Week 3 Post 2

This afternoon I completed the reading assignment on HPT Theory.

I was intrigued by the feedback portion. I am terribly guilty at inserting feedback while watching students' performance. I just want to help and be a good teacher but I can see that their mind cannot process trying to remember what they need to remember to complete the task and the additional load I am imposing on them with my so-called helpful comments. Further down the article, the author advised that having the learner verbalize the procedure while practicing the task improves performance. Overall, the article demonstrated that I should continue reading and researching these issues and using validated best practice methods. The case study reading echoed a real life example of HPT Theory.

After the readings, I did a Google search of HPT Theory. One interesting website simply reviewed "What is Human Performance Technology" by describing the analysis of gaps between current and desired performance and the subsequent interventions undertaken to narrow the gap. Usually this is done in an organization of people to improve business outcomes such as profits or sales. The wording on this website was vaguely familiar. I wonder if they copied the text from one of the professional sites I reveiwed a couple of weeks ago.

Another search led me to an article about a HPT course from a Master's program in Los Angeles. This class had several projects including a webquest on CPT. The main course project was the Instructional Design and Technology students wanting to understand the role IDT can play in solving problems related to the HIV epidemic in Africa. Very interesting project! The article describes HPT in detail and distinguishes between IDT methods. One of the key differences is the focus on problem elimination rather than instructional goals. The remainder of the article focused on the students' development from novice to HPT expert over the course of the semester. I wish the article had more information on the HIV project outcome however it was interesting to read student comments about a course very similar to ours.

http://www.siue.edu/~mthomec/HPTTheory_Stolovitch.pdf
http://www.siue.edu/~mthomec/PIQ_KMCase.pdf
http://www.citehr.com/27958-what-human-performance-technology.html
http://www.calstatela.edu/univ/ppa/publicat/today/pdf/javeriproposal_2008_hpt.pdf