With the worldwide scramble to move in person classes to remote learning at all levels of the educational systems; we quickly realized that no school system had an emergency backup plan. We saw the gaps in professional, student, and parental preparedness. Infrastructure was lacking to support this sudden and enormous change.
Photo from Education Week
As educators do, we stepped up and began the work needed to make this situation work to the best of our abilities. We worked from a place of reactivity and in some cases, moved mountains to be sure our students’ needs were being met. We found ourselves focusing on Maslow’s lowest tiers and yet we still needed to educate our learners. We couldn’t ignore Bloom forever.
A year into the first shut down in the United States (longer in other countries) we are now seeing research begin flow in regarding this sudden move. The transitions that schools made and how effective they were. We are sharing our lessons learned through both failures and successes. We have seen the emergence of new professional development topics, tried and true methodologies being adapted and new methodologies emerging. Charles Wang (2021) presented a new instructional design model in TechTrends called the CAFE model.
The CAFE model began as an emergency gap measure to assist teachers in adapting their lessons. The guiding frameworks for CAFE were ADDIE, ASSURE, and Systematic Design of Instruction; as was the work of Michael Moore and his three types of interaction. The developer wanted to pare down these systems to keep them as simple as possible and to directly meet the needs of teachers. Therefore, the developers began with a questionnaire to delve into the needs of various grade level and subject matter K-12 teachers. The CAFE framework went through three iterations before the final design as noted above in Fig. 1.
Educational systems are at a threshold for change. The CAFE system was well received but needs further research to gain a stronghold as a new instructional design framework. Often from the ashes of dark times, when our institutions are tested, we see the rise of innovative research. This is a worldwide opportunity to embrace the potential of distance education to better serve all students at all levels.
Leave a comment