Response to Chapter 3

In Chapter 3, the author gives educators a great concept that a teacher’s most important role is that of instructional designer. The role of the classroom teacher changes these days. In traditional way, the role of teachers is described as a director. Nowadays a teacher is a facilitator who design instruction for learners what they need. FACTS of Design are five major pieces for design puzzle. It gives teachers a direction to design the instruction and the items to assess whether their design is suit for students or not. The selection of tools is important in learning design. Although there are many schools with good technological equipment, many schools don’t have such tools. Therefore, teachers need to use tools what they already have to design the efficiency instruction.

In my experience, as an elementary school in Taiwan, teachers can use computers, video and audio in class. However, there is not enough equipment for every student to use computers in class. Only when students take computer class, each of them can use computers to do some drills with computer program, such as Word, photo impact, etc. Therefore, searching information or do deeper learning is for after school learning. Teacher can give students directions and opportunities to learn more at home, but teacher can’t design this kind of activities in class.