Your post on how you will include interactions within your interactive learning resource was very interesting. The video you chose was short yet effective at explaining what is a peer to peer network and how it is related to blockchain technology. I also think that the interactive activity you proposed following watching the video is a great way to get learners to reflect on and check their understanding of the topic they just learned about. While a student/teacher interaction is beneficial in a way that allows the instructor to see if a student is grasping the concepts being taught, I think that student/student interactions would also help students learn more. This could be facilitated in a way such as by having a discussion forum and making students post their explanations of the blockchain onto there. Then, have students reply to at least one other student’s post on the forum. This will create interactions between students as they help each other further solidify their knowledge on these concepts being taught.
Great post on the ways that your interactive learning resource will have inclusive design for groups such as single mothers who work full time and people with hearing loss. A connection I made between your group’s interactive learning resource and our group’s project is that we used very similar methods to design for inclusion. We designed our project to be fully completable asynchronously online and at a learner’s own pace. Our group strongly understood what it feels like to have a busy schedule, and thus by creating a learning resource that is self-paced, those who want to learn but have time constraints can still be included.
Another similarity between our resources is that we included instructional videos that teach learners about about a fundamental concept in our topic. We made sure that these videos had closed-captioning to include learners who have hearing loss. Along with those videos we also included additional resources such as an article with the relative material, so those who learn better through reading or those with hearing loss have that option.
Thanks for sharing your post on open pedagogies! Your explanations and the instructional video you provided made this type of learning design clear. I really like how you provided an example of how you are going to incorporate open pedagogy into your group’s interactive learning resource. I agree with you in the sense that blockchain technology is still a relatively new field and open resources are the best way for those who are interested in getting into how the blockchain works. I have also spent a fair amount of time using open educational resources to learn concepts about programming through the websites such as w3schools and codeacademy. Those websites include tutorials that a user can follow along with to create their own creative project ideas.
I really enjoyed reading your post about your best learning experience and how it was in your new position as a junior account administrator. I can relate to you in the sense that my best learning experience was probably when I did my first co-op work term working at a job related to the field I am currently studying in. It also made me aware of how much better I am at learning when I’m put into a position to get hands-on with my work. I noticed that we are the same when it comes to our learning theories because I am also a cognitivist. The field is of study is computer science and throughout my university experience and co-op work terms I found that there’s a lot of information processing and problem solving.
Our pod’s interactive learning resource is on an introduction to web development. Specifically, learners will be learning about front-end web development which mainly consists of working with HTML and CSS. The video I have chosen is an educational video about the basics of HTML and how it is used:
What activity could you suggest that they do, after they have watched the video (designed)? What type of knowledge or skill would that activity help develop? What medium or technology would students use to do the activity?
After watching this video, we have set up a couple of different activities that the learner will complete. The first activity is a discussion forum where learners will post about one thing they learned from the video. This activity facilitates interactions between student/student as well as student/teacher. Learners will be using Google Groups to complete this activity as it is a open and free platform for creating discussion groups.
The second activity that students will complete is building their own simple HTML web page by following a list of criteria. This activity will help develop coding skills as learners will need to get hands-on and apply the material they have learned. Students will use either a simple text editor program like notepad, or the online code editor we embedded into our interactive learning resource.
How would students get feedback on the activity that you set? What medium or technology would they and/or you use for getting and giving feedback on their activity?
For the discussion forum activity, learners will get feedback from other students as we could encourage replies to other student’s forums posts. The learner will also get feedback through the instructor if they have a question which can be answered. Feedback will be given through replies to their forum posts.
For the creating a HTML web page activity, learners will get feedback by sending a screenshot of their HTML code and resulting web page to an instructor through e-mail. Instructors will give feedback to the learner by telling them whether their code meets the require criteria through e-mail.
How much work for you would that activity cause? Would the work be both manageable and worthwhile? Could the activity be scaled for larger numbers of students?
The discussion forum activity would not cause much work as learners are simply posting about what they have learned, so it would definitely be manageable. This activity can also be scaled for a large number of students as its only a matter of posting to a discussion forum and sharing what they have learned with other learners.
