lie in that field.

Thinking about what system should I choose for this assignment, I know that I want to use a K-12 context. However, I can't help myself not to think of the Children Ministry as a context in which I learned a lot about K-12. Therefore, for this course assignment, I will focus my context in the Children Ministry.

I began my service in the Children Ministry as a Sunday School Teacher (future known as SST) in my church in Indonesia at 2004. Being an SST gave me a chance to observe and to learn about the dynamics of all the SSTs that also servicing in Children Ministry. All the SSTs can be considered as Volunteer Teachers or volunteer workers, and the church itself I consider as a Non-Profit Organization which organize us, the volunteer teachers. In any organization, there is always issue of ones' performance. This assignment gave me opportunity to analyze my system and then develop an Instructional Model. I really hope the ID Model I'm going to design can be useful in the real practice.

We'll see.

My PLE (Personal Learning Environment)

It's been a while since I wrote my last posting. Winter break is definitely over (although the winter is not over, at least until March.. *sigh*). However, Spring semester has started. New semester, new spirit! This semester I am taking three courses :

1. IDE 632 - Instructional Design & Development II (by Gerald Edmonds)
   
2. IDE 641 - Techniques in Educational Evaluation (by Nick Smith)
3. IDE 761 - Strategies in Educational Project Management (by Alan Foley)

I will still use this blog as a space to keep track of myself in terms of my learning in IDD&E. Means, this blog will serve as my Personal Learning Environment (PLE; the term I just learned from IDE 632) not only for IDE 632 class -which requires me to write reflection on my PLE-, but also for other courses that I'm taking.

I will try my best to post my notes/ reflection on learning, regularly. Feel free to leave any comment, suggestion and/or question.