Thanks for sharing this great video. Affordable housing is such an interesting but surprisingly complicated topic, and the video you selected did a fantastic job of explaining it in simple, understandable terms. I agree with your second point – this resource packs a lot of info into a short time. But, as you mentioned, it does provides a perfect starting point for teacher and class discussions around different concepts that can be pulled from the video. This is such a hot topic, making it a great one to discuss and hear varying opinions on, and for that reason I really like your activity and method of feedback.
Thanks so much for sharing your interactive learning resource! I really enjoyed reading through the mini unit you put together, and took a lot of good info and ideas away from it.
As I worked my way through the resource, a couple points came up that I thought would be worth sharing:
Worksheets
Assuming that this is a resource to be shared with colleagues or other teachers, it would be helpful to have the worksheets displayed as a full page, perhaps as appendices, so that they are easily printable/photocopiable. The worksheets themselves look great, especially the “Create your own monster” one, but are not very user friendly at their current size. If these are worksheets that you’ve created, it’s also worth being mindful that they will likely be printed or photocopied in black and white so some of the pictures may not show up as well.
Tech Resources
Speech-to-text offers a great option to help meet the needs within your learning contexts and for those students who prefer to use it. The rationale for this tech choice is well thought-out and makes sense. I do have trouble seeing how Education.com fits meaningfully within the lesson, though. In the rationale, your group mentions that games through this site will prompt engagement and offer practice, but other than using this as an “extra” for when learners are finished with their tasks, I don’t see anywhere else that this fits into the lessons. If games provide intrinsic motivation and get learners to better engage with the content (Why Games?. n.d.), it could be an idea to add them in as a more substantial part of a lesson. Additionally, browsing through Education.com I can see that it has tons of fabulous content, so maybe offering links to a few suggested games or interactive resources that you feel fit best into the unit would help make more sense of this technology choice.
Learning Outcomes & Assessment
In terms of learning outcomes, all of the goals identified look realistic and fitting in relation to the subject matter. When translating these into the assessments, I’m not able to see where learning outcome #1, “Students will be able to effectively identify descriptive language in text”, is being represented or assessed at all. It would be worth adding a quick description in the assessment portion of your document to mention how this would be done, or taking look at it from the Backwards Design framework to see where it could fit into the lesson.
Overall, this was a thorough and useful resource for what sounds like a fun lesson. Thanks again for sharing!
Our group’s interactive resource is exploring measurement and perimeter. It was surprisingly tough to find a half decent video on the subject on YouTube, but this video covers the concept of perimeter well and presents it in a relatable way.
What kind of interaction would the video require from your students? Does it force them to respond in some way (inherent)?
While this video is interactive in that it asks questions for students to think about (how to find the perimeter of the examples), it is not inherently active. Seconds after the problem is introduced, which I believe would be designed interactivity, the video begins solving the problem. This does not leave a real need (or much time!) for students to do it themselves unless the teacher were to pause it.
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?
The video above acts as an introduction to perimeter, which would fit into the third lesson in the Interactive Learning Design best. The lesson introducing perimeter, accompanied by this video, could lead into an activity where students begin by finding the perimeter of measured or partially measured shapes. Then, using prior knowledge from the last couple lessons on measurement, they couple use their rulers to find the perimeters of objects around the classroom. The first part of this activity would be a way to check that students are understanding how to calculate perimeter. The second portion would be them applying it with their own measuring skills.
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 activities?
The two parts of the activity mentioned above would be assessed formatively. Both being through learner/instructor, probably a worksheet or something similar, would help see if students are on the right track as far as their understanding with the material goes. Feedback would be given verbally in order to prompt and discuss new thinking if needed.
How will you address any potential barriers for your learners in the use of this video to ensure an inclusive design?
The video already includes subtitles, which is a nice addition for the students who benefit from reading what is being presented. The nature of it being an online video means that it can be paused at any time, which could be beneficial to use if we’re watching as a class, leaving time to pause, clarify, and discuss after certain parts. If students are watching it individually on Chrome Books, for example, then they have the option to pause or rewatch in order to get a better understanding of the concepts being covered.
References
Bates, A. W. (2019, October 10). 9.6 Interaction. Teaching in a digital age (2nd ed.). https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/chapter/pedagogical-roles-for-text-audio-and-video/
Yin, O. Y. [Ong Yie Yin]. (2020, April 14). BrainpopJr: Perimeter [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzV-tUnqbFM
I know I already responded to one of your past blog posts, but I couldn’t help responding to this one as well because I love the ideas you offered for the activity in your learning resource! Having students be capable and comfortable in their sense group is a wonderful idea. Similarly (and the way I actually initially read your idea), learners could break into groups of 5, with each group member identifying their assigned sense. Learners that face certain limitations can take on a sense that is doable for them. That way, as a team, they are working together to “complete” the 5 senses, each taking on an equally important role in completing the set. Then, they could discuss their findings in their smaller groups before sharing in the class discussion.
