Month: July 2023

Learning Pod : #8

1 – Identify components of the Interactive Learning Resource that might be missing (e.g., appropriate outcomes, alignment, interactivity, inclusivity, technology use and rationale, presentation, grammar, spelling, citations, etc.).

I have to say that your pod has done a great job! I got great inspiration you’re your resource. However, I found some components might be missing. Firstly, learning structure (Behaviourism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism) is not clear. I understand you consider the differentiated levels of ESL students from 14 to 18. But the tasks are varied a lot from wordpress about own experiences to CANVA presentation. In addition,  Bloom’s Taxonomy breaks students’ cognitive processes in six levels, respectively remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. As it is shown in the interactive learning resource, it should include more remembering and understanding sections to check if students have mastered how social media impacts generation gap. In addition, since resource tools are almost based on online technology, you should pay attention to the students’ privacy online. Students can choose to share their wordpress or discussions to the public or to the classmates only. In addition, settings of discussion replies is necessary. You can add peer discussion timetable, teacher-student meeting schedule or emails in this assignment. This provides students ways to solve problems and get assistance.  

2 – Provide a summary of The Interactive Learning Resource’s strengths and weaknesses. Draw out specific examples from your peers’ work to justify your feedback.

Strengths:

I really enjoy reading the layout of the each module, since it is well organized with clear titles. Students find it easy to click every button for different contents. The learning theory is emphasized to be inquiry-based design. Students would get to know how to learn properly. As for the assignment, instructions are clear and rubric for evaluation is presented.  For example, in the assessment section, instructions like “watch videos” and “read the article and participate in the quiz” enable students to learn step by step and do the assignments.
Weaknesses:

Although different resources are included, students might need some examples to follow especially in the tasks. Since the students are ESL, they can learn from previous role models to get better improvement. In addition, you forget to set the grades of the assessment and tasks. Students can arrange time and energy in every assignment based on the rubric and ratio. For example, in the rational for assessment section, you can add recommended student level and grade ratio. In addition ,after I read the article about digital distortion, there is a quiz below. When I click in, it shows “invalid game code”.

3 – Provide general, specific, and practical recommendations to your peers on how to improve their Interactive Learning Resource.

1 Add teacher-student meeting schedule or approachable emails for students to ask questions.

2 Make sure what kind of learning structure is used in this resource.

3 Add pictures and other visual elements to arouse the students’ interests.

4 Include examples of the tasks in order for students to reach the expection.

5 Assign privacy/public button for students to choose

6 Restore the “invalid game” problem

Hi Rosina,

I think you are right that when teachers ask students to watch online videos, understand, state and summarize, students are actually experiencing interactive learning. After teachers make use of different videos or images in class, they should also think about the assessment tools. As you say, you recommend teachers to guide students reflect the learning contents and finish the related practices. At this point, learning designers can make use of technology-mediated tools, such as H5P quizzes or games. Also, I agree with you that Google Classroom is a very useful to announce students’ learning tasks and after-class assignments. Teachers can analyze the data and have a good command of their previous understanding about the learning contents.

1. How do learning designers think about interaction in online environments?

I am very impressed that new learners are engaged with learning related to innovation, problem solving and network (Barak, Watted, Haick, 2016). Therefore, interactions are very important to inspire learners to think deep and positively and solve practical problems with online tools. When designers design the assignments, they can observe or pre-survey the students first, and then guide them to learn the contents. In the next step, designers should think about the communication or discussion part, which allow students to share their ideas and get new ideas from others. Finally, a self or group reflection is a good way of interaction to impress them with the learning contents in the class.  

• How do learning designers encourage and assess interaction?

It is important for learning designers to encourage and assess interaction. I think designers should make use of some multimedia to support active learning, such as Energy 3D, Pressbooks, Discord and so on. Among all of them, I am interested in H5P most. It is convenient for teachers to develop various media content, including quizzes, presentations, games and so on. Also, there are a range of templates and teachers can customize according to students’ level and interests.

• What experiences have you had with interactivity in learning environments? How did the interaction (or lack of interaction) affect your learning? Your enjoyment?

