I have been a Special Education teacher for the past 13 years. Eleven of which have been working in two of the state's largest school districts at Special Education campuses for students with profound disabilities. In our reading assignment for this week, Chapter 18 states that "recent studies on achieving levels of mastery in any profession indicate that about 10 years of practice is required to become a world-class expert" (Reiser and Dempsey, p.181). Even though I have more than 10 years experience and I have been given leadership roles as a Spec. Ed. coordinator, department chair and lead teacher, I don't think I have reached the level of expertise in my field. I can carry out the adminstritave duties and the paperwork efficiently but I would be more effective had I pursued a higher degree in Special Education.
After reading about the instructional designs in the settings of business/industry, military education and training environments, and health care education, I think the one that best identifies with my current teaching setting is the military instruction design. The role of the military instructional design is similiar to Special Education in that there has to be an understanding in how to apply technology to meet the needs of the user in a wide variety of learning environments, the ability to create a blend of learning solutions, ability to work within a budget, understanding and appreciating the uniqueness in that population, and the ability to communicate with clients (parents, related services, community service providers, etc.). Also, the military and the education field both have "guiding documents" that describe their vision and goals for the future and long-range planning. Our school board projects planning for the following five years. Both the military and the education field face the same problem too. They both have issues with funding (budgets) that affect long range technological plans. There are strict steps in place for asking for new services and technology equipment and by the time the requests are approved the technology has surpassed the original plans. For example, it took several years before some of our campuses got approval for the purchase of iPads. Only one month after the schools got them Apple introduced the iPads 2. So even though the iPads were new they were already outdated. Some might argue that the Air Force is technologically advanced and they are but the Marines still use out-dated equipment. You can compare that with the richer school districts vs. the poorer ones.
Even with budget cuts in the field of education, I still prefer my profession to others. I am close to realizing my dream of being a school librarian. When I become a school librarian I want to be able to contribute to the instructional design on my campus and be a team leader to facilitate learning for both students and staff.
This is the second or third post I've read that deals with someone being involved in, or wanting to be involved in, library science. I am curious about what all it involves and how it has changed over the years.
ReplyDeleteYou statement about "understanding and appreciating the uniqueness in that population" really strikes a chord. It seems that this short statement sums up one of the hardest things to accomplish in the field of education.
Hi Dinorah, I love your picture at the bottom of your post with the IPad in front of all the books. That is the direction our world is going and especially in education we must keep up. However with administration stalling requests due to budget approval many times the equipment is outdated before it arrives, as you pointed out in your example. I understand sticking to a budget is so important, but it seems as if those steps in purchasing need to be revisited in order for students to have the best technology tools.
ReplyDeleteWIth the recent budget challenges in education, we are all having to face the juggling act of keeping our resources current, as much as that is possible in the fast paced world, and funding. Students need the technology to be competitive in the real world, but the cost of that technology is high. meeting this challenge requires lots of creativity and resourcefulness on the part of everyone involved!
ReplyDeleteI would like to apologize for the late response! It has been a super busy week! I enjoyed reading your post. I think that your comparison of military instructional design to special education was spot on. I think that it was a great comparison, not only to special education, but education in general!
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