Thursday, April 1, 2010

My ID Model updated


well I till confused about how to upload a word document. I tried to upload it as a webpage, but the charts just piled up. So I just write the word discription here and find a way upload the frame work later.


Here is the introduction of my updated ID model.


Context

This model is used for teaching assistants (TA) training program for Foreign English teacher class which is a very popular course that teaches English as second language in elementary school in China. Teaching and learning English as second language is highly encouraged in elementary education. And on average, elementary schools in Beijing China start the Foreign English teacher class from the 3rd grade. There is a phenomenon that Foreign English teacher class opening through every grade has become a trend that an increasing number of schools open this class to 1st and 2nd grade students. Then TA is needed for facilitating foreign English teacher’s teaching and students’ learning, due to the students’ low English competency. TA in this Foreign English teacher class plays a significant role which is like a communication bridge between the foreign teacher and the students. Since almost all of the TAs are student volunteers from colleges in Beijing who are lack of knowledge and experience about teaching and pedagogy, problems appeared up that influence the communication between teacher and students, also weaken the efficiency of teaching and learning. Therefore, an instructional design model is created for designing a well structured and arranged training program.

Model introduction

This model comprises mainly five portions that are Needs assessment, Specification of objectives, Design, Pilot and Evaluation. The first step needs assessment is to understand the communication between TA and other major relevant people (foreign teacher, head teacher and students). The purpose of this part is to figure out the problems in class and the gap between the TA’s current performance and their desired performance using the approach interview, observation and questionnaires.

After understanding the problems well, the designer will be able to figure out what the objective should be for this training program, which means that what outcome and performance the TA need to have.

Having clear objectives, designers need to consider about the instructional strategies, teaching resources, allocation of time and space, and how to group the learners. These five factors can be considered simultaneously and don’t necessarily in an ordered sequence. And it appears to be a systemic approach that when one of them is changed, the other factors in the group will also be affected.

The forth step is creating a pilot that means to adopt this design in a small group to see whether the prior five factors are well organized. If there’s need for any change and improvement, the designer should go back to the last step to make some implementation. If it is appropriate enough, the designer can go forward to do the evaluation.

The last step is the evaluation of the learners’ performance. It is a significant process to gather feedback from the learners and relevant stakeholders like the school manager, parents, and the English teaching office. And also, test whether the learners successfully achieved the objectives and instructional goals. The arrow running along the bottom of the model from the last box towards the first box represents a formative revision.