I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I especially liked how you mentioned that your professor had a guest lecturer brought in that offered to help the students find jobs. I think that meeting people in academic settings as well as professors helping to introduce you to other professions helps younger adults to form their PLN.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I liked how you included both technology-based ways to create a PLN and in-person methods to create a PLN. To add to your in-person method’s I think that overall Universities provide a great way to expand our PLN’s, especially since we are not only interacting with people who are studying the same things as us, but we also can receive input from professors and other higher up members of academia, who can help provide us with knowledge.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I agree with you that since the media industry has intensified, the news is not as accurate as it used to be. Since news is a business, they produce a lot more content that gets them viewers so the content that they post may be a lot more biased to the reader’s views. Additionally, with there being so many different media companies, there is a much higher likelihood that something they post may be false. This is why newspaper credibility is so important because if you are reading information from media that isn’t credible it’s a lot easier to find false information.
Great job on your response! I really liked how you mentioned tone creating conflict. This is something that I didn’t think of, but definitely is a reason why conflict occurs. When you think about media, most media outlet views the opposing view to a matter in a negative way. This could also be because in media it is a one-sided story, you only get their response to the matter, and especially if you are not aware of the bias in media, you may not realize the other side of the story’s counterargument. This I think applies to conflict because a lot of people will repost news articles, unaware of the full story which sparks conflict.
Thank you, Zoe, Kathryn, Alecia, Hannah, and Morgan, for sharing your draft! Â As someone who wants to be a future elementary school teacher, I find this a valuable and an important topic that elementary students need to have all throughout their life. Â Just from opening your notion website I really liked how organized it is, I also liked how your website included a little blurb about each of you and what your contributions to the project were.
I also included a video of your peer review, but below is my peer review of notes and advice
Overview of the resource
I found that the overview of your resource was efficient and explained many of the requirements like your intended audience, how your lessons will be broken up along with the estimated time for each lesson and for the complete unit. I found that these are important pieces of knowledge to know before reading the rest of the resource, and really liked that you included this.
Perhaps you might consider also adding a concise definition of your topic with 2 different academic sources. I know that this was in the description of the topic that we needed for our blueprint, but I do not think that this is on the rubric for the final learning assignment. However, I do think that if you are able to add it as a link it would help others that are not as educated about the topic with a quick insight about your topic.
Rationale
I really appreciated how you have all your rationales sectioned together it made it easy to follow and I liked how you listed which rationales are in this section so that the reader knows.
Description of learning context
I liked how you included which aspects of the curriculum you meet for your learning context, I think that this helps the reader know that you put a lot of thought into this project and it helps guide the readers to also realize why you choose the learning outcomes.
It seems to me that you might want to include a little bit more of a description of your learning context, just because someone who has skimmed the resource might be unsure of what age group this is intended for or why it is important for this age group. It might also be beneficial to include why your group chooses this age group.
Learning Outcomes and Assessment
I thought your layout of the learning outcomes was well done it was clear along with your assessment. I find that your learning outcomes are key and are very well chosen and fit well with the curriculum outline that you provided. I like how you have multiple different ways that you plan on using as assessments for your learning resource so that it ensures that all students understand the topics.
Perhaps you might consider including a final rubric for this learning resource with the weighting and also including which grading scale you are using for your assessments.
Plan for Inclusion
I like how many multiple resources you have available to accommodate for your students. I really enjoyed how you listed collaborative practices that will allow students who need accommodations to not just ask their teachers but also to have them ask for help from their peers.
It appears to me that you have included accommodations for multiple different groups of accommodations. You might just want to include at the top of your plan for Inclusion which contexts from the Interactive Learning Resource you chose so that it is clear to your reader.
Conclusion
Overall, I found your Interactive Learning Resource was done really well, and looks like it is definitely close to being done! I found your learning resource has a really good design I loved how you had it on a different platform that is interactive and user-friendly for kids which is your learning group. I can definitely tell that your group has put a lot of time into doing this project and I am sure that you will be wonderful teachers one day!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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?