The focus of my last Blog was on the Pre-Instructional Phase of instructional design where I referenced Michael W. Allen's article, Designing Outside the Box (http://www.learningcircuits.org/0308_allen.html). Mr Allen categorizes instructional design into three learning phases: Pre-instructional Phase, Instructional Phase and Performance Phase. This Blog's reflections will focus on the Instructional and Performance Phases.Instruction Phase
When it comes to professional development, it was long ago established that learning by doing is far better than the droning sit and git method. That being said, what makes the most difference is what learners are doing during the learning experience. At Professional Development Support, we are beginning to include job-embedded scenarios in our training designs. Once particpants understand the foundational level of instruction, the most valuable next step would be the application of that knowledge to job-embedded situations. By incorporating work-related scenarios during the instructional phase, participants are immersed in situations where they would need to think critically in order to analyze a situation and determine which performance skills should be used. This job-embedded application of knowledge should not wait for the follow-up activity, but should be written into the design and applied immediately as learning activities.
Performance Phase
The point that Mr. Allen makes about the Performance Phase that resonates with me is that designers need to provide learning experiences for two audiences - one set for the target audiences and another for their supervisors (administrators, principals). As many of us have experienced, untrained supervisors, even if supportive of the change, often are detrimental to that very change because they are unfamiliar with the new process being introduced and the challenges that particular change will bring. Dual designs, for these two audiences can help push change forward and might improve the climate when implementing new initiatives.
Finally, as a last step in the Performance Phase, designers need to consider various ways that participants can collaborate with each other as they transition learning to actual performance.
I'm blogging out of here.Kyna
