New Technologies

Instructors are required to have personal student information, student qualifications, and certification data on their students. The organization was composed of mid-career and veterans in the profession as well as the organization. The technology challenge was getting the instructors to see the importance of using a database for inputting information about their personnel so they could retrieve and report information quickly. Many instructors had students to fill out a paper copy of an information sheet that was later store in a filing system. As the Division Chief and Senior Instructor, I was challenge with motivating the instructors to use a database. The instructor’s self-efficacy was low on the use of databases and did not want to be embarrassed. I volunteered to teach the instructors how to construct and use a database.
 

Attention: I gained the instructors attention by showing a two minute video of a higher echelon Commander requesting information from his Executive Officer that was the same information contained in their student data sheets. The Commander requested several elements of information from the Executive Officer that required the calculating the number of personnel, marital status, number of children,  age of students with qualification, and students with certain master qualifications. The Executive Officer compiled the information and sent the information electronically to the Commander within one minute. The instructors realize retrieving their hard copy files would consume more than one minute.

Relevance: The instructors would be motivated by visualizing how they can use a database to reach personal goals and better benefit the organization. I would follow the ARCS model by “providing statement of utility along with the goals of instruction, or helping learners to define their own goals and statement of utility” (Driscoll, 2005, p. 335).

Confidence: I would explain to the instructors the expectations and requirements. I would use module to teach the procedures to break the topic in to small and manageable sections. I would give more requirement as the instructor’s progress through the training and become confidence with the completion of modules.

Satisfaction: I would give the instructors certificates of completion for successfully completing the training. I would request information from the instructor that required the retrieval of information from the student data records quickly. The ability to quickly provide the information to me would be satisfaction to the instructors using the newly acquired database skills.

Reference

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.