Education. Rapid Instructional Design Straight Ahead Essay

About Straight Ahead

Young people might need help regarding various fields of life in various stages of life. There might be the need for support or counseling regarding their education, the correct career that can take them ahead, the ways of overcoming some social barriers or overcoming self-destructive attitudes or habits like drug and alcohol abuse. They feel confused when they fall into these kinds of troubles and become clueless about where to go or what to do. Then they need a helping hand that can guide them out through the difficult situation. If the youth facing those problems unfortunately is the victim of some mental illness the level of frustration and helplessness is simply mountainous. But fortunately, there are some places where these helpless youths can seek help. Some organizations help and guide young people when they need most of them. One such organization is the ‘Straight Ahead’, operating in Western Australia for helping the young people who are really in the need of help.

Straight is a team of 20 staff. They have four administrators, a project director, two accounts staff, and a registered psychologist. Apart from this two team leaders and five specialist case managers guide a team of six field workers. Straight Ahead gets its funding from two prominent sources. First is called ‘School’s Out, a state government organization for providing prematurely school dropout students with opportunities of alternative training and education and other necessary support. The second one is ‘Head’s Up’, a program under the Federal government that looks after the welfare of youth dealing with the consequences of mental illness under the age of 22. Straight Ahead receives funding under the two programs every month as a fee for the services they provide irrespective of the outcomes of their activities.

The New Challenge In Front Of Straight Ahead

Straight Ahead has now taken a step forward with their new fore-coming project called Stepping Stones of which they have won the tender. Stepping Stone is a program that aims at providing training outcomes and employments to youths fighting mental illness. The aim of the program has similarities with the two previous regular programs but the provision of funding is done differently. The payment is done only in part for the activities performed and the rest is paid on the success or outcome of those activities. So to maintain the fund coming uninterrupted the showcasing of performance is necessary¹.

The Board of Directors of the Stepping Stones program has set up a goal of 15 education and 10 employment outcomes to be made visible per month for 36 months for the management team of Straight Ahead. Then only the viability of the program would exist.

This new payment model has thrown a new challenge to the Straight Ahead team. The training schedule is to begin in six weeks only. The team members of Straight Ahead are excited to take up the new challenge. But there is a need for definite changes to be made in the traditional instruction design they have till now followed for their regular program. The time to act for preparing the team is less and the target to achieve afterward is huge. So a modified training and development strategy is needed for the achievement of the desired outcome. This modified strategy is called the Rapid Instruction Design².

The Strategies to Be Taken In the Needs Assessment Stage

The Rapid Instructional design suitable for the new challenge of Straight Ahead mainly depends on the tasks they have to perform and of course on the time frame.

The main idea behind a Rapid Instruction Design is to make the optimum use of the resources the organization has. Resources include time, funds, and manpower. These three together decide which part of the instruction design is to be emphasized and which part could easily be cut short.

Time

Time is the scarcest resource in the hands of Straight Ahead. They only have six weeks before the commencement of the program and they have no other options than producing 15 education and 10 employment outcomes every month for consecutive 36 months. Every possible bit of time, therefore, has to be utilized with full potential³.

Manpower

The Manpower Straight Ahead already has is not enough for the training program and fieldwork. They need more field workers who can cover the three cover areas namely the Upper Great Southern, Wheat – belt, and Mid–West. Straight Ahead has taken the right decision of recruiting nine new members of staff as it is not possible for them to shift all the staff from the current programs into the new one because those programs also have to run. Part of the existing team members should be asked to assist the newly recruited staff for efficiency. It should be remembered that the project should not be overloaded with new staff members as that would be a waste of money, waste of valuable time to train the new staff and that sometimes might lead to chaos in place of efficiency as well⁴.

Fund

Fund is one of the limiting factors for this program as only part payment is received before the outcome is showcased. Therefore it is necessary to use the available fund judiciously and reduce the cost of the project by every possible means. Reduction of cost sometimes restricts the formation of new instruction material but that helps in the efficient use of available time as well.

These were the determining factors of the project. Now below are the strategies that are needed to speed up the Stepping Stones Program without losing efficiency and coming forward with desired results⁵.

Need to emphasize on the design of the instruction

Straight Ahead has limited time in hand, newly appointed field workers, large groups of youth to be trained who might need help and find it hard to cope up with the instruction due to mental illness and a fixed certificate level instruction material with the very limited scope of presenting alternative instruction materials. So Straight Ahead cannot afford to jump into the project without a well laid detailed efficient design planning. Extra time, resources, and effort dedicated to the design of the instruction ultimately will prove fruitful.

Addressing the learners and providing them with new information and a good understanding of the objective of the instruction

The objectives of the instruction is to deliver either a certificate II level vocational course or a “Certificate in General Education for Adults (CGEA)”⁶. So the instruction material should contain all the necessary information in a form that is easily absorbable by the youth dealing with mental illness. They should be able to grasp the information, feel confident enough to be able to finish the training and achieve the Certificate. One more vital piece of information for the youth dealing with mental illness has to be the procedures of accessing the existing support network. In short, the compatibility of the new information should be perfect.

