Section 4: Human Performance Technology

Item: Chapter 14 – The Development and Evolution of Human Performance Involvement

In my position I work with teachers in many ways, including assisting them to meet department goals. A performance problem I’ve identified  among our teachers concerns motivation; it’s either low or lacking, and the problem is growing. Once again this school year has been especially difficult on our teachers who, teaching another year of a blend of a blocked and traditional schedule for a total of seven sections, have one 90-minute conference period every other day. And since our department partially is federally funded, our department’s director expects high numbers of students in each of our teachers’ course sections. Nearing the end of the first semester, and already some teachers are resisting in working to meet our goals which consist of industry certifications, dual enrollment, student organizations and internships which are discussed at length during inservice in August. These teachers tell me they don’t have the time nor the energy to plan lessons, activities, nor to create a timeline to assist them in meeting even one of the goals. Our teachers’ meeting our department goals is crucial to the objectives of our department and district goals set forth by our superintendent.

In Reiser & Demsey (2007) Stolovitch states “…possible interventions to improve human performance include new incentive systems, improved and more timely methods for providing feedback to employees, better worker selection procedures….” (p. 141). Among the items listed in the Intervention Selection and Design of the HPT model of ISPI, possible interventions applicable in this situation include career development, coaching, compensation, job aids, job/work design, and team building (Reiser & Demsey, 2007, p. 141). I feel a new incentive system (more specifically, compensation) would help motivate our teachers and will them to improve their performance. In fact, one of our high-performing teachers mentioned to me that if they could receive a monetary stipend from the district for instructing dual enrollment courses it would make their extra effort to become dual enrollment approved worth it. Some of our teachers have had to enroll in evening or online courses with the local 2-year college in order to become eligible to teach dual enrollment. Also, having been in their shoes, I am very familiar with the daily stress of classroom teaching and there not being enough time in the day to accomplish things. Not having a planning period places a higher burden on our teachers to accomplish their lesson planning on their own time, taking away from family time. Our department could assist our teachers, perhaps, by offering to compensate them if they work after school or on Saturdays to plan. However, I feel a more viable and effective way of motivating our teachers to assist them in meeting the department’s and district’s expectations and goals is that our district restructure the master schedule so that our teachers are afforded a 90-minute period every day for planning and conference. I know this period, which would be used for the purpose of planning, could help our teachers to get together with other teachers in their program area and plan on ways to achieve department goals. Together teachers could arrive at solutions on how best to work with students so that students can pass industry certification examinations, on how best to tackle issues of dual enrollment eligibility (because questions arise as to what courses can they teach, how do they become eligible, who do they contact), on how best to form student organizations and where and with whom do they begin conversations regarding internships. These four items comprise our department's goals which our teachers are expected to meet during the school year. I feel that by working together our teachers can form bonds, break barriers and overcome the challenges imposed on them.

Additionally, I feel coaching, redesign of their work process, and team building could help motivate our teachers and at the same time assist them in meeting our department goals. Teachers could be coached on ways to integrate lessons into their curriculum and on redesigning their work processes so as to allow for better utilization of time for industry certification practices and drills. Working to build teams, that is by program areas, where our teachers can work together to align their curriculum, to share their lessons and plan their school year, certainly would help to ease the stress of having to build one’s own curriculum, thus, hopefully, improve their performance and motivational level.

 

Source:

Reiser, R.A., & Dempsey, J.V. (1992). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology. In H.D. Stolovitch (Ed.), The Development and Evolution of Human Performance Improvement (pp. 134-146). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Item: Chapter 15 – Electronic Performance Support Systems: Visions and Viewpoints

O’Leonard (2005) describes performance support systems (PSS) as providing instant access to information, delivered at the time of need. Key characteristics  of PSS  are that they provide access to specific, relevant information needed to perform a task; used on the job, while engaged in the activity; and, can be accessed by the user when the need arises.  Purpose of PSS is to provide information in order to complete a task.

A PSS would not help solve our human performance problems described in Item: Chapter 14. I feel our departmental problems are more personal  related than systematic related. Motivation is a key factor in the problems our departmental teachers are experiencing, and I do not feel that this can be remedied with a type of system that takes the user from “if you are experiencing this type of problem, then click here or there.” I feel PSS provide a quick, systematic “fix” to completing tasks. PSS do not appear to arrive at solutions dealing with motivational issues.

Source:

O’Leonard, K. (2005). Performance Support Systems: How to improve user productivity and lower the costs of software application training. Retrieved from http://www.bersinassociates.com/free_research/epss_paper_2.9.pdf

Item: Chapter 16 – Knowledge Management and Learning: Perfect Together

Motivation is a huge beast to conquer, but not impossible. Professionally written motivational pieces could be collected via our district’s public relations department who can then upload and/or link them to our department’s web page for our teachers’ easy retrieval and/or our dissemination to our teachers on a regular basis. Our district’s area and campus administrators, including our department’s director, could also provide some of the motivational writings as could each of our department’s program areas’ professional associations. Not all our departmental teachers are lacking in motivation, therefore these teachers not being affected could provide a great source of information on how and what they are doing  to meet our goals. This information could be collected and also linked to our department's web page for easy retrieval by all teachers. I think placing all this knowledge information in our department’s web page would help us to organize the information, maintain it, update it, and make it available to all our teachers  who could retrieve it on an as needed and voluntary basis.

Item: Chapter 17 – Informal Learning

In my position I am afforded learning experiences outside of the workplace. Occasionally I attend meetings or conferences where I network with individuals who share the same interests, concerns, even problems. I cherish these networking moments because I learn how others in the same profession who are not in our district handle similar situations. Our department’s staff meets weekly where we share and discuss what we have learned outside of the office and campuses and teachers we service. It is interesting to hear what each of us learns and how we can apply it in our situations and teachers. I keep a library of every textbook, brochure, pamphlet or material that I pickup or am given anywhere I go, which is not difficult to manage, but I feel the informal learning that I come across and share is difficult to codify. I am not taking notes of my informal learning. At our weekly staff meetings no one is taking notes either, we are simply internalizing the information and mentally visualizing and discussing how it applies to our situations and teachers . Later, I may even meet with my teachers one-on-one and discuss ways to help them based on earlier discussions with staff in the office on informal learning, but I am not codifying it in a way that I can make it available to all teachers. I think it would help our departmental teachers, though, if I, and they, shared informal learnings. Since their time during the work week is limited, perhaps we could communicate via a blog which they can access anytime.

And going back to the performance problem from Item: Chapter 14, perhaps by sharing informal learnings with one another teachers could improve their performance and also help with their motivational issue.

 

Informal learning: an everyday solution.