Trends & Issues Various Settings

Instructional Design and Technology is prevalent in many contexts and is subject to the same ebb and flow as any area that relies on technology as its cornerstone. Three areas where this is most evident, and most relevant to my current position, are health care education, P-12 education, and post-secondary education.  Health care education trends are moving towards problem-based learning and simulations where the integration of technology is key.  P-12 education also is also seeking the broader integration of technology into student guided learning and solidifying knowledge and skills for the use of technology in the 21^st Century.  Post-secondary education is leading the way in technology integration with the growth of online environments and LMS for easier and faster distribution of information, grades, and training.   In all three cases, the use of technology can help reduce the work on the instructors, after the development and implementation stages are completed.  With all of the benefits that technology integration provides, however, there are inevitably going to be drawbacks and obstacles.  In health care education, the use of technology is ideal for providing objective knowledge, but it is not yet able to provide the interpersonal skills needed for working directly with people.  In P-12 education, technology benefits the educators by allowing them to use technology for lower level learning and memorization, but the technology has not yet proven to be significantly more effective than the teacher’s instruction when assessed objectively.  In post-secondary education, technology presents challenges because very few of the current professors are willing to broaden their current knowledge base to include the use of technology in their instruction.

 

In my current position as a professor for a new Occupational Therapy Assistant Program, my duties include instruction, development of new curriculum, implementation, assessment, and planning.  We are a Program of two – myself and the Program Director.  The load is significant and it is challenging to determine the best way to provide the knowledge needed to our students in the most effective way possible.  My position mirrors the integration of all three of the types of education I have discussed above: I am in the field of health care education, in a post-secondary setting, with many of the same challenges that P-12 educators face.  As a Program, we are trying to balance simulation with hands-on learning and integration of interpersonal skill development.  Problem-based learning is important and the method in which our students will be tested for their national certification exam.  We are a Program in a post-secondary context which includes the use of a LMS and the tendency to shy away from the new technologies that could aide in education that are unfamiliar to both of us as practitioners and as educators with limited experience in the classroom.  Finally, as in the situation of P-12 educators, we need to prepare our students for documentation systems that are electronic and assistive technology that could benefit future patients.  We have to consider this without forgetting about the art of the practice of OT which involves direct contact with people in times of great need and vulnerability.  I am hoping we can strike a balance, which will be ever changing, between “modernization” of our field with the use of technology and the “old school” way of interacting with patients and achieving their personal goals. 

On a more global scale, the idea of educating the world’s learners is a much more complex one.  I believe our American education system is attempting to integrate the complexities of a modern world with a slow moving process in trying to convince those who are reluctant to “get on board.”   The models of IDT use in Asian countries are based on significant governmental support, but that is not the only method.  There are creative teachers in Japan that have struck out on their own to develop new, subject specific methods that are shared among teachers in the same subject become a “tradition.” (Suzuki & Jung, 2012) These methods are passed along and prove to be effective.  In Korea, IDT has been most dominant in the corporate world.  The government in Korea has begun setting “national learning policies” (Suzuki & Jung, 2012) for e-learning and teacher mandates for training every 3 years.  Though it appears that both Japan and Korea are incorporating technology into educating their children, their methods seem to be based on governmental control and mandates.  In the U.S., continuous teaching training is required, but it is not concentrated on technology.  The idea of governmental control of teacher education could potentially provide the students opportunity, but it would not provide for individuality of the need of the students in a particular state, city, or district.  Not all areas can afford the training, equipment, and facilities that will allow the students the exposure and use of technology.  Over time, this is occurring, but the implementation is gradual as the more experienced teachers can be trained and educated on the benefits and use of technology.  Our national laws are present, but not as restrictive as Asia.  Conversely, European education is much more traditional, emphasizing didactic learning. Europeans are more skeptical of the online concept and see the idea as restrictive and not as flexible.  Americans can learn from this idea as well: technology is not a substitute for a teacher.  It is an enhancement, a supplement.  Technology does not automatically make teaching, or learning, better.  Its judicious use is important, but not exclusive.  

Suzuki, K. & Jung, I. (2012).  Instructional Design and Technology in an Asian Context: Focusing on Japan and Korea. In R. Reiser & J. Dempsey (eds.) Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (pp. 239-247) Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.