Month: October 2022

You can find Zoe’s post here

Hi Zoe,

I love that you have different activities that correspond well with a video. I personally find it hard to interact with just the video so having the Edpuzzle I think it is a great way for students to interact especially younger students. I also liked that you have different ways so that students with barriers are also able to interact the same with the video! I wonder if you have thought about making the kids share how water affects them and what it means to them.

Thanks for your post!

You can find Kathryn’s fourth post here

Hi Kathryn,

I really enjoyed reading your blog! I had the same issue with finding a video that is interactive by itself, the video I found like yours encourages thinking and lists resources students can do to understand better but does not engage the same as a one-on-one conversation. I really like the different assessments you would have to go along with the video and think that it makes the video more interactive by having an activity that corresponds well!
Thanks for your post!

Catriona,

The video I choose demonstrates multiple different ways to successfully study for exams, which coincides with our group’s Interactive Learning Design, Study Habits, and Strategies for Academic Tests. Thomas Frank (2017) demonstrates a user-generated interaction, by using different visual cues like sketches and drawings to help learners respond in a different way than they would if someone were talking in a monotone voice with no intent for cognitive responses. He outlines key points and gives examples that learners can use to deepen their understanding.

Learners are most likely going to respond to the video “Studying for Exams: Crash Course Study Skills#7” by taking notes on the key points that he mentions in the video. However, they can use these notes and apply them to their prior studying skills to see firsthand how their understanding of the topic that they are studying has strengthened. Not only will students notice that they understand the material better, but they will also see a difference in test scores after improving their studying strategies.

After learners have watched the video, I would suggest that the learners have a student interaction by having a conversation with other students listing 2-3 different key points that they agreed on within the video, and 1 thing that they think is either wrong or is up for debate.  After this, the learners would then plan for how to incorporate the points they agreed with into their study plan. This would help solidify the key outcomes that they found in the video as well as push students to use the suggested study styles. Additionally, by talking to other students they can understand how different people interpreted the video and what points they thought were important. This uses inherent interactivity since students are pushed to respond and are put in an active learning situation, ideally, this would be in a classroom setting where teachers can see which groups are participating or not but could be done through discussion forms or in breakout groups where the teachers join different groups to see how they are doing.

This activity would be worthwhile for me because in a classroom setting you can visually see which students are comfortable contributing to groups and which are not. It would be an activity that wouldn’t take very long to realize which students have a good understanding and which ones don’t. Additionally, you would see after the tests which students embraced the studying styles as well, but the conversation provides an indicator before the formative assessment. This could be done with a large group of students as well because again you can see which groups are talking, as well as which group members are talking, versus those that are not. The groups with little participation would indicate to you that those are the students that need help with understanding.

Frank, T. [CrashCourse]. (2017, September 19). Studying for Exams: Crash Course Study Skills #7 [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLhwdITTrfE

Natalie’s blog post can be found here

Hi Natalie,

I appreciated your connection between universal design and Inclusive learning design! I also agree with your plan on recording your lectures and making sure that captions are available for all students, I also intend to do that with my group’s learning design. I like how you included multiple different components on how your group will support students with different needs. I also liked that you mentioned multiple different ways that you are going to support international students as well. Overall I enjoyed reading your blog post and the multiple different ways you have provided to support students!

Jingzhe’s post is linked here

Hi Jingzhe,

I really enjoyed reading your blog post about inclusive design! I liked how you mentioned that your employees would have to go through different training to adapt to new unexpected events. I think that especially when Covid-19 happened there were a lot of teachers that had to go through different ways to teach without having training on how to operate zoom or other changes that happened due to covid. For your current design do you also have a plan for students who have different accessibility issues like providing your lectures online with close captioning, or are you just offering your learning design in person?

Prompt: How can you adjust your planned learning activities to meet the needs of your learners if an unexpected event occurs? (for example, a pandemic arises and many of your employees must now work from home – how will you ensure that they can still do their jobs? What training will they need, and how will you deliver it, knowing they must remain at home?) This is a common discussion thread right now as many schools and universities have made the switch to teaching online.

