Instructional Design

Woowee! This week I decided to tackle the term ‘content curation’ as I recently used the term ‘curating’ incorrectly and it created a bit of confusion. I was looking to develop a list of resources for a personal library of sorts – resources which I could consult, when necessary, to clear the air about Instructional Design related issues. However, what I actually meant was that I wanted to ‘collect’ or ‘compile’ a list of resources, not curate.

So what’s the difference?

Content curation can be considered the process of compiling content from all over the net (or even online), and then presenting that content to a larger audience in a meaningful way.  Just like museum curators – content curators often work around a them (e.g. Instructional Design or Ancient Egypt…) and track down all of best, most relevant content they can find, and display the content in a manner that renders the content most effective. Content curation also reminds me a little bit of the poster boards you developed as a kid when presenting information to your classmates – you were given a theme, and tasked with teaching your classmates about that theme using visual and textual content – curated from many resources.

Compiling or collecting content is essentially just creating a list of resources which you can consult at a later time. I would liken this to the bookmarking functionality of any web browser. For example, I bookmarked a fantastic looking recipe for making quinoa guacamole. I will be consulting this reference this evening when I make dinner for my family. Another example is Pinterest. Now, I feel as though Pinterest walks a fine line between curating and collecting, because the content is being presented to an audience…just not necessarily within a meaningful way; however, content is being collected, and many individuals use Pinterest to house this ‘found’ content, as a library of sorts, for consultation at a later time.

So while I’m having a very face-palm morning when it comes to content curation and content compilation, you no longer have to! I hope this week’s edition of Terminology Tuesday cleared the air for you. It certainly helped me out!

 

This week, I want to talk about “The Flipped Classroom,” because this has been a buzzword within the Education sector for the past couple of years, and because I’m constantly receiving industry-related emails containing the phrase. With all of the terminology – Instructor-Led Training, Computer-Based Training, Blended Learning, Online Education – there is likely some confusion when it comes to this phrase, and I think we should just clear the air! So here goes nothing:

The Flipped Classroom

This phrase came to light in recent years; however, the approach has been used for many moons. The movement is quickly gaining motion as teachers become more creative with engaging their students and enhancing the overall learning experience. Essentially, the flipped classroom refers to a teaching framework that emphasizes self-paced learning outside of the classroom via online instruction and readings, leaving the regular face-to-face classes for students to engage with the instructor, complete homework, and enhance their overall understanding of the materials.

This way of teaching veers from the traditional ‘chalk-and-talk’ or lecture-based courses, and provides students with the opportunities to consider the instructional materials and any questions they may have prior to beginning to practical, hands-on work.

Why Flip the Classroom?

The ‘old way’ of doing things is very one-size-fits-all, and as we know (or can surmise), one way of teaching does not necessarily suit all learners, leading to student disengagement, frustration with homework/activities, and lower achievement rates. Flipping the classroom provides students with the best of two worlds: the face-to-face interaction and engagement with the instructor is still there, and the self-paced aspect is there. Additionally, with a world full of ‘digital natives’ and the (vast) presence and influence of the Internet, self-motivated learning and inquiry is likely occurring at a more rapid rate than twenty years ago. Information is readily accessible, and most individuals have access to the technology they need to obtain this information – why not leverage this technology to facilitate a classroom experience that may be more meaningful to this new generation of students?

Sure – Flipping the classroom may be a tough sell for a lot of traditional instructors, but the times are changing, and as educators we have a responsibility to adapt to our changing audience and enhance their overall success!

What do you think? Should educators flip their classroom? What are some benefits and limitations of this approach? Let me know in the comments!

 

Since the dawn of my days as an Instructional Designer, Bloom’s Taxonomy was pounded into my brain – the military realllllly loves Dr. Benjamin Bloom’s verbs. I made the assumption that everyone in the field of Education had heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and you know what assumptions do – they make an A** out of me and you! In developing a model course for faculty members, I initially thought it was too elementary to be discussing Bloom’s Taxonomy with folks holding PhDs in educational fields…that is until I found out that a faculty member had admitted to not knowing what Bloom’s Taxonomy was. SAY WHAAAAT?! So this week, I’m discussing Bloom’s Taxonomy, and maybe you too can become king (or queen) of the verbs!

So way back in the 1950s, Dr. Benjamin Bloom decided that he wanted to move away from simple recall tasks in education – you may remember this as memorizing text book passages and recalling them later in some regurgitated form or another – to him, this wasn’t really a deep form of education. Wanting to foster higher thinking in education, Dr. Bloom came up with classifications of verbs which would be used to write learning objectives.

Bloom’s Taxonomy emphasizes the importance of using the three domains of learning (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor), and if you’ve ever worked within the Defence sector, you will see this translated in Job Task Analyses (JTAs) as knowledge, skills, and attitude – often in a very fancy looking excel spreadsheet that makes your eyes bleed and sucks a little bit of your soul each time you open it.

These verbs were classified into six groups: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Later on, the taxonomy was revised, with the new groups being: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating.

But Why Do I Need Verbs!?

Well. Every good training program has a set of learning objectives which outline the goals of the course – or what you should be able to do upon completion of the training program. Now to be good and measurable learning objectives, you must include a verb within the learning objective that seeks to somehow measure what the learner is doing.

For example, say I want the learner to be able to calculate a variable based on a mathematical equation discussed within the course, I may write a learning objective like “Apply your understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem to the length of X.” This is much more measurable than say “Solve for X.” In the latter learning objective, I’m not even telling the learner which formula I expect them to call upon; this is confusing. You want to create clarity within your learning objectives as this outlines clear expectations you have of your learners.

As much as I like to harp on Bloom’s Taxonomy (honestly, it’s been beaten to death with me), it is important for any effective training program. Especially when it comes to assessment. Like I said before, we want to create measurable learning objectives; this means that we need to assess our learner’s knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (notice a trend here?) of the information presented throughout the training program. Doing so will ensure that our learners successfully achieve the learning objectives (or have all possible chances to do so at least).

You can find some neat visuals for Bloom’s Taxonomy (a few good ones are here, here, and here) – this may help clear up some confusion. And if the visuals don’t help, check out Don Clark’s explanation – it’s a darn good one!