On reflection, I wonder whether at least this, if not all of the reflective commentaries are part of a project on instructional design Adam?
1. There were strategies, resources, and processes that I found really helpful as I constructed my Course Development Document, and others that did not work for me.
I found the reflective commentaries very useful (?irony) as a process for collecting my thoughts- I think 'collection of thoughts' was the single most difficult aspect of processing and applying education theory that I encountered. I also have a couple of thoughts on how to improve my collection of thoughts further on.
Although I think the peer-evaluation task was useful in respect to receiving evaluation, I think I may have missed the idea and the utility until receiving feedback on my own project. I actually feel a little embarrassed by the quality of the peer review Sanya received- it didn't reflect my deepest thoughts, and I think part of this was the directed/prescriptive nature of the tool/task (Herrington, Herrington, Oliver, Stoney & Willis, 2001)- or at least my interpretation of the task. I wonder whether providing feedback on the quality of our feedback (as formative feedback for education practitioner development), might be useful.
Now in respect to the collection of thought:
Firstly, I would like to learn how to better aggregate quotes and references- not in terms of citing references, but a strategy to better remember and summarise what the jist of the paper was, and parts of the paper which were of note- such as a model, theory or incite; also a way of categorising the relevance of the paper. I think that one strategy might be an annotated bibliography- but I'm not too sure about this.
Secondly, I found it difficult to bring the process of writing the draft, reflecting on it, undertaking peer or tutor review, and implementing the suggested changes effectively. Perhaps this is part of the concept of praxis that Robyn referred to in her Instructional Design Visualisation (http://clineds.blogspot.com/) and that both Kolb and Freire seemed to be fond of.
By compartmentalising the course design into parts (i.e. modules), it made me think (and perhaps I've read about this elsewhere too, but I can't remember where) that the concept of learning objects is too narrow as it is used in reference to learning technology (Wiley, n.d.), and that the same idea of modularising units of learning for educational purposes could be applied to other areas of instructional design.
The first of these- the narrow definition of learning objects- appears to be a well discussed issue. I think the key things are that 1) Learning objects do not have to be 'technological' or in particular, digital; 2) There is not a particular size, shape, format, presentation, of preconception that should qualify an object, except that it is intended for use in learning education; 3) The key advantage of learning objects and learning object repositories (RLOs), is the use of meta-descriptors, and the ability to integrate the object within more then one conception.
I think healthcare has a key head-start in implementing a standardised meta-language/ontology (?ISO... - if it hasn't already been) - i.e. the US National Library of Medicine (NLM), Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Subject_Headings), which is the standard for ; the most obvious equivalent for educational descriptors might be the ERIC thesaurus.
By modularisation, I'm referring to units of something, for example 'assessment objects', or even 'pedagogical' objects' (or 'teaching support' objects). Originally, when I thought about assessment objects the idea of a repository of multiple choice questions came to mind, all meta-coded in relation to several categories (possibly including the higher level MeSH terms, combined with level of 'difficulty' or complexity or some other descriptors) however this is quite a boring and predictable idea; I think it would be beneficial for instructional designers, particularly practitioner-designers, to be able to search a list of assessment objects (assessment technology; made searchable with the use of a semantic/vertical search engine- see endnote 1), determine who has implemented problem based learning exercises in paediatrics (or MCQs or projects or OSCEs etc.) and approach the authors for a summary of their implementation, or perhaps collegial advice- i.e. the repository does not have to physically hold a piece of technology, but holds a description, ownership, licensing and links.
Now to get back on track:
Another area I found difficult was when my conception of the aim of a collaborative task differed from my partner- not that disagreeing was a concern- but that it would be useful in this circumstance to negotiate the aim of the collaboration as a part of the task.
There were two other areas which weren't probably as helpful as they should have been- the referencing aspect of the rubric and the article-resources provided.
Although I tended to be a bit slack on the referencing sub-task (and hence scoring less on this, probably completely tingeing my view), I think this was partly because of the hard-copy style of referencing that was used (i.e. APA); I think that on many of the reflection tasks I had referenced quite a bit using hyperlinking- which although it is not as formal does seem to be appropriate for an e-learning task, and I follows my style of learning ('bite sized'-good, 'bloated'-bad).
