Instructor:
Mega Subramaniam
School:
iSchool at Maryland
Semester:
Fall 2014
Description:
Over the past several decades, the role of the school librarian has evolved to include a number of new responsibilities. One of the most important of these involves instruction–working individually and in collaboration with teachers to design, develop, and evaluate teaching and learning strategies and materials to meet a variety of instructional needs. Both historically and today, the principles of instructional systems development (ISD) provide an invaluable tool for the school librarian to use in fulfilling this instructional role, and they are introduced and explored in this course. Grounded in the assumption that instruction should be designed by teams or groups to be most effective, ISD is especially useful in supporting the librarians’ work as an “instructional partner” with teachers. A particular focus of the course is the application of ISD to designing information-based learning—that is, creating opportunities for learners to use a full range of information resources for authentic, problem-based learning.
ISD interweaves insights from systems, learning, communications, and management theories into a set of concepts and processes whose application leads to well-planned, reliable instruction. Beginning with the analysis of an instructional problem and moving systematically through a sequence of clearly defined stages, the ISD approach provides a sophisticated set of tools for designers of instruction for both education and training. The process is applicable to the development of instruction in all media formats–the newest varieties of interactive media as well as the more traditional print and audiovisual approaches. Through studying ISD theory and applying its methods to the development of a detailed plan for an instructional product, candidates in this course will master a systematic yet flexible set of principles that can be used in a variety of settings.
Required Textbook:
Wallace, V.L., and Husid, W.N. 2011. Collaborating for Inquiry-based learning: School librarians and teachers partner for student achievement.
American Association of School Librarians. 2009. Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action.
Link to Syllabus:
http://ischool.umd.edu/sites/default/files/syllabi/742_syllabus_final_0.pdf