Week 10 Reflection

The first trend that hit home with me was the Step Up to Excellence.  By looking at the step diagram on pg. 214 this idea became more apparent to me.  In most cases, this seems to be a great system to help school districts change from one level of achievement to the next one higher up.  I even think it would work to help my district in a way, although this is not what is coming to my mind when I read this. What comes to mind is the new laws passing in my states government as I write this.  Some of you in this class do not live in the state of Michigan, but as of right now in this moment the way government and schools are ran is about to be changed.  Michigan is about to become the next Wisconsin in the news and when I saw the steps laid out for me it seems to close to what I have been reading and hearing in the new government to not respond in this way.

Step 1- Our wonderful governor Rick Snyder have purposed a new law that has passed the senate and house of Michigan where a appointed manager can come into towns and schools redesign and fire the whole system. 

Step 2- Then the manager can come into the school and align the clusters or departments of the schools in the way that he/she deems is the best and most efficient way to conduct an educational classroom.

Step 3- Along with the clusters within the school the manager can also help align the school itself.  Just as the clusters or departments in the school, the manager has control over the whole school district itself.  Meaning that the manager, appointed by the governor, not only controls the departments he/she controls the school district.

Step 4- See Steps two and three and it applies to teams and individuals.

Step5- The manager then has the ability to evaluate the whole systems performance that he/she has set up to determine whether to take a new course of action or start it over again from the feedback gathered.  (A luxury that the original elected employees did not have)

Through these steps the government of Michigan has purpose a Step Up To Excellence program for failing towns and school districts around the state. 

The second trend that hit home with me was the role of instructional design and technology specialists in a school.  According to the book, “A role that IDT specialist can play is in working to create improvements in the core and supporting work.” (Reiser and Dempsey pg. 216)  This is the exact reason I decided to pursue this master degree program.  When I started working at my school district three years ago, most of the staff were older and did not necessarily use the technology that was available to them in the classroom.  I wanted to be able to help these teachers incorporate the technology into their classrooms so that they could transfer their vast amount of knowledge and teaching skills to the modern student.  Along the way I also wanted to sharpen and be exposed to more technology myself, but helping my fellow teachers was the main point.  Now three years later great deals of those teachers that I started this degree to help have retired, in their place though is a great staff that is of the younger generation.  This new staff is eager to incorporate technology into the classroom, so my mind has shifted from a case of training people on technology to helping discover new ways of incorporating it into the classroom.