Involving the learners through activities that help them to use the information for the achievement of the desired goal

Either a certificate or a job placement for a learner is the ultimate goal. Therefore only delivery of new information will not come in handy, especially when the candidate for a job or certificate might not have the confidence due to mental illness. Especially for job placements, the learners have to practice the procedures several times and the staff member should provide support duly⁷.

Feedback from the learners to see how they are going through

The learners coming under this program will be dealing with the problems like drug and alcohol overuse, homelessness, and mental illness. The feedback taken from the learners will give the idea of whether any of these problems are slowing down the learning process or not. If any signs of such problems are visible then individual counseling has to be given to the learner to overcome them. The learners, in this case, can be and should be assessed about their ability to seek help from the existing support network in their community based upon the newly imparted instruction⁸.

All the four steps mentioned above are needed to be combined so that no possible area is left out to cause a problem after the Stepping Stones project commences once.

Steps to be combined in the design process

The first phase of the Rapid Instruction Design is a modification of the design of the conventional instruction methods. There are various ways in which that can be done; some steps need to be incorporated, some need to be omitted, and some need to be combined in such a way that the instruction design becomes speedy to work and efficient at the same time⁹.

Cutting short of the elaborate phases

Steps like producing instruction material by writing them in the draft and then in final form can be replaced by directly videotaping the subject matter as an activity by an expert. This makes the steps lively, easy to understand for even the learners with learning difficulties, and less time consuming¹⁰.

Combination of certain steps

Analysis and evaluation of the instruction materials after implementation takes a lot of time. Therefore it will be better to combine processes of analysis and evaluation side by side with the implementation process. Live examples can be achieved of the convenience or the difficulties faced by the youths and then the material can be changed accordingly.

Omitting certain steps

Certain steps, like holding meetings after a certain time interval take away time and money. Reports can be shortened and meetings can be organized among the decision taking heads only. The rest of the workers don’t need to be withdrawn from the field for the sake of producing numerical data in the meetings. Use of voice mails and other forms of messages can be used to convey the meeting outcome to the staff¹¹.

Producing time and money-efficient instruction materials

Instruction materials should be as cost and time-efficient as possible. Reviews, suggestions, and feedbacks are unnecessary for the generation of efficient instruction material and thus should be eliminated. The base material should be oriented toward the achievement of the vocational or the general education certificate.

Saving time and money by using existing instruction materials

Much time and money can be saved by using the existing training materials for the new project as well. As Straight ahead has similar projects running under separate funding systems also, they must be having some ready-to-use instruction material that suits the new project. Instead of designing entirely new packages, a large part of labor can be saved by incorporating the existing materials.

The local designers need to be given importance rather than following standard procedure

The Upper Great Southern, Wheat – belt and Mid – West, which are the target contract areas need to get their local finish in the instruction material. Easy to modify and rearrange printed material should be provided to the local developers so that they can set up the modules according to the local needs. After all, results need to show and steps are not that important¹².

Using the various activities and feedback to support the instruction imparted in the form of information

The instruction material designed under Rapid Instructional Design needs to be activity-based. The trainees would be then able to relate the events in real-life with what they are reading.

Use of job aids help a lot

For tracking progresses effectively job aids like checklists, flow charts, and worksheets can be used so that there is no need to memorize specific figures¹³.

Whenever possible templates should be used for both the instructional and activity designs

The use of templates in the process of designing the learning material, designing the activities that help in the implementation of the learning materials, and achieving the feedback from the trainees is a sensible step. Templates make the project speedy and efficient.

Uses of technologies make the procedure speedy and efficient

The range of software available today can help speed up the process of learning. The software needs to be chosen from the available range according to the instruction type imparted and the capacity of students as some of them might have learning difficulties.

The Range Of Delivery Methods to Be Employed

After a successful design modification phase, the turn is of the delivery stage. The steps that can be suggested for successful delivery are listed below¹⁴.

The emergency team needs to be deployed for delivery

Though Straight Ahead has decided to recruit the nine new members for the task, some of the staff from the existing programs need to be shifted to the new project for better performance.

The horizontal design of specialization of the various modules of the instructional package is useful for this particular project

The instruction material should be divided into self-complete modules on which separate teams will be specializing. Like this from the beginning to the final step no information will be lost along with acquiring good pace¹⁵.

The instruction given by the experts needs to be performance-oriented and the experts need to be addressed under a different designation

The trainers should not be obsessed with the dissemination of all the information from beginning to last, rather they should concentrate on the usefulness of what is taught. A training program for the trainers can be held for that purpose¹⁶.

Trainees should be made interactive and participate in the instruction rather than being passive learners

If trainees are involved in the learning process interactively through group and individual activities the learning procedure becomes speedy and efficient.

