Week 8: Today I Learn, Today I Question

It's so easy to stop to take a rest. By the time you have a look at the time, you'll have the shock of your life how fast time flies! (KJ actually wanted to point readers to the 'isi tersirat' of did we realize that we are already approaching our 30s, some already in their 30s, 40s, 50s... ??)
Well, the past one week, which 'coincidentally' was our mid sem break. (p/s: loved the pic that Mdm Ng put up in spectrum in the mid sem break, but... did it somehow hypnotized me??) Now trying to recall the last moment of me something to do with 'UM' was my stats's mid-term exam. In which after that, I decided to take a 'short' break. Looking back then, it felt so many things have happened then, yet it felt it was just yesterday. All felt like a dream!


I'm struggling with terms to get back in 'reality'... I'm starting to wonder: Am I experiencing exactly the same thing as a drug addict of 'not wanting to come back to reality'? The feeling of spiraling down the abyss is intoxicating... It's so easy: just let it be...


So, trying to knock some sense back into myself, I quickly have a look at what my other course mates have posted on their blogs. My my! Okay... Now I remember, I did miss something, or rather, the second half of the last class (due to my stats exam).


Instructional design (ID)... to me, is actually an encompassing term which basically can be applied in a lot of things we do. One of the popular ID framework is ADDIE. (don't know what is ADDIE? Try google it and you'll find tons of information about it on the web)


Anyway, here's a quick summary of ADDIE model in ID

There's also Kemp's Instructional Design Model, which is slightly more comprehensive. 

Personally I prefer Kemp's ID Model as I liked the model explicitly point out the critical factors to consider such as learners characteristics, content sequencing and designing the message during ID process.

Regardless of which ID model, the fundamental ID process is of an iterative one, or in other words, a never ending process. (Man! It just made me felt so fatigue!)

Actually, I had some experience with ID from Dr Farrah's class. It was a wonderful journey, and often an inspiring one. Allow me to share a few quotes which I think is fundamental to ID:

“The goal of instructional design is to make learning more efficient and effective and to make learning less difficult.”

“ID focuses on determining what knowledge are skills are needed to solve the instructional problem (to improve learning) instead of focusing on the content”

Morrison, Ross and Kemp

Designing Effective Instruction, 5th edition

And the gist of all is the “a soul-like” feeling given by Inouye, Merrill, and Swan (2005): 

“Help has always been and should be the central concern of instructional design theory” and 

“helping others to learn is the very reason for the existence of instructional design theory”

These quotes gives me positive vibes, as 'Help', is a simple word, known by virtually everyone who knows the language, even young kids knew them as it is likely one of the first few words they learn in their life. However, help, in its simplest and purest form, acted with kind and noble intention, is hardly seen as the main concern in almost any profession or career as we know today, not to mention widely practiced intention. I must admit that, after years of being a front-line educator, the sense of purpose of “to help (in its simplest and purest form) my students learn better” has dramatically disappear.

In fact, Yusop & Correia (2010) did proposed a Civic-Minded Instructional Designers (CMID) framework: paradigm and qualities necessary to civic-minded instructional designers

This framework pin points the role and qualities of a instructional designer, in which educators are always a member of it. It has always been my belief that graduates were the future leaders of the community, that we were supposed to be the agent of change, that it was our duty to catalyze changes for the betterment of the society (macro context). It was my belief that graduates are to contribute towards a better society. But the reality that I'm facing is, it is frustrating, and at the same time, demotivating, to realize that I could hardly bring any positive changes to my micro context, ie the school I am teaching in. At times, the limited capabilities that I have is highly overwhelmed by the unsatisfactory social context which I am in. Well, all I could conclude is that currently I'm not versatile as I aspire to be to handle the challenges that I'm facing in my teaching profession. 

“Methods in instructional design theories are probabilistic rather than deterministic… situational rather than universal”

Reigeluth 

As I'm aware that there's no best pedagogy in the world, since each context is unique, and require tailor-made approach (instructional design) to deal with it. I think instructional designer need to be versatile in their approach in designing and implementing instructional experience.

To sum up, I guess, to be a good teacher, I need to be a versatile civic-minded instructional designer...

Ok, so let's move on to joining the dots for what we have learned so far from this course. Among the models & conceptual framework such as Donaldson & Conrad's Model of Engagement, Mishra & Koehler's TPACK, PLE and ID, probably the instructional design framework should be blended into the background, with TPACK as the main guiding framework using PLE as the T&L concept and Donaldson & Conrad model in the Tech & Pedagogical approach.