Chapter 2

What is Instructional Design?
We have this wonderful model for instructional design, I am going to try to fit it into today's educational scheme.
Analysis, hmmmmm some educator who long ago taught school, probably for a short time and has since become a government employee, decides that the State of Michigan should see how all of the children in Michigan are progressing. How well are the children in Michigan learning, are they all learning at the same rate, and the same things. The answer must have been no, because the solution was to give the kids a test, hence MEAP. Once the process was started it grew and grew, like all good government departments. So instead of having just one test we are now testing many subjects, at many grade levels.
Design, part of design is to write objectives in measurable terms, we have GLCS and HSCS now for all grade levels. They are not written in measurable terms, that is for the teachers to figure out. Just make sure you are teaching what the state wants. But wait there's more, some data gurus have come up with the MEAP blueprint. This piece of data examines the test questions and tells teachers what percentage of the test questions are asked in which catagories of the test. For example, more narrative questions are asked than informational on the ELA portion of the MEAP, this helps the teachers in instruction and what to focus on the most.
Development, the MEAP has been an ongoing testing project, it is constantly being refined. When the economy is going strong the developers of the test put in some paragraph writing questions. These require extensive resources to score as many man hours are needed for reading all that writing. When the economy is not doing so well, like now, then the questions are multiple choice these are much more objective and a machine can score them which is very economical. The MEAP makers are always trying out different ways of conducting the test. One year the questions are all the same, this comes under attack because some students don't have the same background knowledge as others. So the developers put in a variety of questions, this comes under attack because some of the questions are harder than others. So we know that the test is constantly being refined.
Implementation, we have a testing window so all students are taking the test at the same time. Students that are slower readers or writers are given more time and extra help. This has also been refined so that the students are now all taking the same portion of the test on the same day.
Evaluation, there are two kinds of evaluation, formative and summative.
Formative first, teachers are constantly going over MEAP data to revise their instruction. When the results come out meetings are held to go over the progress that was made on the MEAP. In other words "how did our kids do", if the answer is they didn't do so good then instruction will be revised so they perform better the next time. This helps keep all school districts on the same tract teaching the same curriculum across the state. If the answer is we did great then the teachers will be told to keep doing what is working, you must be doing something right because the kids are doing well on the test.
Summative, results of the various school districts are published in the newspapers, for all the world to see. Parents can see which school districts are doing well on the test and get their students into those districts. The reverse of this is the districts that aren't doing so well are labeled as failures in a public forum. School districts doing well publicize their results in hopes of attracting more students, more students means more funding for that district.
It appears that the MEAP test fits into the instructional design model presented in chapter 2 of our book.