Practical Application Essay

Scenario

Position

I work in a secondary public school as a curriculum specialist where I am tasked with improving
current curricula and developing new curricula as needed. Frequently, this requires me to
evaluate the efficacy of existing curricula by consulting with teachers and other district
stakeholders, conducting research in the field, and ultimately making recommendations to the
school’s administration. In fulfilling these duties, I am expected to research, develop, and test
educational content and resources, as well as consider how they align with state standards and
any other applicable guidelines, policies, and regulations.

Current Project

The use of narrative film in the English classroom at my school has drawn increasing criticism
from parents over recent years. They have complained that the integration of film into the
classroom has dumbed down the curriculum, comes at the expense of precious class time that
could otherwise be spent on reading and analyzing books, and is tantamount to a day off from
learning. Citing their children’s testimony of their experience in English classes, parents reported
to administrators that the English teachers at the high school frequently use film only after a unit
on literature and its attendant assessment has concluded while the teacher grades it in the back of
the room, that teachers abstain from attaching any assignment or assessment to the film being
shown, and that there is often no identifiable teaching purpose attached to the film at all.

Review of the Literature

Such malpractice, if it is confirmed to be occurring at this high school, would fit the
national pattern and history of teaching with narrative film in the English classroom. A
preponderance of literature reveals English teachers’ ubiquitous use of narrative film in their
classrooms (Lynch, 1980; Costanzo, 1987; Weller & Burcham, 1990; Teasley & Wilder, 1997;
Hobbs, 2006; Donaghy, 2015). This hardly surprises given students’ remarkable familiarity with
and fondness for film, and film’s inherently literary nature. However, teaching with film
continues to be questioned, viewed with suspicion, and even vilified for pedagogic practice
(Kreuger & Christel, 2001; Lambirth, 2004; Kavan & Burne, 2009; Lipiner 2011). “The lasting
image is of a classroom of slack-jawed students sitting in a darkened classroom while the teacher
sits quietly in the back” (Fisher and Frey, 2011, p. 2). Many view film merely as “entertainment”
(McLuhan, 1960; Culkin, 1965; Selby, 1978; Vetrie, 2004; Lee & Winzenried, 2009; Lipiner,
2011), and still others call for its exclusion from the English classroom altogether (Jago, 1999).

The dim view of narrative film would seem not to owe to any lack of learning potential
with film itself (Culkin, 1965; Denby, 1969; Selby, 1978; Lynch, 1980; Krueger & Christel,
2001; Golden, 2001; Costanzo, 2004; Donaghy, 2015) but to the documentation of teachers’
routinely “non-optimal” (Hobbs, 2006, pp. 40-44) and “fluffy” (Goble, 2010, p. 29; Lipiner,
2011, p. 376) uses of film in the classroom (Teasley & Wilder, 1997; Vetrie, 2004). Teachers
over the years have regularly “misused film” by habitually turning films into a “visual aid” or by
merely “turning on the projector or VCR and letting the film do the teaching” (Vetrie, 2004, p.
40). Too often, “teachers use videotapes or other mass media resources to fill time, as a reward
for good behavior” (Hobbs, 2006, p. 36), as merely an attentional hook (p. 43), as a means for
controlling student behavior (p. 43), or as a stand-in for a genuine lesson plan for the substitute
teacher (Teasley & Wilder, 1997; Hobbs, 2006). Sometimes “the teacher is grading the unit test
of the book and the students are ‘taking a break’ from the usual work of school (attending,
thinking, discussing, and writing)” (Teasley and Wilder, 1997, p. 5), or still worse, sometimes
the teacher is simply using “the film as a relief or a nonteaching break” (Vetrie, 2004, p. 40).
Fueling the perception that “most students consider a day watching a movie as a day off” (Jago,
1999, p. 33), “Students report that high school and middle school teachers often use the ‘read the
book, watch the movie’ method of teaching film” resulting in negligible educational benefits and
low student interest (Goble, 2010, p. 28). Nevertheless, the National Council of English Teachers
(NCTE), the International Reading Association (IRA), and the Common Core State Standards
Initiative (CCSSI) have all codified film as an essential form of literacy in the ELA teaching
standards (Costanzo, 1992; Krueger & Christel, 2001; National Governors, 2010).

