Relevant Standards

North Carolina Professional Technology Facilitator Standards

Standard 1.1: Instructional Technology Facilitators demonstrate 21st century leadership in the school.

Standard 1.2: Instructional Technology Facilitators lead an instructional technology program that supports 21st century teaching and learning.

Standard 1.3: Instructional Technology Facilitators advocate for effective instructional technology programs.

Standard 1.4: Instructional Technology Facilitators promote and facilitate effective collaboration among educators within and beyond the school setting.

Standard 1.5: Instructional Technology Facilitators demonstrate high ethical standards.

Standard 2.2: Instructional Technology Facilitators know the content appropriate to their teaching specialty.

Standard 2.3: Instructional Technology Facilitators model, share, and promote effective principles of teaching and learning.

Standard 5.1: Instructional Technology Facilitators analyze student learning.

Standard 5.3: Instructional Technology Facilitators function effectively in a complex, dynamic environment.

(NC Board of Education, 2012)

Requirements of the Artifact

    This artifact was, in many ways, a continuation of the development of instructional design skills I had learned previously in EDTC 6020.  Once again, I was asked to design, from scratch, a PD session using the studied principles of instructional design.  One caveat to this particular artifact was that the design of my professional development session would be developed with a chosen instructional design model in mind.  For this design, I chose Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction, for reasons I outlined in my project report (Bullock, 2018).

    Other elements similar to my previous PD creation from EDTC 6020 include the front-end analyses, inclusion of performance objectives, and selected instructional strategies.  An addition to this artifact were two items that I created to go along with my session: a quick-guide handout and a website, both original designs of my own.

Connecting the Artifact and Standards

    Carrying out a professional development session such as this required leadership on the part of the instructional designer, to seek out experts on the matter and tailor an instructional meeting that would be engaging and meet the specific needs of the participants.  The topic was (and still is) quite relevant; standards-based grading (SBG) is a hot topic at present, and the faculty was faced with adopting this new approach within five years of the time of the PD.

    This PD session purposefully integrated critiquing, communication, and feedback in as crucial elements to the introduction of standards-based grading.  I felt that the teachers needed to “test the topic”, so-to-say, and bounce ideas and thoughts off of each other, especially considering no one within our school district had a clear vision for the adoption of SBG.  Plus, feedback itself is considered to be an important element of learning (Carey, Carey, & Dick, 2015).

    Another aspect is that this artifact required the instructional designer to tread carefully with sensitive student data.  Test results from various teachers were utilized in the discussion of SBG and how the data would look in a traditional vs. SBG format.  Care was taken to censor student names and protect this sensitive information.

Potential Improvements to the Artifact

    Although I carried out the PD in EDTC 6020 and EDTC 6025 at two different schools, I would like to see the two used in conjunction with one another.  After all, the PD on playlists, a form of personalized learning, and the PD on the standards-based approach go hand-in-hand (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017).  After introducing SBG, it may be wise to have a follow-up session modeling the use of playlists as a way to integrate SBG into the teacher’s lessons.  I have come to strongly feel that modeling examples of SBG in use is a necessary strategy when discussing this topic with educational stakeholders.

Career Goals and the Artifact

    The experience from the work contained within this artifact helped to strengthen my abilities in the realm of instructional design, and allowed me to refine my initial attempts from the previous ID project.  Not only do I see the rewarding feedback I received from this artifact as crucial to my future success in designing instruction (no matter the specific field), but also the information gathered and organized on the tenets of SBG will be rewarding to share with my future colleagues in a K-12 school system (or even college…).

References

Bullock, D. W. (2018). ID Project on Standards-based Grading. Unpublished manuscript, East Carolina University.

Carey, J., Carey, L., & Dick, W. (2015). The Systematic Design of Instruction (8th ed.). Retrieved from Amazon Kindle store.

NC Board of Education. (2012). North Carolina Professional Technology Facilitator Standards. Retrieved from http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/effectiveness-model/ncees/standards/prof-tech-facilitate-standards.pdf

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2017). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (4th ed.).  Retrieved from Amazon Kindle store.