Week 8 Reflections

There are two prominent ways Baker College of Jackson and the Baker College System could utilize Instructional Design in education like it is used in business and industry.  First, Baker College of Jackson and the Baker College System could utilize the team member and leader roles in the creation of virtual teams.  Baker College of Jackson has over 150 adjunct faculty that are on campus as few as one night a week.  Often, faculty within a department do not communicate and collaborate with, or even know, other departmental faculty because of schedule conflicts, lack of means of communication, or other reasons.  Virtual teams could be made within departments to foster the sharing of resources, dean-to-faculty and faculty-to-faculty training, and overall communication and collaboration.  Deans, and possibly core faculty, could act as team leader(s) and departmental faculty could act as team members.  As for the Baker College System, it is the third largest college in the state of Michigan, but is spread out among 13 campuses within the state.  “Members of a virtual team are located in different places”, which is very similar to the spread-out Baker College System (Reiser & Dempsey, 2007, p. 177).  Virtual teams of similar departments could be made to increase collaboration and communication among counselors, advisors, admission, etc. throughout the System and physical state.

Baker College of Jackson could also utilize “faculty”, not “designers”, as consultants for deans within the campus and the Baker College System.  Like designers “often serve as consultant to a development team” in business and industry, faculty can serve as consultants to a different type of development team (Reiser & Dempsey, 2007, p. 176).  Development teams for Baker College of Jackson could consist of departmental teams, developmental education teams, mentor faculty teams, counseling and advising teams, and research teams.  Developmental teams for the Baker College System could consist of professional development and training teams, departmental teams, developmental education teams, counseling and advising teams, and research teams.  Many times, deans and the System make decisions based on their best judgment, however they are not in the classrooms.  Similarly, faculty question deans and the Systems' decisions, but do not see the bigger picture of all 13 campuses.  I think deans and the System would benefits greatly from utilizing the classroom experts in making decisions or for general input.

“Over the past 10 years, the boundaries between many workplace disciplines have blurred, and design and performance improvement project teams are often staffed by a variety of specialists working together (Foxon, Richey, Roberts, & Spannaus, 2003 as quoted in Reiser & Dempsey, 2007, p. 177).  Not only have the boundaries between workplace disciplines been affected, but the physical boundaries, too, have been blurred.  Ironically, Baker College of Jackson and the Baker College System could utilize virtual teams and faculty as consultants simultaneously, which would improve collaboration and communication without physical limitations.  I am confident there are many other ways that Instructional Design used in business and industry can be used in education, and vice versa!