Module 3 Reflection

Instructional design is a much more focused and systematic process than I had believed at the beginning of this course. Though I was aware of my incompetence for the specific field of ID, I am now becoming more acutely aware of how much about ID I really don't know. Perhaps, though, that is evidence of learning occurring.

The readings from this week helped me to gain a better understanding of the various domains of possible learning as put forth by Gagne. In the high-stakes accountability era which we teach and learn in today, a disproportionate focus is given to students' demonstrations of declarative and cognitive strategy outcomes. However, in order to teach to the whole learner, we must create opportunities for, and make an effort to observe learning outcomes related to attitudes and psychomotor skills. What struck me about this portion of the reading is the realization that none of these potential learning outcomes must be mutually exclusive. Rather, they can and should serve as a sequence for higher levels of thinking and learning.

Such a sequence of possible learning outcomes became apparent in this week's information processing analysis assignment. Visually organizing learning tasks and prerequisite skills served as a valuable learning experience for me as I continue to accommodate and assimilate practices and ideas into my schema of instructional design and delivery. As I produced my own task analysis and viewed those created by others, a general pattern of declarative knowledge preceding intellectual knowledge appeared. A possible conclusion to be made about this relationship is that establishing a familiar context and a common vocabulary for a given content area before learning about the theoretical applications of its subordinate concepts is the equivalent of putting the proverbial ox before the cart. As I continue with my project analyses for this course and eventually take this learning into the field, an understanding of Gagne's 5 types of learning outcomes will serve as a valuable framework from which to approach instructional design.

Currently, I am able to relate this week's reading and my module learning to my work by giving more attention to systematically designing instruction for my online students. This will emphasize the various modalities of assessment described in this module. As much attention has tended to be given to objective paper-based summative assessments, optimal data and learning can crop up from utilizing strategic formative assessments throughout the instructional process. As an online middle school teacher in a school that relies on a third-party instructional software program, data is on student progress and learning is readily available. The challenge for an online educator in this capacity is to interpret the given data to build on students' strengths and intervene to help overcome students' weaknesses. Assessment not only plays a role in identifying these opportunities, but in also determining optimal courses of action to take along with the effectiveness of instruction.