A good result can be shown through peer tutoring as learners can understand each other

In the new project, most of the trainees are dealing with mental illness. Therefore if they are involved in peer training they will be able to understand each other’s difficulties and learn easily in the process.

For better results, individualized effort should be incorporated

For youth recommended for the job placement to the placement agencies and organizations the expert staff of Straight Ahead need to support them actually with an individual approach. “A ‘Case Management’ approach to support the job seekers will be helpful to produce 10 placements each month”¹⁷.

The learners can be motivated through a reward system after they make an achievement

Though not necessarily an approach to reward the successful learners can motivate the young trainees to perform speedily and efficiently.

Conclusion

The suggested steps to be used in the Rapid Instructional Design in some places might appear to be contradicting to or compromising with the traditional and elaborate principles of the conventional instruction design. But for unlike the other projects the new project in hand, the Stepping Stone project calls for the showcasing of the visible outcome of the project activities rather than following the activities themselves. The time in hand is less and the task to perform is huge. The project is performance-oriented and the instruction material has to be restructured according to that¹⁸.

Some of the steps suggested in the Rapid Instruction Design can be merged, some can be omitted according to necessity and some can be modified according to priority. There is no hard and fast rule that the steps have to be followed in words as they are suggested or as individual steps. Any on-the-spot modification, addition, or subtraction is allowed as the only goal here is to produce the desired outcome.

Bibliography

Cangelosi, James. Classroom Management Strategies: Gaining and Maintaining Students’ Cooperation. New York: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2008.

Clausen-May, Terry. Teaching Maths to Pupils with Different Learning Styles. London: SAGE, 2007.

Eisner, Eric. “The Satisfaction of Teaching.” Educational Leadership 63 (2008): 44 – 45.

Gardner, John. Your College Experience: Strategies for Success. London: Cengage Learning, 2008.

Gay, Jeffery. Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2007.

Irvine, James. Culturally Responsive Teaching: Lesson Planning for Elementary and Middle Grades. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009.

Jeffrey, Leo. “Learning Orientations: Diversity in Higher Education.” Learning & Individuals Differences 19 (2009): 195 – 208.

Kirylo, James. “One Special Education Class, One Professor: A Long-lasting Impact.” Focus on Inclusive Education: A Quarterly ACEI Newsletter for the Education Community 1 (2004): 5 – 6.

McMahon, Walter. Higher learning, greater good: the private and social benefits of higher education. Boston: JHU Press, 2009.

Smart, John. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. London: Springer, 2009.

Sternberg, Robert. Perspectives on Thinking, Learning, and Cognitive Styles. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Villegas, Adam. “Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers: Rethinking the Curriculum.” Journal of Teacher Education 53 (2006): 20 – 32.

Footnotes

1. Terry Clausen-May. Teaching Maths to Pupils with Different Learning Styles (London: SAGE, 2007), 254-255.
2. James Cangelosi. Classroom Management Strategies: Gaining and Maintaining Students’ Cooperation (New York: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2008), 154.
3. James Kirylo. “One Special Education Class, One Professor: A Long-lasting Impact.” Focus on Inclusive Education: A Quarterly ACEI Newsletter for the Education Community 1 (2004): 5 – 6.
4. James Cangelosi. Classroom Management Strategies: Gaining and Maintaining Students’ Cooperation (New York: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2008), 176.
5. Adam Villegas. “Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers: Rethinking the Curriculum.” Journal of Teacher Education 53 (2006): 20 – 32.
6. Adam Villegas. “Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers: Rethinking the Curriculum.” Journal of Teacher Education 53 (2006): 20 – 32.
7. Walter McMahon. Higher learning, greater good: the private and social benefits of higher education (Boston: JHU Press, 2009), 221.
8. Leo Jeffrey. “Learning Orientations: Diversity in Higher Education.” Learning & Individuals Differences 19 (2009): 195 – 208.
9. Terry Clausen-May. Teaching Maths to Pupils with Different Learning Styles (London: SAGE, 2007), 254-255.
10. Adam Villegas. “Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers: Rethinking the Curriculum.” Journal of Teacher Education 53 (2006): 20 – 32.
11. James Irvine. Culturally Responsive Teaching: Lesson Planning for Elementary and Middle Grades (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009), 176.
12. Adam Villegas. “Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers: Rethinking the Curriculum.” Journal of Teacher Education 53 (2006): 20 – 32.
13. Smart, John. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research (London: Springer, 2009), 89.
14. Robert Sternberg. Perspectives on Thinking, Learning, and Cognitive Styles (New York: Routledge, 2008), 17-18.
15. Jeffery Gay. Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2007), 195.
16. James Cangelosi. Classroom Management Strategies: Gaining and Maintaining Students’ Cooperation (New York: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2008), 116.
17. Eric Eisner. “The Satisfaction of Teaching.” Educational Leadership 63 (2008): 44 – 45.
18. John Gardner. Your College Experience: Strategies for Success (London: Cengage Learning, 2008), 55.