Sunday, February 28, 2016

Instructional Design Models
How do they compare?

When we discuss instructional design models, we are referring to setting up curriculum that best serves our students. As there are many types of students with varied learning styles, as well as schools with varied demographics, and teachers with preferred paradigms, it behooves us to compare elements of instructional design to evaluate and plan curriculum in our own lesson plans.

Gagne’s Nine Events is a design model for teaching and learning that aligns with constructionist and bilingual education pedagogy, my focus framework for teaching English language learners.  Where Gagne’s Nine Events includes the following nine elements, the chart below provides a three way comparison of those elements with constructionist and bilingual education pedagogy:

Gagne’s Nine Events
Constructivism
Bilingual Education
Attention
Leading questions, presenting a problem or dilemma
Simple, creative questions of familiar content with support of L1
Objective
Student-centered with practical use
Comprehensible goal
Prior Knowledge
Surveys of individuals and small groups; small group discussion to assess prior knowledge
Ask questions in L1; incorporate elements of L1 language and culture in questions
New content
Identify attributes; provide examples with compare and contrast exercises; provide familiar examples
Scaffold concepts slowly with simple language in L2; affirm that students understand before transitioning to new concepts
Guidance
Foster concept discrimination; use concept maps to teach; use worked examples
Present concepts in order of simple to complex; check for understanding
Performance
Students create anchor charts; concepts practiced in participatory tasks
Students use authentic conversations with scripts, write personal stories, create original posters with images and words of content knowledge using L1 when necessary

Feedback
Peer editing; IEP’s to promote student directed themes for future study; consistent one-on-one conferencing
Translation of concepts not clear to the student; support of L1 as student’s work is critiqued
Assessment
Project based formative assessments; include students’ research findings
Use of L1 in formative portfolio; assess in role-play for oral proficiency; autobiographies, short questionnaires, authentic writing tasks
Retention and transfer
Technology:  Facebook page, texting, emails, reviews in alternate modalities; have students create PowerPoint and podcast presentations
Provide student additional practice lessons for repeat language applications; Technology using interactive language programs, Facebook, texting, emails, Voki, podcasts



Each of these three instructional design frameworks provides a similar student-centered perspective.  What the teacher might find most challenging following any framework is the fluidity by which lessons and assessments are presented. We as instructors know we must include motivation, essential questions, and presentation of content, appropriate practice lessons, feedback, and application for retention of the content learned. The way in which we serve our students with those elements are contingent upon our program’s required documentation, (Best Literacy Exam given every 60 hours of attendance, for example), and the demographics of our students:  Which students are English language learners? Which students struggle with reading and/or math? Which students may be developmentally delayed due to disruptive home lives? A framework provides the ideal format for including necessary elements of a successful teaching and learning experience.
How does the use of technology expand our lessons?
Objectives can include the use of cell phones, the internet, and radio and television, providing the instructor a choice of a flipped or traditional classroom activity. Prior knowledge can be accessed with use of the internet: (students can research their home countries or ancestors’ home countries and talk to their families).  Content can be presented in numerous interactive online programs that promote language learning as well as content knowledge acquisition. Guidance can be offered in the form of emails, and google docs, and wikis for collaborative discussion. Performance opportunities are expanded with students creating Voki, PowerPoint, videos, podcasts, blogs, and protected Facebook pages. Feedback and assessment can be prefaced with discussion and explanation of the value of the assessment, with word document comments, return emails, and posted rubrics on Blackboard.
Retention transfer can be in the form of project-based tasks where students use the content knowledge to share with other students:  creating their own Facebook page, or webpage, or class online newspaper.  By using the content in a sharing collaborative, students remain engaged and able to retain new information in authentic communication. 


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