Personally I have many great experiences with interactivity in learning environments. Last semester, I had a class about designing a mini course. I focused mainly on the traditional activities and assessment in the first draft. I designed some listening activity and vocabulary notebook assessment. However, these designs were not in a distributed or multimedia way. Therefore, I totally changed these activities and revised them in a mutual online method, including Google Form and H5P quizzes. From the valid feedback, these interaction designs are effective and improve students’ learning interests.

• How would you ensure learner-teacher, learner-content, learner-learner, and learner-interface interactions? 

Based on Vrasidas (2000), the four types of interaction are very important, including learner-teacher, learner-content, learner-learner, and learner-interface. They are fundamental processes for learning since they require students actions and responses in learning. As for learner-teacher, teachers should guide students to think, brainstorm, learn and output the knowledge they have learnt in the class. For example, after learning traditional drama skills, teachers can assign students to perform a short drama show based on the skills. As for learner-content, teachers can combine text with background music or visual videos. Visual and audio elements help arouse students’ interests in learning. As for learner-learner, teachers can provide students different interactive communities, through which students can learn actively and conveniently. As for learner-interface, teachers should keep the learning website or platform concisely and easy to click in. Students can easily click any instructive column to find anything they need, such as grades, contents and tools.

Reference

Barak, M., Watted, A., & Haick, H. (2016). Motivation to learn in massive open online courses: Examining aspects of language and social engagement. Computers & Education, 94, 49-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.11.010

Vrasidas, C. (2000). Constructivism versus objectivism: Implications for interaction, course design, and evaluation in distance education. International journal of educational telecommunications, 6(4), 339-362. https://www.vrasidas.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/continuum.pdf

Hi Rosina,

I am very impressed that you consider different kinds of interactive learning resources to solve different problems. You are right that all these designs are to improve and perfect the learners’ learning experiences. The Google Docs resource is what we used in this course to effectively achieve the assignments in this course. Group mates can upload their ideas before the due time we have discussed in the meeting. And then peers can learn from others and then contribute to the discussion. Generally speaking, interactive learning resources are beneficial for students to engage actively and express their ideas effectively.   

Hi Summer,

I totally agree with you that the “scaffolds” are important in learning designs. It requires teachers to represent the instructions or requirement in steps, just as construction workers build the scaffolding of a building higher and higher until the building is strong enough to stand alone. Actually for me, scaffolds are the temporary assistance by which a teacher helps a learner to know how to do something, so that the learner will later be able to complete a similar task alone. For example, before the class, the teacher can show students a related video, and asked them warm-up questions. These scaffolding steps can arouse students’ interests in today’s class topics.

【Universal Design Principles】

Universal design for learning emphasizes on providing multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression in the process of learning. It is a framework designed to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people (Cast.org).  That is to say, Universal Design principles can definitely help develop a quite equitable and inclusive learning environment for all students in the classroom.

As we have watched in the required video from TEDx, I realized the importance of  “banning the average” and “designing to the edges.” I am extremely shocked about the research about the average pilots that no one is the same on every dimension. Therefore, the idea of an average cockpit for the pilots is totally wrong. When it comes to our classroom, it is the same situation that teachers cannot have an average lesson plan for the students. When teachers have inclusive design, they have take “banning the average” and “designing to the edges.” into consideration. Banning the average means that teachers cannot design unified standards or assessment for the whole class. Rather than designing for all the students, teachers should consider the edge students and design several assessments to accommodate as close to the “best” and the “worst”, or we say, the highest level and the lowest level.

【Inclusive Desgin】

Based on the CAST website, teachers should follow the steps to design an inclusive class.

Firstly, teachers should make clear that we have already identified the teaching contents. For example, to use multiple means of representation, we could provide written instructions as well as provide a video with verbal and visual instructions. This allows students to understand the information in various ways.

Secondly, teachers can plan out the term timeline and tell students what they need to achieve or understand each week. And in every class, Universal Design principles are beneficial too. Teachers can allow students to work on a worksheet and provide different ways for students to engage with peers and teachers.

References

https://udlguidelines.cast.org/?utm_source=castsite&lutm_medium=web&utm_campaign=none&utm_content=aboutudl