Section 4

1. Chapter 14 discusses the concept of the evolution of human performance improvement. Several sections of chapter 14 present a variety of non instructional solutions to performance problems. Identify a performance problem in your area of work and provide a non instructional solution to solve the problem. 

A performance problem in my area of work is students’ submission of assignments. My coworkers and I have discussed the grades of our students and we have seen a trend of several students failing. These students are the same students in all classes and the reason they are failing is because of missing assignments. The students that we have at our campus are from low socioeconomic backgrounds and are low level learners. I believe that these students have a lack of motivation to excel in school. These students do not have the parental support and guidance they need to want to be successful in school. The non instructional solution to this problem I believe is rewards for good grades. At school our schedules are hectic and we have so many students that it proves difficult to reach every student. If we had a celebration every six weeks to celebrate those students that made A or AB honor roll the students would know that we care and we appreciate their efforts in class. We could even have the students that may not have made the honor roll, but still made a great improvement in grades from one six weeks to the next. Everyone likes to be rewarded, and a simple pizza party to show the students our appreciation for them, I believe, would be a great reward to help solve our performance problem.

2. Chapter 15 presents several definitions of electronic performance support systems. In addition to these definitions, locate a few more and indicate your preference explaining why you prefer it. Additionally, describe why you believe EPSS have not been widely used and if they are more likely be become more prevalent in the future. 

The following are a few definitions that I found online of electronic performance support systems:

Definition 1 - any computer software program or component that improves user performance.

Definition 2 - a computer-based system that improves worker productivity by providing on-the-job access to integrated information, advice, and learning experiences.

Definition 3 - systems used to provide support for performing a task

Definition 4 - a system that provides electronic task guidance and support to the user at the moment of need.

I would prefer definition four out of all of the definitions that I found for EPSS because I believe it sums up EPSS best. The definition states that EPSS is electronic support available to the user at the moment of need. The moment of need would be when the user is at work and needs assistance with a task. The electronic support is when the user goes online and gets assistance to complete the task, such as wizards that give step-by-step instructions or online databases where they can retrieve client information. This definition tells you the purpose of EPSS. I believe that the reasons EPSS are not widely used are lack of awareness and cost. Many companies are not aware of EPSS and do not know the many resources that are available on time. If the companies are unaware of the resources they cannot utilize them. Also some of these resources online may cost the company money and the companies are not willing to pay for a resource if they are unaware of the benefits. I believe that EPSS will become more prevalent in the future as more research is done on the actual benefits to companies. Once research is done to prove the effectiveness of EPSS to companies they will be more willing to utilize the resources.    

3. Knowledge management is the way we manage information, share that information, and use it. Organizations, such as schools, are full of information/data and we must organize that data in a way that we can make sense of it. We use data to make decisions and good data=good decision making. Identify a real or hypothetical problem in your line of work. How might a blended learning approach, including the use of a knowledge management system, be use to solve the problem? 

An example of a real problem in my line of work is trying to get all students’ scores on the TAKS test to be passing or higher. A blended learning approach to this problem would be having teachers from the same departments sit in one another’s classrooms to observe effective teaching strategies that are being used as well as having these teaching strategies demonstrated at staff development meetings. These methods would be formal learning. The teachers would learn from one another and then take these strategies and put them into practice in their own classroom. After attempting the teaching strategies in their own room the teachers can then discuss the results. These discussions can take place in brief meetings over lunch, or we can have a conversation through an online blog. These discussions would be informal learning. Combining all these different methods together to help improve students’ ability to receive a high score on their TAKS test would be a form of blended learning. The use of a knowledge management system would come into play in this approach by taking all the students’ TAKS scores from previous test and organizing the data. Fortunately for us the students’ TAKS scores are already codified. These scores are in a database where all of the core teachers’ of these students can access them. The scores are easy to sort through and they are broken down into categories, so the teachers are able to see which students are at risk of failing and what objectives they need help with. Collaboration comes into play because all of the teachers in the department will be working together. All of the teachers will be contributing their skills to teaching these students the information they need to master these objectives that they struggle with. Finally, access is a part of this approach because all the teachers will have access to the students’ scores, the strategies that will assist the students’, and be able to track the progress of the students.

4. Describe the types of informal learning you have been exposed to in your adult life. What was the purpose? What was the experience like? Was it engaging? Social? What role did you play? What role did the instructor play? 

I have been exposed to different types of informal learning in my adult life, such as my father showing me how to check the oil in my car while he was checking it himself, a friend showing me how to use a weight machine at the gym, my cousin teaching me how to drive his jeep, and learning a new teaching strategy when discussing school with a friend while having coffee at Starbucks. The ladder experience was most helpful to my line of work. The purpose of this informal learning was to discuss our experiences at school because we both work at different schools in different grade levels. This visit with one another was a time to discuss techniques we use with students in not only teaching, but in rewards and incentives for students behavior. The experience was enjoyable because it wasn’t set out to be a learning experience it was just a time to catch up with a good friend. It was engaging because we both found that there were several things that we did different that could be beneficial to our students though they are in different grade levels. This was a social interaction and my friend and I both took turns as the student and the teacher. She taught me about her teaching strategies that have proved to be effective and I taught her about mine.