Week 2 Reading - LCMS Systems

After reading the articles about LCMS Systems, I remembered an experience I'd had several years ago when going through the certification program to become a teacher. I was not an education major, so I had to meet several education requirements in order to earn my permanent teaching certificate. I chose to participate in Alternative Certification Program (ACE) offered by my county. This program was taught by national board certified teachers, and required completion of approximately 60 tasks divided into 12 competencies.. In many cases the project required a lot of busy work, but state requirements made the task necessary.

I was fortunate enough to be part of a trial group that was offered an optional nine-hour test by a University. This test would identify which of the 12 competencies I was lacking in and which of them I was not. The test went even further to assess which of the individual tasks under the competencies needed to be completed. Upon completion of the test, I was assessed as being competent in the majority of the competencies. I had only 17 of the original 60 tasks to complete in order to apply for my teaching certificate.

I believe that the test was a form of assessment in an LCMS system. In the article by Bill Perry on training professionals, he discusses some of the benefits of using an LCMS. These included increased efficiency, reusing content, reducing training time, meeting compliance, and delivering learning on demand (Perry, 2009). The amount of time saved by eliminating the majority of the tasks from my requirements was significant. It also saved the teachers grading my tasks time. The content in the assessment was specific to the competencies and could be used again and again. By passing the assessment, I was able to meet state requirements. Less time was spent in training sessions, because I no longer had to attend classes where I had tested out of the tasks. I received a personalized outcome, and was able to focus on my weaknesses, and work toward improvement.

This assessment fits in the definition of an LCMS system by recording each students progress, score, and reported the information back to the instructors. Ryann Ellis stated that, "an LCMS gets the right content to the right people at the right time" (Ellis, 2001). The value of tests like the one I took are immense.

Ellis, R. (2001). LCMS roundup. Learning Ciruits. August, 2001. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20071012195821/http://www.learningcircuits.org/2001/aug2001/ttools.htm

Perry, B. (2009). Training professionals gain agility and power from LCMS technology. Learning Circuits. Retrieved from http://www.astd.org/lc/2009/0309_perry.html