From about the midterm on, I have started to understand the concepts required to effectively build courses with instructional design in consideration.  In doing so I have started to learn the proper terminology instead of using a generalized term with others.  It has also provided me with a better understanding of the goals of my colleagues for educating students and I feel that I can provide better support for both faculty and students than I have been about to before.

The recent chapters and readings seem to closer relate to the tasks I perform in my career than I considered.  I see that going through the chapters that I have been attempting to incorporate instruction design in presenting to students.  For example, the biggest eye opener was when discussing Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction Model.  I found that me wanting to grab students’ attention by cracking jokes is an actual step in getting the attention of students.  Of course, the other fun part is to maintain their attention and to make sure they are in fact getting information from the presentations I do every semester.  I have also learned the importance of creating goals and objectives to be able to build the foundation of structuring a course. I have also learned how important setting a clearly defined goal and setting clearly defined objectives as well as identifying if the performance gap is due to a training issue or other factors which would need to be handled separately than in training.  Equally important is understanding the target learners and understanding the best method to instruct them.  It has also been a great benefit to be able to collaborate with peers in order to listen to their points of view when we were developing out the end of the semester project.  That has also been a big benefit so that I can also gain a better understanding in how to relay and glean information from colleagues.

            The readings have provided a better understanding in how I can effectively support my colleagues in our educational environment.  I feel that I can better guide them and better explain the overall goals of instructional design as well as to explain the importance of evaluation in determining what the actual needs of the students are as well as for training for fellow educators.