I think that being able to design for inclusion is a key principle in entering any workforce in today’s society, especially in teaching. Covid-19 has been a good example of how society must remain flexible and supportive to provide people with equity. Universal design learning embraces this by removing the barrier, so we can identify what we need to do to support students instead of just labeling their struggles and adjusting to them. I think especially with my Pod’s topic being Study habits and strategies for academic tests, it is really important that the way we teach this remains flexible and highly adaptive since studying styles vary for different students. It is very important that students are able to learn in an environment that they are comfortable in as well as make sure that all learners can pursue a good quality of education with no barriers. I would make sure that teaching this would be done in person with a live stream zoom session at the same time so that students would still be able to ask questions and join in on class discussions. I would also ensure that the recordings are available after class with close captioning for those unable to attend, or for students to go back and use for a deeper understanding of the tasks. I would also adjust my planned learning activities by incorporating multiple means of representation, multiple means of action or expression as well as multiple means of engagement so that all students will have flexibility in their learning styles that will enhance their learning of the topic being taught. Additionally, by having a flexible teaching style no student is having their learning decreased or damaged. By having flexibility in the different types of teaching styles students can use these resources outside of the intended flexibility like catching up or attending therefore by having flexibility in teaching styles all students will end up better off than if there were no adjustments. Ultimately there is no way to predict unexpected events and I think that when these events arise the best way to approach the adjustments is to be as flexible and open-minded as possible because you never know what each individual is going through or how these changes have affected them.

Samara’s Blog #2 post can be found here

Hi Samara,

I enjoyed reading your post about experiential learning. I like how you related this to your final project and explained the role of how it will enhance learning within people, even if it doesn’t have a big role in your project. Personally I find that I love learning with a hands-on approach and being able to construct my knowledge about something using real-life experiences, I was wondering do you also find that you like learning this way?

Thank you for your post,
Catriona

Mirai’s blog is posted here

Hi Mirai,

I really enjoyed reading your blog! I definitely feel the same way about learning, I learn a lot better when I can relate to the example and the professor gives real-life examples. It sounds like you learn better with a constructivist learning style is this true? I find that with the classes that I have had that use active learning, I can better apply my previous knowledge to have a better understanding of the topic.

Thank you for your post,
Catriona

Gracie’s Blog is posted here

I really appreciated reading your blog post I found it really informative to learn what Direct Instruction System is. I love how you mentioned in which teaching scenarios it works super well but also what its limitations are. I found this really informative because It helped me to realize when I should try to use this aspect of teaching and during which topics. I really liked how you applied it to our project and gave an example of how it applies. I agree with you though that this system of learning would be hard with younger students, with shorter attention spans.

“Inquiry-Based Learning”

Inquiry-Based learning allows students to have a hands-on experience with what they are learning by becoming the experimenter.  This type of learning is hard to do with all subjects but applies well to science and mathematics since you can easily conduct experiments with a hands-on approach. According to Lazonder and Harmsen (2016, p. 681-718), inquiry-based learning has been one of the best ways for students to get a more effective and deeper understanding of the topic being handled. There are restrictions with inquiry-based learning because it is harder to use with younger children since they do not understand some key learning outcomes needed to understand tasks. These key learning outcomes needed are to develop a hypothesis to predict what will happen, the ability to do the experiment, the ability to provide evidence or a reason why this happened, and the ability to reflect and reason based on previous knowledge.  Additionally, many people like the Knowledge Quest Learning blog (2019) break inquiry-based learning into the 5 E’s; engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate, these 5 steps all allow the students to experience the hands-on steps while having a deeper understanding behind the answer.

This aligns with our chosen topic for our blueprint since we are asking students to try new study habits as well as reasons why their previous study habits were not beneficial prior to learn new strategies. When teaching new outcomes, we encourage the students to hypothesize how this study habit will affect them and use previous knowledge to apply why this study habit did or did not work.

This does have a place in our final interactive learning design since students need a deep understanding of study habits to understand how to use them. Additionally, study habits are something that needs to be practiced to understand if they work with your learning style, and the best way to do this is through Inquiry-based learning. Additionally, my group’s interactive learning design blueprint works with inquiry-based learning because you need to understand what the 5 E’s are to learn how to study differently and to affect your learning style.

Lazonder, A. W., & Harmsen, R. (2016). Meta-Analysis of Inquiry-Based Learning: Effects of Guidance. Review of Educational Research, 86(3), 681–718. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315627366

Northern, S. (2019, August,30) The 5E’s of Inquiry-Based Learning. Knowledge Quest. https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/the-5-es-of-inquiry-based-learning/