Front End Analysis

Identifying the Problem and Possible Need

It is unknown what percentage of the English teachers are instructing with film in ways
that deviate from best-practice pedagogic techniques, but once the following FEA plan
determines that, the goal will be to close the performance gap and achieve 100 percent of the
English teachers instructing with film using best-practice teaching techniques.

Best-Practice Instruction with Film

For best-practice teaching, Hobbs (2006) recommends the use of the pause and rewind
buttons, which enable stoppages for teachers to ask questions and for students to closely examine
the frame. Rewinding film allows second viewings of scenes in the same way that second
readings of passages in books are possible and desirable in the English classroom. Krueger &
Christel (2001) document effective instructional practice with film to supplement the reading of
plays and for thematic connections to novels to illustrate shared themes. Donaghy (2015) favors
approaches which closely examine the methods by which film communicates, via camera angles,
shots, and movements, lighting, sound, and other cinematic techniques. This may be
accomplished by close readings and analysis of the scenes and shots in the film.

Next Steps

A systematic study of this problem, eliciting information from a variety of sources so as

to make effective decisions and recommendations for how to proceed, will be conducted. By
identifying optimals, or desired knowledge and performance, and comparing that with actuals,
what people know and do, the potential discrepancies between the two can reveals the needs for
mitigating the performance problem. Three methods will be employed to collect data on the
possible performance gap: (1) interviews, (2) direct observations, and; (3) a questionnaire. These
methods are informed by the principles of Gilbert’s Behavioral Engineering Model to evaluate
possible issues or deficiencies regarding data (i.e. whether or not instructors know what is
expected of them as defined by a school policy or the ELA standards), instruments (e.g. available
technology, school guidelines regarding film use), incentives (i.e. some form of reward for
performing well, such as an increase in student engagement and learning), knowledge (e.g. of
how to teach with film based on the literature and possibly taught through pre- and in-service,
self-training, etc.) , capacity (e.g. are they capable of and ready to perform the job as required),
and motives (i.e. are they driven to do the job).

Finally, once all of the information is gathered, data analysis will be conducted to
determine if there is a performance gap, and if there is one, whether the gap owes to a deficiency
of data, instruments, incentives, knowledge, capacity, and motives, as informed by Gilbert’s
BEM Model (see Figure 1 below). Findings from the data collection and analysis phases will
dictate the appropriate recommendations for performance problem solutions and interventions.

FEA Framework

Figure 1

Possible Causes

Data: Teachers may not be aware of school policies and ELA standards which codify and call
for the integration of narrative film into the curriculum.

Instruments: Teaching may lack the requisite technologies, or be unaware of existing

technologies, for effectively incorporating narrative film into the classroom.

Incentives: Teachers may have the misperception that teaching with narrative film has no
capacity to be conducive to student learning.

Knowledge: Teachers may have no training or knowledge of how to effectively instruct with
film in the classroom, particularly given that such training is virtually absent in teacher training
programs.
Capacity: Teachers may not have the capacity to incorporate narrative film in the curriculum
because of the strictures of instructional time and an overly packed curriculum, even if they have
the know-how for how to integrate it and see the value of doing so.

Motives: Regardless of the knowledge, capacity, incentives, or any other factors, teachers may
still remain unmotivated to take on the task of changing what they are already doing in the
classroom.
Possible Solutions

Depending on which behavioral conditions above accumulated numbers in the tally, they
may be mitigated by the following possible solutions.

Data: Reiteration of school policies and highlighting of ELA standards and objectives which call
for teaching with film; Provide feedback and guidance for teaching practice with film.