The creating a HTML web page activity would require a bit more work as the learner still may have trouble understanding coding. However, this activity would be very worthwhile for the learner as the best way to learn how to code is to be try it for themselves. This activity would be somewhat difficult to scale for a larger number of students due to having not enough instructors if they want to receive direct feedback. Nonetheless, the activity would still be a great learning experience for the students as they can reflect and apply what they have learned.
How will you address any potential barriers for your learners in the use of this video to ensure an inclusive design?
To address potential barriers and ensure inclusive design, I made sure that the video includes closed captioning for learners who might have hearing loss. These closed captioning subtitles can also be auto-translated to reduce the learning barrier in the case that English is not the learner’s native language. In addition to this, the video I chose has an reading article version of it, so for learners who prefer to read over watching a video they have that option.
How will your interactive learning resource specifically ensure that the needs of all learners can be met?
We have designed our interactive learning resource in a way such that it meets the needs of learners from a variety of backgrounds. Firstly, our interactive learning resource is a free online open course hosted on a google site that is accessible by anyone who can access the internet. The course is also compatible with and can be completed on any smart phone. This removes the barriers of needing a computer to access our learning resource. Furthermore, the course can be completed asynchronously, as all the learning materials were sourced from distributed and open learning sources. This allows for those who might have time constraints from working full-time or are busy for other reasons to complete the learning resource at their own pace. We’ve also carefully organized our learning resource into units and sub-units with numerical labels, and have included a table of contents, as well as, a navigation bar on the side of the website so learners can easily pick up from where they left off. Within the learning materials are a variety of multi-media learning resources such as educational videos and articles related to the course material. We ensured that for the sub-units which include instructional videos to also include additional resources in the unit such as educational articles. This is to accommodate for those who might have hearing loss and so videos would not be suitable.
Experiential learning is a process where students “learn by doing” through hands-on experiences and reflect on those experiences afterwards (Boston University, n.d.). Experiences are frequently designed so that learning requires initiative and active participation from the learner. David Kolb’s (1984) approach to experiential learning separates this process into a 4 stage cycle – concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. When a student engages in a concrete experience, they encounter something new or interpret a previous event in a novel way. During reflective observation, the student then reflects on their own experience. They consider the significance of this experience through the perspective of their own understanding and knowledge. Abstract conceptualization occurs as the learner generates new concepts or alters their thinking in response to the experience and their subsequent reflection on it. Active experimentation occurs when a student applies new ideas to the setting to see whether any adjustments are necessary. This procedure may be carried either quickly or slowly, depending on the circumstances.
How does it align with our chosen topic?
Experiential learning aligns with our topic as we intend to give hands-on activities to our learners. Our interactive learning resource is about front-end web development and will teach concepts such as HTML and CSS. The activities our learners will complete involve applying the coding concepts they will learn while going through the learning resource to strength their knowledge.
References
Experiential learning » center for teaching & learning | boston university. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bu.edu/ctl/guides/experiential-learning/
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Describe an example from your life of when you were taught using each method described in this article: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism.
Behaviorism:
From the reading, we learned that behaviorism is a learning theory in which emphasizes that learning occurs through repetitive interactions with the environment and constant feedback responses. The most common example of this type of learning theory is positive reinforcement. To elaborate, positive reinforcement refers to when responding to a certain behavior with a positive stimuli. I remember an example of a time when I was taught in such a way was back in grade 3 of elementary school where our teacher gave us a reading log. Every time we spent an hour of reading we would get a sticker indicating a slot on the log was filled. When a student would completely fill out a reading log, they would get to choose a reward from a box containing all sorts of goodies like toys, pencils, erasers, etc. In my example, the behavior learned was reading more books while the positive stimuli was getting the stickers and choosing a reward when completing a reading log.
