Mid-Term Reflection or "Still Awaiting My Wings."

The task - reflect on how well I'm attaining the goals for the class (EDC665)...

Not such an easy task... because it is difficult to distinguish what I am learning from one single class... everything in OMET is connected...

So much of these last seven months has been about creating and refining my own essential questions regarding learning and teaching objectives. A most profound self-discovery came last term when I began to not only recognize but also be able to articulate the difference between the goals of "education" and the goals of "training." This term I've have refined that distinction even further - especially when looking at task-based training vs. more open ended training and "soft-skills" training. I now find myself evaluating each project I work on first for where it is on that spectrum... is the essential outcome simply the correct performance of a task or is it something larger, broader, deeper, and/or more complex. This has led me to make a very small, somewhat subtle, yet extremely important change in the initial questions I ask when I'm tasked with creating a new learning event.

In the past, before OMET, I would ask (ask myself and also ask the other "stakeholders.") "What are the objectives? What concepts should we cover in this course?" Now... instead... my initial question is "What do you want the learner to walk away being able to do? What do you want the learner to walk away being able to explain to someone else?" This change in my thinking snuck up on me. It started with how I changed my approach to designing assessments for the courses I write... I have always linked assessment items to the objectives... but I finally started taking a closer look at what defined the objectives and then began working backwards from the assessment items rather than forwards from the objectives (thank you Mr. Wiggins and Mr. McTighe). Once I internalized that approach - I began finding that I HAD to ask those questions at the beginning of the design phase or even during the envisioning phase if I'm part of a project at that point. We have a four phase process for our instructional design/development cycle... Envision, Design, Develop, Stabilize. The one phase that I think we are missing is the phase that comes after Stabilization - the one where you re-evaluate the learning event to determine what is and isn't working and then adjust accordingly... we also don't have a well realized sunset phase which is another issue... but these are things to reflect on later.

The use of technology itself is not as much of a challenge for me in my current professional environment - as we are almost exclusively training our learners how to use technology and we use technology to produce the training. We have a certain set of tools available to us (various authoring tools, simulation creation tools, image editing tools, illustration tools, etc) and we have a fairly clear and consistent set of guidelines as to which tools to use for what. The challenge for me now has become - "how do I evolve past that set of basic guidelines?". How to I evolve in my approach to both design (the writing/storyboarding) and development (the programming... the using of the tools)? I am no longer satisfied with just taking a basic approach to simulations and lesson design. I want to try new things in my courses - find new ways of engaging the learner... find a way to create multiple pathways for the learner to follow. For me - this is the challenge of using the technology... because - I now know enough to quickly produce certain types of learning events... but if I'm going to personally learn more, then I have to find a way to challenge myself to take my use of the technology to ever higher levels.

There is another facet to this challenge - like so many other corporations (and probably schools too) we are being called on to produce more and more, faster and faster. "Rapid Learning Development" ("Rapid eLearning Development," "Rapid Development Tools," etc). My work in OMET, my reflections on how I learn, my new and evolving understanding of curriculum (the ABC (Affective, behavioral, and cognitive), Enduring Concepts, Big Ideas, etc) has caused me to question the validity of "Rapid Learning Development." Maybe "Rapid Task-based Training Development" would be ok with me... but I am extremely uncomfortable with the very idea of "Rapid Learning Development" and with the idea that if we just find the right technology (the right rapid development tool) we will be able to create more faster (notice that I don't say "better"). I'm told by some that this is just a case of semantics (training vs learning) - but the more I learn, the more I reflect on learning, the more I am convinced that this is absolutely NOT just semantics. This is a very important distinction. This is one of my personal enduring concepts. This is also part of why I have begun to question whether or not I am in the right place (professionally). I am so much more passionate about learning than I am about training... but I think I had to immerse myself in both worlds to understand the difference.

For now - I continue to develop training... but I also find that I continuously look for opportunities to be a part of a learning environment. I try to encourage and facilitate learning in my workplace (not just training), I try to encourage and facilitate it outside of my workplace, and I try to encourage and facilitate it within myself.

This course - especially the readings and the discussions in both blackboard and TI has been a further catalyst (as the whole OMET program has) for my evolution of thought. Currently - I feel a bit like a caterpillar who is not quite at the point of leaving the cocoon - I've changed so much but I expect that there are still some very remarkable changes to come.