Finally, I found it difficult to read most of the articles on-screen, and found myself printing off most of the early articles (time and pressure forced me to put up with it toward the end); I wonder whether formats like FlashPaper or even cut-down HTML would be better; I think the A4 PDF format is terrible to read on-screen, and even a change in paper size to A5 might improve readability.
2. Considering my project and the various elements of e-learning that I explored in this course, the depiction or metaphor for instructional design that I created in Module 9 provides a useful model of instructional design and the role it plays in teaching, learning, and professional development.
Of all the ClinEd 711 tasks (displayed below; figures 1-3), I think this was the one that I learned from least- that is quite distinct from the overall module which I found quite useful. I found that the article by Cennamo, Abell, and Chung (1996), was particularly useful in terms of applying constructivism to the practice of instructional design to attempt to create a constructivist model of instructional design (?this is praxis!).
The reason I didn't find the task that useful was that after reading Scweir's thoughts (n.d.) and reflecting on them, I felt that I had gained as much as was relevant to me at this time- the idea that instructional design could contribute to 'social reform' (either medically and/or society at large), is the key reason why I'm interested and involved the paediatrics curriculum committee, and a strong driver of my interest in clinical education- this is new clarification following completion of this course; to me this idea is fundamental and put my learning from the entire course in perspective.
Therefore I think the task was slightly redundant given my reflections.
What I did find useful and would like to learn more about, is the process of course development (instructional design)- I think in the long term this is a key area to enhancing my involvement and contribution to clinical course design. I would have liked to look at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) Reference Guide for Instructional Design and Development (n.d.) but as we found, this appears to have disappeared from their website.
Figure 1. What is your conception of 'instructional design'?
This was my original depiction. There is an error where the course evaluation node is connected to individual knowledge constructs node via a directional line through "Which influences"- the arrow is meant to be bidirectional, and the course evaluation node is only meant to affect the instructional design 'super-node', not the individual knowledge constructs node.
Figure 2. What is the greater goal of instructional design.
This was the visual summary of what I took from the article by Richard Schwier (n.d.)- A Grand Purpose for ID?
Figure 3. Layers of Negotiation Model.
This is a re-depiction of that presented by Cennamo et al (1996). ; it was a little unclear as to whether the Layers of Negotiation Model and the Spiral Model were one and the same- I couldn't figure out how to recreate the spiral.
3. The strategy underlying my learning design reflects the view of teaching and learning evidenced by my Teaching Perspectives Inventory results, but also reflects new insights I have gained into clinical education, e-learning, and instructional design.
This was my first course in education, and only one of the few courses involving non-technical (not sure if that term completely represents what I mean) thought. I understood Leah's perspective in grizzling about this somewhat 'abstract' and 'theoretical' task, but I found it insightful, interesting and profoundly useful for clarifying my thoughts as they relate to this course, and in general. It helped me develop a language for articulating my views (perspectives) on teaching.
When I came into the course, I was really only able to articulate my strongest view on instruction/teaching- an immense dislike for tasks involving rote learning for the purposes of short term recall- Indeed, I think I reflected this prior to beginning the teaching perspectives task. Early on in the course I managed to identify this somewhat simplistically (and possibly erroneously) with the transmission ('of information') and apprenticeship ('of abilities') perspectives; I linked replication of information and behaviors with the objectivist epistemology, and the behaviourist view of learning, and developed an instant separation from these ideas.
At the beginning of the course, I also saw that the 'classroom' was a place for 'teaching students what they need to know'- which on retrospect feels dangerously close to the transmission view that I was so ardently trying to avoid. And, thus I doubted the place of the social reform perspective in any place other than as the subject of instruction- i.e. in socially orientated areas such as public health. I think that part of this may have been from my interpretation of this low-scoring aspect on the the teaching perspective index (TPI). On reflection I (somewhat conveniently) doubt the validity of the questions in respect to my new conception of the social reform 'construct'- that is that social reform relates more broadly to the application of new ideas, new cognitions, and new skills, as well as the direct challenge to 'society'.
