Emergent Technologies Shaping Instructional Design

This chapter discusses emergent technologies that are currently shaping or expected to shape the field of instructional design in the near future. The discussion begins with a brief overview of instructional design as a professional field over the past century, then focuses on current and promising trends for the field based on advances in technologies supporting instructional development. This chapter intends to provide a centralized literature review of multiple pathways currently being carved in the field, encompassing several parallel trending areas, such as adaptive learning, digital storytelling, gamification, simulation technologies, augmented and virtual reality, cybernetics, the xAPI standard, mobile and ubiquitous learning, and offer a glimpse of how they are shaping or expected to shape the future of all those involved in designing and delivering learning or effecting human behavior and performance change.

Understanding Teachers' Cultural Competencies

As linguistic and cultural diversity in public schools continues to rise, an increased need for culturally aware teachers is warranted. This chapter informs the development of cultural competencies in teachers by integrating anti-bias education (ABE) goals into teacher preparation. Existing research in preparing teachers to work with diverse student populations tends to focus on how teachers gain appropriate knowledge and practices to work effectively at school. However, there is little evidence that researchers have approached the issue of developing teacher's cultural competencies with the intent of building a cohesive understanding and providing practical tools, such as ABE goals, to positively influence the development of social awareness and self-awareness in teachers and their students. Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to provide empirical evidence to substantiate the instructional importance of understanding the development of teacher's cultural competencies.

The Benefits and Challenges of New Media for Intercultural Conflict

This chapter examines current research on intercultural interactions over new media with a particular emphasis on those studies involving conflict. Two main points are emphasized: 1) new media have several characteristics that differentiate them from traditional forms of media and shape intercultural conflict, providing benefits but also creating challenges not encountered before; and 2) traditional theoretical explanations of the relationship between media and conflict are inadequate for explaining the role that individual and group characteristics play in intercultural conflict in the digital age. Certain theories are discussed in relation to the second point. Overall, the chapter proposes questions that could advance research in this emerging area.

Towards Realizing Twenty-First Century Skills

Metacognitive capabilities are the core of the “soft skills” we have come to know as twenty-first century skills. However, there is good evidence, both empirical and anecdotal, that metacognitive capabilities are not well developed even in university graduates. Given the recognition of the necessity of such skills in enabling full participation of individuals in modern society, and in enabling humankind as a whole to continue to move forward in positive ways, the need to better nurture the development of metacognitive capabilities is pressing. The massification of education and the widening participation of people in higher education means that formal education can more greatly influence and shape people's learning capabilities. Given appropriate instructional design of experiences, education has thus great potential for setting people up to continue effective learning throughout their lifespan. Developing metacognition requires designing instructional experiences targeting not only discipline requirements but also deliberately scaffolding the development of metacognitive capabilities as an integral component of the discipline.

Assessing Intercultural Sensitivity and Effectiveness

This chapter examines adult CSL (Chinese as a L2) learners' intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness while studying in a university in Beijing. Seventy-four international students from various countries answered the intercultural sensitivity scale (ISS) and intercultural effectiveness scale (IES) as well as other scales in the present study; eight participants were informally interviewed. The findings indicate that the participants were moderate in terms of intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness, that intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness were generally and significantly related to each other, and that students' intercultural sensitivity and effectiveness levels were not statistically correlated with their background variables. Based on these findings, some implications are therein discussed.

Dealing With Cross-Cultural Issues in Culturally Diverse Classrooms

This study examines the extent to which faculties receive support in their coping with the challenge of cultural differences in their international classroom. The authors explore this relationship in eight business schools in Dutch research universities. These cases offer an in-depth description of the problems encountered in cross-cultural interactions, such as development of monocultural groups, lack of proper foreign language understanding, and stereotyping. They also discuss potential solutions in terms of language training, cultural awareness training for both teachers and students, institutional support, and the business school's rationale for internationalization.

International Family Configurations in Tokyo and Their Cross-Cultural Approaches to Language Socialization

For children raised in a primarily monocultural setting, where their passport or “home” and their residential or “host” countries are the same, the knowledge/skills developed in one area may be applied in the broader contexts of their lives in a gradually more complex and fulfilling manner. Some of the knowledge/skills learned by “cross-cultural children”, however, may be applied in a restricted range of settings and may be of limited use in “other” contexts of living. A prime example relates to “language” proficiency. This may be well developed in the particular language of one context (e.g., English), but not yet acquired in the language needed for a different context (e.g., Japanese). For this exploratory study, face-to-face interviews were conducted with “international parents” residing in Tokyo, Japan. Of the four themes that emerged from the qualitative data, this chapter is specifically focused on one—Language Socialisation—of cross-cultural child(ren).

Target Language, Target Culture

Learning a language must result in becoming competent in a new culture because accessing the culture language stands for and being able to share its cultural content requires learning not just the meaning but also the historical and social background of its vocabulary. Words reveal the linguistic and social behavior of native speakers and give students a full understanding of the target language. This chapter deals with different concerns present in foreign language classrooms, a space where language and intercultural competence must be developed. It describes some linguistic competence-related concerns (Section 1), then it deals with specific intercultural related aspects of grammar and perception which are part of the linguistic competence to be developed in class (Section 2) and it finishes with a general description of three basic ways used in the Spanish-as-second-language (SSL) classroom in order to teach language and culture so as to help students to develop intercultural competence (Section 3).

Designing Assessment, Assessing Instructional Design

Assessment plays a vital role in delivering, evaluating, monitoring, improving and shaping learning experiences on the Web, at the desk and in the classroom. In the process of orchestrating educational technologies instructional designers are often confronted with the challenge of designing or deploying creative and authentic assessment techniques. For an instructional designer, the focus of assessment can be on individual learning, organizational improvement or the evaluation of educational technologies. A common question across these domains is how to translate pedagogical concepts such as authenticity and creativity into concrete practical applications and metrics. Educational technologies can support creative processes and offer connections to authentic contexts, just as well as they can curtail creativity and foster standardized testing routines. The chapter discusses theoretical frameworks and provides examples of the conceptual development and implementation of assessment approaches in three different areas: Needs assessment, impact assessment and classroom assessment.

Instructional Design Technology in Higher Education System

Higher educational Institutions all over the world are grappling with increased student population, several domains of learning and varied disciplines and instructors with varied experiences in using instructional design technologies. The chapter focuses on how it is possible to facilitate instructional design experiences for the stakeholders in higher education for creative learning. The chapter addresses the emergence of Instructional Design Technology (IDT). The role of IDT and its importance in higher educational institutions is studied with current practices in the field. The impact that this field had made in the evolution of instructional frameworks across the different layers of tertiary educational system is studied especially with regard to improving the teaching and learning experiences of educators and students respectively. The role of Creative Learning technologies' is discussed based on the success that these systems have enjoyed in improving instructional design.