I currently work in P-12 education, for this reflection I
will look at the trends and issues in the following context: Business and Industry,
Military, and Health Care and compare to my current position.
Business and
Industry
In this sector of IDT the trends and issues that have
developed that I am going to discuss are in the corporate design and development. In this area an IDT trend that is having a major
growth due to companies expanding the boundaries to other countries is in Cross-Cultural Training. When designing for a cross-cultural staff
a designer must look at the following societal cultural factors and learner
cultural factors. It is important for a
designer to understand the demographics that they understand the cultural and
have experts to help.
One major issue that the instructional designer in the
industry is continuously facing is the phrase-“better, faster, cheaper "(Resier 183). To
help designers achieve that phase there are four method to assist rapid
prototyping, technology-based training delivery, advanced evaluation
techniques, and the designer as a researcher.
When reading about the trends and issues in corporate design
and development I was able to relate to my current position to the
cross-cultural training. I currently
teach in a high school located in Dallas that has a very large international
population. The school is located in
area of town that houses a refugee intake center. Our school demographics include students from
Nepal, Africa, Thailand, Iraq, plus the typical demographics of an inner city
school. We have a very high ESL
population. In the Business Industry one
of the trends that the industry is facing is Cross-Cultural Training. That I can easily compare to our campus,
we have students from many different cultures that we must find a way to effectively
teach the students, but still be sensitive to their culture.
I also was able to see parallels with the issues that the designers
face in the industry, such as better, faster, cheaper. The methods that are used to assist the
designers I have also seen being implemented on the campus and district wide.
Military
When reading about the Military trends and issues I found
them to be very similar to what is going in the field that I am working
in. The trends that the Military are facing
are international responsibilities of national or multinational faces and new
technologies (Resier 189). The issues
that the military are facing are funding, technology range, and delivery environment. I think that if we were to look at P-12
education currently most would agree that these issues are somewhat similar to what
we are facing, not to such an extreme as the military. The military like the districts
are always looking at the best way to spend money for training what would be
more beneficial? As for the technology
range, I think that the military does have a much higher range then P-12
education. They must provide enough training
and funding for low end of the technology range such as paper-based and the
higher end such simulators and virtual training worlds. However though the budget may be on a much
larger scale then education, in the end training and learning are important.
Health Care
When reading about health care education the field to me seemed
to be very similar to the military, both can deal with such extremes that are not
even relatable to the field that I am in, P-12 education. Health care is a very broad field that has
many different parts that must be thought about each part is interconnected from
the researcher in the lab, to the medical supplies, different specialties, doctors,
nurses, and management teams. It is a
field that is constantly learning and changing to make processes easier and to
solve new problems. Money is being
invested for new innovations in technology that affect all parts of the health
care sector. Health care is about the
human finding cures and extending life.
Whereas the field that I am in does not have such a major impact on the
human life.
If there is one common issue that I have read about across all
the contexts is funding. More funding,
lack of funding and how to use the funding will always be were the attention is
focused. What is important, what does
the learner need, and what is the desired outcome whether you are in the
Military, Business, Health Care, or in Education.
Your connects with the military really opened my eyes to a different perspective. I really only saw the extreme differences. Education has its own obstacles just as the military does; it is just different degrees of obstacles.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with the money issue across all the different contexts. Money and lack there of is always going to be a front burner issue because each context will continually need it. You had great ideas about the three contexts you choose!
You mention the cross-culture training aspect that a designer should consider. One surprise that I found when working with others is how to guage what they know and understand. It was easy for me to mistake that they simply didn't know something and suddenly I felt the burden to step back and start the explanation process at the wrong level. I've learned to ask better questions to assess their skill and experience so I can match them where they are. Part of the problem was distance and lack of face to face communication. The other part was how I was used to discussing topics compared to their normal method. It takes patience and clever questions to be effective.
ReplyDeleteThe funding for the Military I would think is quite different than that of P-12. It comes down to the mission that the unit has as to whether they'll skimp or splurge for training and materials. Whereas, P-12, the missions may not be as varied and budgets are a bit more predictable.