Instructional Design.... Education missed the boat.

"Education has missed the boat, with respect to instructional design. Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly, with little thought to why they are presenting information or even who their audience is. Teacher training, at the university level and during Professional development, needs to focus on helping teachers become comfortable with instructional design principles."

Lesson plans, lesson plans, lesson plans.  These can be a teacher's headache at times.  I remember learning about the Madeline Hunter Model in college.  I can honestly say that I really didn't like writing out everything for all my lesson plans.  However, I do understand why we needed to learn how to do it.  It was used to teach us how lesson are formed and what we need to do within our lesson to attain the goals or objectives that we set.  I would say that Dick and Carey's model is like Madeline Hunter's.  It is very structured and follows a specific order.  We had to follow the structure and emphasize Bloom's Taxonomy as well.  Some other things that we had to do was to work on different learning styles.  

I did have trouble with this model.  I am NOT linear.  It is hard for me to follow all the steps without changing it all the time.  I like to be flexible and change things if it isn't working.  That is why I think that I like the Morrison, Kemp and Ross model more.  I like the idea that I can skip steps and come back later on.  Or I can even leave a step out if it isn't necessary.  I wish that my professors would have introduced this model to me in college.  I think it fits my personality better.  

As to my own plans, I have moved away from the linear model now.  I have to teach K-8 Music and Computers.  That adds up to 18 different classes that I have to develop plans for.  Granted some lessons can be spread through the different classes, but they need to be adjusted according to the grade level.  That is why I prefer the MKR model.  

I would hope that my colleagues aren't slacking in their lessons.  I am not sure if some of them just follow the plans in their books or if they adjust them to fit the needs of their students.  Considering all of them have come from different colleges and have been taught different forms of planning.  It is easy to see that they might be slacking.  Some may have been teaching the same format for years and have not thought about developing a different one.  I feel that it would be essential to our teachers if more professional development was directed toward instructional design and formatting lessons.  

I just hope that teachers can see it as a benefit to their teaching.  It would help them evaluate the end result better and allow them to figure out the next step in problem-solving.  My hope is that all teachers realize that instructional design can only enhance their teaching.