Instructional+Strategies+Gazette



March 02, Kim's thoughts... I think instructional strategies are one of the more fun aspects of our work as instructional designers or course developers. I see strategies emerging from knowing the learners, knowing the context of the instruction, understanding the content that needs to addressed ( i.e. what is it...rules, procedures, intellectual skills, problem solving etc.) and examining a variety of instructional presentation techniques. If we had more time it would have been fun to try out several different strategies and or have more discussion about various strategies that work in a variety of situations.

I have a habit of relying on PowerPoint ... one I am trying to break, hence the Gazette, which allowed me to have "notes" if you will, but still discuss the topic in a more authentic manner than PowerPoint allows. (yes I tend to use .ppt as a crutch).

My take a ways from our March 2 class were BIG. I am still mulling over the "embed the retrieval cues at the time of learning" concept from Ruth Clark. If you think about this it has serious ramifications for instructional strategies. It really makes me dive deeper into planning instructional strategies I can use that will allow me to do this. My second big Ah Ha for the night was gaining perspective about our case study project. "Don't do the thinking for the TA". How simple that sounds, but what does it really mean? When writing our case studies, we need to paint the picture, not explicitly tell the story. Linda’s example of describing how someone looks and acts where they are angry or frustrated is much more effective and engaging then just writing, "Yes, Jane was angry." So, this harkens back to how do you write engaging case studies? Case studies that are rich, layered, engaging, yet ambiguous and muddy (like life). We really need to take what we are learning in this class as well as in ET 650 (case studies) and write an article about how to develop intriguing cases studies for use in higher education or the corporate area.

I like the idea of first writing out EVERYTHING in the case study, like a movie script. Then edit it for perspective and pull out what is //telling// the learner too much, but then make sure your cover those 'blank spots' with rich descriptive material. This is where you can make the case realistic, and situate the learner in an authentic hand-painted environment.