I think one of the strongest forms of social reform in medical education over the last half-decade, has been the rapid progression of communication instruction; I think that the peer-review tasks in my course are strongly social, in that I think they will influence the interaction between peers and they acceptance of constructive criticism- key to building professionalism and maintaining constructive working relationships (Hafferty, 2006; Stern, & Papadakis 2006). Sanya's course development project implicitly involves a social reform perspective, in the sense that she is quite clearly driving the 'pharmacist-as-business-owner' agenda; I think that in a different time that the idea of teaching business skills in a health professional course like pharmacy would have been scoffed at; undergraduate medicine at the University of Auckland certainly has no explicit people or business management instruction that I'm aware of, although has definitely developed strong instruction in the area of communication skills.
As the course progressed, my 'exclusivist' conception of the teaching perspectives began to change- I think it's clear that I felt that the the teaching perspectives were discrete containers of substance to be dipped into for varying amounts at my whim; in one of the rubrics Adam reflected on my 'exclusivist' interpretation of the teaching perspectives. And, thus as a part of this progression I began to realise that my the 'recessive' perspectives in my TPI were of a real magnitude and significance, and not simply 'noise'.
On leaving the course I had recognised the place that the social reform perspective held in my own mind- indeed, the instructional design task discussed above helped me realise the role of instructional design in this respect. I began to better understand the role of the apprenticeship perspective in clinical education and in my conception of the blurred lines between formal and informal education in clinical practice and between education and practice (service). I think that my idea of developmentalism and nurturance are slightly troubled- I'm slightly uncertain about the lack of distinction in my mind between these and the apprenticeship perspective. Finally, although I feel I know what 'transmission' is, I'm not certain that my conception of a transmission perspective is entirely formed.
I could go on, but I'm not sure of the extent to which I've blurred the lines between 'thinking out loud' and 'reflection', or indeed whether there is a difference, and whether it evens matters anyways. I think, coming back to my earlier comments, that I've learned an immense amount about both instructional design and education in general; I think that this course could be alternatively described in many ways including the exclusion of any technology-related terms, and with an extra emphasis on the instructional design component.
Endnote 1
Vertical search engines:
see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/04/semantic_web_breakthrough/ for a relevant article; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_search for a decent summary;
Semantic Web:
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
Some examples:
http://www.semanticwebsearch.com/query/
References
Cennamo, K.S., Abell, S.K., & Chung, M. (1996). A Layers of Negotiation Model for Designing Constructivist Learning Materials. Educational Technology, 36(4), 39-48. [obtained on interloan]
Hafferty, F. W. (2006). Professionalism--the next wave. N Engl J Med, 355(20), 2151-2152.
Herrington, A., Herrington, J., Oliver, R., Stoney, S. &Willis, J. (2001). Quality guidelines for online courses: The development of an instrument to audit online units. In G. Kennedy, M. Keppell, C. McNaught & T. Petrovic (Eds.) Meeting at the crossroads: Proceedings of ASCILITE 2001, (pp 263-270). Melbourne: The University of Melbourne. Retrieved September 6, 2006, from http://elrond.scam.ecu.edu.au/oliver/2001/qowg.pdf.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (n.d.). IEEE Reference Guide for Instructional Design and Development. Retrieved September 6, 2006, from http://www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/tutorials/refguide/refGuide.pdf .
Schwier, R.A. (n.d.). A Grand Purpose for ID? Retrieved September 6, 2006, from http://www.indiana.edu/~idt/shortpapers/documents/IDTf_Schwier.pdf
Stern, D. T., & Papadakis, M. (2006). The developing physician--becoming a professional. N Engl J Med, 355(17), 1794-1799.
Wiley, D. (n.d.) The Definition Debate, in Advanced Topics in Learning Object Design and Reuse, Utah State University. Retrieved January 7, 2007, from http://ocw.usu.edu/Instructional_Technology/Advanced_Topics_in_Learning_Object_Design_and_Reuse/debate.htm