Instruments: Informing teachers of unused district resources; Sharing of existing resources;

Purchasing of additional resources (e.g. film library, laptops, DVD players and Smartboards,
software, etc.) as needed. Curricular materials, including lesson and unit plans for instructing
with film.

Incentives: Share the scholarly literature which supports the potential for increase in student
learning as a result of effective instruction with film.

Knowledge: In-service training with experts may be provided; Creating Professional Learning
Communities for teachers to share their optimal instructional strategies; Scholarly literature may
be shared with teachers; Facilitate teacher observations of other teachers.

Capacity: Time must be set aside for teachers to be able to get the requisite training listed above.

Motives: Highlighting teachers’ effective practice in the district newsletter and school
newspaper. Designate teacher leaders for serving as exemplars of instructional practice with film.

Presentation and Project Plan

Once the data has been collected and analyzed, they will be shared with the school board and
administration. A spate of possible solutions will be offered and a project plan proposal in line
with the identified causes of the performance gap will be presented to school officials to consider
choosing from to mitigate the problem.

This will include defining the problem, the goals, the success criteria, the assumptions and risks,
and the scope of the plan. The proposed plan phase will include the requisite personnel for the
project, the timeline, the critical path, the relevant deliverables, and the project proposal
statement. In the organize phase, the organizational structure will be defined, the work package
description will assign the tasks with the appropriate personnel and align with the project
timeline. The control phase will entail the actual implementation of the plan, involving copious
communication, progress and variance reports, contingency and conflict resolution planning. The
close phase will include sharing an executive summary with evidence of on-time, on-budget,
quality deliverables, with project overview, final report, audit, client sign-off and debrief to
conduct a post-mortem evaluation.

This proposed plan will have four phases, whereby curricular materials are first created and
assembled by the curriculum designer, including lesson and unit plans, and explanations of their
alignment with state and ELA standards, as well as the development of tutorial videos for deeper
understanding of how film communicates as a language so that teachers may more deeply
understand the medium they are expected to teach with.

The second phase will entail by-weekly in-service training workshops, in which teachers will
receive a series of professional development sessions to learn about and practice their analysis of
film as a communicative medium, strategies to instruct with it in ways that align with state, ELA,
and best-practice standards, to learn and practice using related educational technologies which
enhance instruction with film, and to role-play instruction with the lesson plans developed in the
first phase of the project. In the third phase, participating teachers will put their training and new
materials to use in the classroom, with continuing opportunities for professional development
workshops, where they can share their successes and struggles, as well as receive additional
support for any difficulties. In the fourth phase, the data collection process conducted in the
original FEA plan will be repeated, via interview, observation, and questionnaire in an end-of-
the-year instructional unit involving film to determine if the performance gap has been closed.
Results of the plan will be reported.
 Summary

My coursework in my two IDDE programs have substantively and significantly aided my

knowledge and skills in approaching problems like the one described in the scenario above.
Previously, I had no experience or understanding of needs analysis, and consequently would
have had no real understanding of how to perform a formal Front End Analysis. Though I have
copious experience with instructional design and spearheading many projects stemming from my
15-year career as a teacher, I had no prior formal training in Project Management. These two
aspects gleaned from my educational experience have shaped my thinking and approach to such
a performance problem scenario more than any other experiences in my programs. They have
afforded me a far more comprehensive understanding of how to analyze, design, develop,
implement, evaluate, and manage solutions to a performance gap related to instructional design.

In this way, I believe I have dramatically expanded my capabilities and positioning in the field of
instructional design from a classroom practitioner, who regularly engaged in instructional design
on the classroom level, and even created curriculum for several original courses, to someone who
is knowledgeable and quickly gaining experience in instructional design matters that extend well
beyond the traditional duties of classroom teacher. I see myself as transitioning to a new role
whereby I can apply my continuously developing skills to endeavors with increasingly larger
scope and scale. Ultimately, I aspire to become a curriculum specialist and coordinator in a
secondary public school and to serve as a pre-service teacher on the collegiate level.
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