Dr. Betul Czerkawski Presentation

This post will be the fifth in my Field Experience Reflections series; if you want to read the four others you can find them by clicking on the three vertical lines in the left-hand corner of your screen, and then clicking  the page entitled Field Experience Reflections, or you can just click this link. In case you need a refresher on what exactly this series of post entails here is the required context: I will be using these posts to reflect on my field experience by taking the concepts I learned about in special guest presentations and then thinking about how I might apply them to my own teaching. Alright, now that that little introduction is out of the way, let’s get to the reflecting portion of tonight’s entertainment.

The next guest lecturer that I will be writing about is Dr. Betül Czerkawski, a professor and expert of Instructional Design at the University of Arizona as well as an Instructional Designer herself. Prior to Dr. Czerkawski’s presentation, our professor sent our class this article which helped me get a grasp of what instructional design meant and what being an instructional designer was about. Luckily, Dr. Czerkawski’s presentation was meant as an introduction to Instructional Design, which I will hereon refer to as ID, so we were given a more explicit definition: ID is the pedagogy behind what teachers already do: building worlds, or learning environments, for students to inhabit in the short- or long-term. ^[1] The topics we covered in the presentation were as follows: the history of ID, the main principles of the field, and the ID-specific theories behind the quality and content of e-learning. As you might expect, there was a lot to cover in those three topics, so while I ordinarily spend the first half (or a two-thirds as was probably the case with my last post) going over what exactly the presenters presented (heh), I will not be doing that in this post. Instead, I will link to the slides here.

Alright, straight to the how might I use these concepts later in my teaching section. I found the information about the history of ID interesting, although there’s not necessarily a way to integrate that specifically into my teaching except to remember that one critique of ID that has followed it throughout its career is that it can be too prescriptive and rigid—or as Dron would say, it’s too hard of a technology. The ID principles, on the other hand, are easier to see how I could implement in my teaching because that’s what they were made for. At its core, ID is meant to be a practical field that helps teachers better their instruction and make learning more effective. The first principle is, in my opinion, probably the most important. Dr. Czerkawski called it the learning objectives-activities alignment and it is what you would expect it to be, it focuses on the idea that a teacher’s learning objectives for a lesson/unit/course should be in alignment with the planned learning activities because the latter lead to the former so that if they are in alignment it is more likely that learning will occur. Similarly, the principle states that the materials and the assessments of the lesson/unit/course should also match the activities and objectives for the same reasons, it increases the likelihood of effective instruction and thus student learning. As I am writing this, I realize all I can really say is that I will try to implement this in my teaching, which I will, because I feel that the logic makes sense and I think it could help me be an effective educator. ^[2]

Another principle that I found particularly enlightening was the one entitled “ID Principles in Action: Syllabus;” although, given that title, perhaps it’s less of a principle and more of an example. Regardless, it helped me understand why the Manhattanville course evals always ask if the professor handed out a detailed syllabus or not, haha. On a more serious note, from the presentation, as well as my own experience, I can see how a syllabus is the starting point in creating a learning environment: if done well, the syllabus should tell the student what they should expect from the teacher as well as the course overall (re: schedule, materials, etc) and these expectations (can) form the foundation of a learning environment and, ideally, a learning community. Given this, I will strive to write a detailed and thoughtful syllabus for my classes. ^[3] Lastly, I found that the other principles Dr. Czerkawski went over were reiterations and reaffirmations of previously learned concepts—one being that learning and teaching activities should be multimodal, have a range of objectives that reach various levels of thinking (re: Bloom’s taxonomy), and build on previous knowledge and skills; the second being that there are different types and kinds of assessments that can given to students and which type we give should be done purposefully. Thus, the ID principles I learned about will certainly impact my future teaching and helped me see some of the ways ID can impact the day to day of instruction and teaching.

During the section of Dr. Czerkawski’s presentation that focused on e-learning, I found the discussion on L. Dee Fink’s Backward Design as well as the two diagrams of his that Dr. Czerkawski included to be particularly helpful. However, the Venn Diagram on engagement is a close second. All of the above mentioned diagrams are pictured below:

 

 

L. Dee Fink’s Backward Design is similar to the theory Understanding by Design (UbD) by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, which I learned about in a previous education course. The main difference being that Fink’s is geared towards e-learning, is aimed at higher-ed, and is more practical than Wiggins and McTighe’s UbD. You can find the steps to Fink’s Backward Design on slides 10 and 11 of the PowerPoint that I linked to above. As Dron mentioned in his presentation, hard technologies might not allow for creativity, but they do give students a structure to follow, and L. Dee Fink’s Backward Design does the same for me where it provides a structure that I can use to keep me from feeling too overwhelmed or lost. When I inevitably need to plan an online course, I will use Backward Design to guide me through a, frankly, intimidating venture.

Overall, Dr. Czerkawski’s presentation gave me a solid overview of what an Instructional Designer looks at, and looks for, when designing or critiquing a course. After almost every guest lecturer our class writes up a post on Moodle debriefing what we learned from the presentation and what we still have questions about. Multiple classmates of mine wished that Dr. Czerkawski had given more practical examples of what an ID would do in a school or a classroom, and while that wasn’t the impression I was left with, I understand why they felt that way. I am mentioning it now because I realize that I too would have liked it if Dr. Czerkawski had given us some examples of when she used ID in the classroom or when she has seen others use it. Yet whenever I think that, I can’t help but wonder if I and/or my classmates are being too harsh in our reviews. Out of the other presenters, only two, Dr. Lynch and Rich, highlighted ways to use what they discussed in the classroom, but we didn’t have the same concerns after those other presenters. I am still curious about the role an ID would play in a school, but as for the ID principles and concepts, it seems like you use them in the stages prior to entering the classroom—you use them while you plan. 

I had initially brought all of this up so I could end this post with that one question, and look at me now, going back and forth about whether or not I should/need to ask the question in the first place! Hah, well, I don't have a proper concluding thought since I'm still wrestling with all of this myself, so that’s all I got for today folks. As always, thank you for reading!

 

 ^[1] This definition comes from me and what I learned during this presentation. If any reader who knows about this than I do thinks that my definition is inadequate or inaccurate, please let me know in the comments. 

 ^[2] However, simply writing that feels inadequate for the purpose of this assignment, so if anyone (especially my professor) has any ideas of how I should improve this reflection post, please let me know in the comments.

 ^[3] I understand that syllabus is just one small part out a large series of parts that go into the creation of a learning environment and learning community.