Cognitivism:
In contrast to behaviorism, cognitivism places emphasis on the idea that learning happens best when an individual processes the information and stimuli that they are exposed to. Utilizing mental skills including problem-solving, memory, and information processing, students are asked to think about and assess their responses. Cognitivism is frequently used by creating connections and ties to previously learnt information. An example of a time where I learned using the cognitivism learning theory was when I was trying to learn Python (a programming language) through the website w3schools, which is a freemium education platform. I had previously learned Java (another programming language) by following the tutorials on their website and found that they structured their courses in a very similar format. This was helpful when learning the new programming language because I was already familiar with how they organized the course units, and in addition there were some overlapping concepts between both the programming languages which allowed me to learn faster.
Constructivism
According to the constructivism learning theory, knowledge is created by individuals based on their own experiences. Learners will construct their own representations of the world when they interact with it and think back on it, adding new knowledge to what they already know. Personally I have experienced learning through constructivism during my computer science co-ops. While I certainly did learn a lot through my computer science courses, it impossible to cover everything and a lot of the time we are learning about the theory and not actually able to apply the concepts we learn about. For example, I had a basic grasp of databases from my lectures prior to my co-op, but I had never been taught how to directly work with them. Throughout the co-op term, I had to work with many different databases , and I learnt a lot better by becoming more hands-on and building knowledge based on my experiences.
References
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71.
The interactive learning resource that I reviewed was “Language Arts: Poetry” by learning pod 5. My review will be based off of the criteria as defined in the assignment outline.
My first impression of your group’s interactive learning resource was that it was very well organized and easy to follow along. The overview page gives the learner a clear idea of what they can expect to learn about from your learning resource, as all your topics and sub-topics are listed there. The only feedback I have for this section would be to perhaps talk about some background of poetry.
I thought that the use of the Know/Wonder/Learn chart was a great way to get a diagnostic assessment of your students, as well as allow them to reflect on what they already know.
My filled out Know-Wonder-Learn Chart
The learning resource also does a great job explaining each topic and sub-topic. I especially found that the structuring of your literary device section was well-done, as it first explains the literary device then gives an example of each. Your way of making learners come up with examples of each literary device on their own also makes the learning resource more interactive and helps learner’s reinforce their understanding.
Examples of literary devices I came up with while following along
I thought that it was interesting how you added some gamification to your interactive learning resource by designing the Kahoot quiz in your first activity. The score board factor of this technological tool adds a fun aspect to learning about this topic, as learners can compete against each other for higher scores.
The second topic of your group’s learning resource was also structured in a way that makes it easy to understand. The use of videos explaining the different types of poetry is an excellent way to incorporate a wide range of multimedia to your learning resource and make it more engaging.
The Google Forms quiz for your group’s learning resource was a great formative assessment that could give learners an idea of how they are progressing through the course.
The Venn Diagram activity does a good job at getting learners to apply higher order thinking skills, as they will need to take the material they’ve learned and use it to analyze the two poems provided.
Completed Venn Diagram based off the activity
I thought that the final activity of getting the learner to create their own poem was a great way to end the interactive learning resource. All the material being taught was leading up to this point, and providing the learner the opportunity to get hands-on and create their own original work is fitting wrap everything up.
Some final pieces of feedback/recommendations:
It seems to me like your interactive learning resource is missing a few required sections, namely:
A description and rationale of the learning theory of your resource
A description and rationale for the learning design you chose
A description of your learning context (clarify who your learning resource is targeted towards)
An overview of your plans to design for inclusion of diverse learners
A rationale for your technology choices
A reference list
For the second topic of your group’s interactive learning resource, there were videos that were included for the learner to watch. Perhaps you might consider adding non-video learning resources in order to design for inclusion of learners who might have a loss of hearing.
Overall, I really enjoy the content of your group’s interactive learning resource and it definitely helped me learn a few new things about poetry, as well as refresh my memory on some of the material that was taught. I thought that the progression of the learning resource was very well designed and followed the Bloom’s taxonomy framework. Amazing work everyone!
My name is Lyon and I am a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science. This is my final semester at the University of Victoria and I’m excited to be finishing my degree very soon. I am taking EDCI 335 as a senior elective because I found the course description to be very interesting, especially regarding the design aspect of the course. I hope to learn some useful skills from this course and apply it towards my future career goals.
I look forward to interacting with everyone in the class!
Recent Comments