Assignment
As an instructional design consultant, you are often called on by schools and businesses to help make decisions about how best to present information and to create meaningful learning experiences. You have been called into a small school district to help the two instructional designers reconstruct a history course for seniors. The course is taught in both of the high schools in the district.
The designers tell you that they have been given this project because the reports from principals and faculty in the district are saying that the 12th grade history course, which focuses on U.S. history during the 20th century, is dull, and that students are turned off by the content. Teachers report a morale and motivation problem among students who take the course, and that the course has developed a bad reputation among students in the school.
The designers have analyzed the basic sequence of the course and have looked at the approach that lesson plans take toward the material. They tell you the following:
1) Teachers are expected to present much of the information in lectures, and through the use of 35mm slides. Even though classrooms have been equipped, for the last 6 years, with Internet connections, and teachers have been trained on the use of computers in the classroom, the course has not made use of this method of instruction.
2) The history textbook was published in 1995. It does not cover some of the significant events toward the end of the century.
3) Students are expected to write essays and research papers for most of the assignments in the class. There is only one team assignment, coming in the last two weeks of the semester.
4) The syllabus puts emphasis on the early part of the century, focusing on the depression, prohibition, and the world wars. Little time is spent on later events, such as the exploration of the moon, civil rights developments, or the growth of the Internet and computers. Students are bored with this content. There is little beyond text material to learn from.
Given this, you can begin to see some of the issues that seem to be surfacing in this district's history course.
Part I
1) How might instructional media be a potential cause of some of the issues with the course across the district?
2) How might teacher training in the selection and use of media be a cause behind the current situation?
3) What might you want to know about student access to and use of instructional media?
4) What personal experiences have you encountered that might be similar to this situation? What did you do?
Part II
1) What learning theory or theories do you think predominate in the History course? Do you need to consider changing the educational philosophy and the theoretical basis for design of these courses? Why or why not?
2) What cultural, organizational, or political information might you want to know about in this situation?
3) Summarize the ways in which you would go about getting more information about the course, the faculty and the district and how you might, specifically, assess and analyze the use of media in the course.