Wk 4: Trends & Issues in IDT

1.  Select at least 3 contexts (business & industry, military, health care education, P-12 education, and post secondary education)  and compare/contrast the IDT trends and issues.  Then explain how they are similar or different from the IDT trends and issues in the context in which you work.

I thought I would find many more differences between military IDT than similarities with P-12 education, but was really surprised to see how many similarities there actually were.  Their approach to IDT is collaborative...they work with teams to come up with design for learning and with solutions.  They, too, have to figure out how to make use of new and changing technology, and part of this is making choices in what technology they need to make use of...and a lot of these choices are being made with funding restrictions in the forefront of the mix, and so they both have to be aware of how technology might change by the time implementation is underway.  Because of the rapidly changing technology and the costs involved, both P-12 education and the military must be careful not to always jump on the latest in technology for training.  It must be balanced with the actual costs involved.  Like many school districts that have multiple schools, the military has problems with the set-up across all it's branches.   Each branch/school has it's own way of doing things, it's own interests and needs, so coming up with a configuration that will work perfectly for all is difficult.   Compromises must be made through collaboration with leaders or subject matter experts from all divisions in the military and from campuses in a district.  The biggest and probably one of the most important similarities that jumped out at me was that both the military and P-12 education IDTs focus on developing life-long learners.  They don't want to just present the materials, but they are trying to create learning experiences for the students/trainees through collaboration with peers and often with varying types of simulations--a kind of problem based learning approach.  Surprisingly, the health industry IDT had many of the same similarities--problem based learning with simulations, encourage life-long learning, require learner active participation, collaboration amongst all divisions, subject matter experts.  The health industry and P-12 education IDT's both are turning to social networking tools allowing students to collaborate outside of class.  For instance, many P-12 classrooms are turning to the use of Edmodo for safe student collaboration outside of the classroom.  However, the health industry has so many different fields that often times they have many different donors and corporations funding different aspects due in large part to more educational research enabling them incorporate more of the newer technologies than the military and P-12 education might be able to.  Also, the military and health industries are more focused in their  usage of technology as a tool in training, whereas that focus is not set in education.  There are so many mixed approaches across educational campuses and districts so the effectiveness of this implementation is not being shown.  Maybe the military and health industries are more focused because of the life-and-death attributes to their fields.  A big point in the health industry IDT approach that could be very beneficial in P-12 IDT is the training in intrapersonal skills.  This is a very big part of any job in education, yet there is very little formal training on intrapersonal skills. 

I am pretty lucky to be working in my district...Allen ISD...as they are pretty dedicated to IDT and the training of professionals.  They try to keep all the schools in our district focused on the same learning goals and are encouraging teachers to collaborate not only in their own schools, but across the district and across the country as well.  We have instructional specialists for each subject matter who go to trainings across the nation and who visit schools across the nation to help find new ways to improve learning in our district.  They come back and hold district trainings to share new information and then come to each school weekly or bi-weekly to help train smaller teams of teachers more personally with new ideas.  They always welcome ideas and input from each teacher and are always willing to problem-solve with us.  They even will come and help present in the classroom.  Allen is trying to move to building learning experiences for the students, drifting away from a more behaviorist approach to teaching.  They are meeting with some resistance from some "old-school" teachers, but for the most part, teachers are willing to try new ways to make students life-long learners. 



2.  How and can we prepare our youth to address the problems of living in a world with 9 billion people when the earth's resources cannot sustain that many?  Does our current education system, curriculum, and instructional practices help learners foster the complex problem-solving skills necessary to tackle thee issues?  Are there methods and practices used in European and Asian countries that we should use here in the US?  Why or why not?

I think we have to focus on the fact that we have to figure out a way to prepare our youth to address the problems of the strain of overcrowding on our earth's resources.  We really have no choice.  To do this, we must focus on developing life-long learners who are adept problem solvers by focusing on developing the intrapersonal skills needed to work with all the differing cultures.  The more that technology is becoming prevalent in our schools and in our job force, the more teachers are going to have to work with people of differing cultures.  Understanding the differences helps to avoid accidental affronts to the traditions and beliefs of multicultural peers.  To help students become these adept collaborators and problem solvers, we need to create learning experiences such as problem based learning scenarios so students have practice collaborating with others, making on the spot decisions, and adjusting beliefs and practices based on new information.  We need to teach them how to use technology as a tool to discover new ideas and new information needed for these scenarios.  Our current public education system, curriculum, and instructional practices is currently lacking in these areas but gaining ground.  A big reason we are lacking in curriculum and practices is the reliance on standardized testing to assess whether or not learning has taken place.   With school and teacher accountability tied directly to the results of these tests, especially here in Texas, teachers do not feel able to create the learning experience scenarios necessary to create effective problem-solvers.  I think P-12 education is heading that way--many districts are supporting and even encouraging this shift in instructional approaches, but it is not as of yet widespread...partly because many teachers are not sure how to make the shift themselves.  I think that the fact that Japan feels their teachers are experts...that they require all teachers to have IDT training is a great thing.  I know some education course in the US have students take IDT classes, not all do.  And then you add in the fact that many educators of today have gone through alternative certification, then you have that many more without the knowledge of these instructional theories, which might very well negatively affect the type of learning going on in those classrooms.  Japan also allows their teachers license to creatively approach the type of learning going on in their classrooms, probably because they are considered experts and are highly revered.  I think if the US educational system would take a cue from the business industry and would encourage collaboration with other countries about IDT, that all of our educational systems would become that much stronger and would be able to better solve the problems our future holds.