Dawn Sweet

Biography

Manager, Instructional Development Services
College of Education and Human Services | Western Illinois University
Horrabin Hall 113C | 309.298.2993 | DR-Sweet@wiu.edu







At Western, I research and provide a vision for the implementation of emergent technologies into the fields of education and human services. In addition to oversight of technology support and training for COEHS, I provide related workshops and one-on-one consultations with faculty, and coordinates the Faculty Innovators Program. I also write blog posts for the COEHS Technology Insights Blog. My technology specialties include technology integration, mobiles, Web 2.0, virtual worlds, blogs, wikis, social networking, podcasting, online course development, web design, and interactive whiteboards.

I completed my M.S.Ed in Educational and Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Illinois University, where I also earned my bachelor’s degree in Instructional Design and Technology.

Philosophy of Education

As an educator of adults, I believe that one of my central roles is to assist in guiding change for an individual, team or department through the promotion of competence, skill development, and behavioral change while ensuring compliance with standards and societal expectations. I strongly believe that my practices should provide my learners the opportunities to enhance their personal growth and development and self-actualization.  While formalized education may exist to promote societal compliance, participation and change, information education may better enhance personal growth and development to facilitate individual self-actualization, advancement and performance.  I do not believe that one form is better than another.  I think that in order to achieve success in formalized education, which is typically a step in the process of change, informal education must provide an influence. Thus, I believe that informal learning situations are more likely to promote interesting and motivating learning experiences than formal learning experiences.  An adequate mixture of both formal and information learning are likely to provide the most optimal educational experience for adult learners.  Just as different forms of education and educational contexts result in various outcomes, what the student takes away from an educational experience is likely to be very different from what one of his or her peers takes away from that same experience. I feel that the main determinant of learning is motivation. Therefore, learning should be personalized because every learner brings different goals, expectations, and experiences to the teaching and learning environment. I relate with personal investment theory (Maehr & Braskamp, 1986), which states that the amount of time and energy a student decides to spend on a specific task is dependent upon how they interpret the learning situation. Based on this theory I identify that in interpreting the learning situation learners consider the following characteristics, knowledge of the possibilities for their actions in a situation, the consequences that accompany these actions, attributions for past success and failure in similar situations, sense of self-confidence regarding his or her competence in the given situation, and the underlying psychological goals that the person is trying to achieve, and their role within the learning situation.

It is my role to foster an environment that encourages learners to make effective action choices, choose mastery goals that enhance their motivation to learn and initiate action, alleviate predisposed conceptions of self, which may deter learning, and effectively design instructional activities that are not too challenging or too easy in order to promote optimal levels of motivation to learn.  Therefore, I provide learning situations that include a balanced mix of direct and indirect learning,  demonstration and modeling, integration and implementation ideas and examples, group collaboration, individual work, goal setting, self-assessment and formative instructional assessment.  In my formal interactions as an educator I see my role to be one of an instructional designer and a coach, mentor, friend and peer. In my role as an instructional designer I feel that my duties are to design a variety of learning activities, and set a variety of instructional goals that are challenging yet attainable.  My role as coach, mentor, friend and peer occur during my face-to-face and online meetings with my learners.  In these roles I feel that my most important duties are to understand each of their individual needs, as well as, their hesitations in order to accommodate them on a personal level, which should assist in developing an optimal level of motivation that should make the learning intrinsically valuable to them.  Above all else, I want to make certain to my learners that we are on the same playing field. I do not refer to myself and prefer that no one else refer to me as an “expert.” In the field of technology and the process of life we are all lifelong learners who have knowledge to bring, share, and learning in every situation!

I use a variety of instructional strategies and communication styles. My training sessions typically consist of demonstration, hands-on skill development, reflection, individualized study, practice, group investigation and collaborative learning.  With adult learners I always strive to give them ample opportunity to suggest the topics and issues discussed in our meeting in order to allow them the freedom necessary for achieving their immediate needs and goals.  My learners typically have a lot of diverse wants and needs. Therefore, it can become difficult to try and satisfy all of them in one environment. To compensate I often divide the learners into interest groups and provide break out discussions and activities, or I use the individual interests to pose a follow-up collaborative exercise online.  I feel that the on-line collaboration is a way to individualize the training while keeping the outcome open to the group because I can research the request and provide interesting feedback. Additionally, others can choose to join in or ignore the information while the person that has requested it feels a great deal of personalization.

 In my professional development programs the learners are assessed through a showcase of best work (similar to a portfolio) and self-assessment related back to original learning goals as chosen by the learner. I use these types of assessment approaches to try and get my learners totally invested into their own development.  I feel that self-assessment is the best assessment tool for my learners because they have goals to achieve and they are likely the best to judge their own achievements. Also, I believe that letting adults for the most part assess themselves assists in their revision of current goals and development of new goals. I facilitate self-assessment by requiring participants tot list their goals at the beginning of the training program and periodically revisit those goals and discuss their progress intermittently throughout the training program and then again at the end of the program. In some instances I will provide participants with evaluation rubrics and ask that they perform both peer and self-evaluations of their products.

I strongly believe that collaboration and teamwork between learners and instructors if particularly important. Adult learners typically enjoy sharing their life and career experiences and in instances when they are faced with something new and sometimes intimidating such as technology it is effective to build a common ground and work as a team in order to foster and maintain motivation levels of each individual learner.  

However, it is also necessary to build in a series of individual learning opportunities as well; because most adult learners want chances to philosophize, develop, and hypothesize their own learning experiences. I typically structure participants in teamwork or collaborative group exercises when we are learning a concept or skill that is fairly diverse, in which there is little prior knowledge. I feel that the team approach in these situations makes the task appear more achievable than if I were to assign the task independently. When I find a topic or skill that could be construed very differently across the group, or a topic that each participant already has basic knowledge of but needs to learn how to apply it to their own situation I use a more individualized learning structure.

Due to the area of my fieldwork, technology cannot be ignored. I feel that we have embarked upon a time when all adults are going to have to learn how tot use technology.  Adults cannot function well in today’s society without a basic technology competence. I feel that if I as a trainer take a proper mindset I have the ability to reach all of my learners. 

My views on education are based primarily upon my  own experiences and education in life both as a teacher and a learner. I feel that I will operate from this philosophy but that it will continually evolve because it is certain that in one form or another I will always be a lifelong learner and teacher as we all will.  My teaching and learner practices will continue to evolve accordingly with each  new experience.