At our last meeting, our learning pod was discussing the contexts that we will be including in our Interactive Learning Resource. With most of us being in the BEd program, we chose to focus on scenarios that we would likely see often in elementary classrooms. A variety of learning and cognitive disabilities were discussed, all of which we have seen in our observation classrooms or schools we’ve spent time in. We also explored scenarios that can arise when a student is ill or not present for an extended period of time.
Reading this week’s content, I was struck how much I could identify from our discussion in the Universal Design for Learning material. Like the example of the curb cuts benefiting more than the wheelchair users they were designed for, our brainstorming turned out the same results.
For example, we discussed the potential of having a learner with dyslexia in the class. Through an interactive online platform we selected to be a part of our resource, we explored options to help a learner with dyslexia be able to utilize our resource to the fullest. This involved ideas like embedding audio recordings of the written materials on the slides for learners to use if they wish. Using videos with audio was another version of this same idea to remove the barriers they may experience. As we continued to explore offering audio in a variety of ways, a group member brought up that this may also be beneficial to an English language learner (ELL) who might be more confident working with spoken English rather than written. And, of course, audio would be hugely beneficial to a student with a visual impairment. By the end of our discussion, it was apparent that a single learning support could benefit more than just the student(s) it was put in place for.
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at OU. (2017, July 25). Universal design for learning (part 4): Representation strategies [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TVKGvnGPoA
Thanks for taking the time to find such a great podcast and highlighting key points from it! I gave it a listen and really gained a lot from what Jennifer Gonzalez presented. I thought it was interesting, and incredibly helpful, that you chose to focus your blog post more on difficulties and potential unwanted outcomes of this style of learning. We often hear about the benefits of it, but it’s so important to consider all sides of what we’d be diving into as future educators. Along with this, I always appreciate learning guidelines that can help make teaching successful, as you’ve offered with Gillies five components. Cooperative learning has always struck me as being a straightforward but effective approach, but I can see now that there is more to it if we really want to make the most out of it!
Thanks for your post about cooperative learning! You mention a few times about the idea of student responsibility – being responsible for their own contributions to the group, for their their own learning, as well as their groupmates contributions and learning. This seems like an effective way to boost student motivation and get students actively engaging in their learning.
As I was reading your post, I did pause as I hit these two ideas: “Students are separated into a small group, each group contains three to four members… each group should contain high achievers and low achievers” My question that rises from this is: Does this mean cooperative learning always needs to be fully organized, with groups being specifically selected by the teacher to meet these guidelines? I agree that these may be the best parameters to ensure the maximum cooperation and learning, but will learning still happen with more/less students in a group, or if students were to select their own groups?
It sounds like this type of learning could fit great in your blueprint. I’m so looking forward to seeing your final learning resource!
Open Pedagogy, also known as Open Educational Practice (OEP), has yet to be boiled down to one concise definition. Breaking it down to its simplest parts:
“Open” is in reference to Open Educational Resources (OER), which are educational materials with an open license and/or in the public domain. (UNESCO, n.d.). “Pedagogy” is the way in which content is taught (Murphy, 1996). Piecing those together, we can deduce that open pedagogy is educators using OERs to assist in the learning process. Many scholars identified the goal in this style of pedagogy to be that these OER resources can be used to foster active and involved learning (Schuwer, 2017).
For more information on OERs, check out this quick video that explains them in further detail (SMU Libraries, 2019)
To define its characteristics in more detail, Bronwyn Hegarty (2015) offers eight attributes that make OEP successful.
(Hegarty, 2015)
Participatory Technology The media selected and how the content is shared is key in ensuring participation. Example: blogs, forums, social media.
People, Openness, Trust A positive, open, and trusting environment must be established in order for learners to feel safe engaging online with the content. Negative experiences through Open Resources can be detrimental to the learner(s) personally, as well as lower their openness to the technology used.
Innovation and Creativity Technologies should be used not because they are new, but because they are meaningful to the content being taught.
Sharing Ideas and Resources Being active in and understanding the technology as a teacher will help you aid, connect, engage, and get the most out of the OEPs being shared with students.
Connected Community Selecting social online communities that are meaningful will help boost participation.
Learner-Generated Allowing learners to take the lead, problem solve, and work together to produce content. Reflective Practice Teachers and learners working alongside one another with the OERs allows for reflection from both parties. Peer feedback (similar to our community contributions) also facilitates reflection in the content learners are engaging with.
Peer Review The nature of using open resources and peers being socially connected leads to learners being able to regularly review their peers’ work. This helps build the normalcy and comfort around having one’s own work on display to be critiqued.
How This Approach Aligns With Our Blueprint & If it Has a Place in Our Interactive Learning Design
Our pod’s blueprint topic, a grade 3 math unit about perimeter, could be a candidate to employ this type of pedagogy. While we have not specifically laid out the details of it, during the planning stages we had discussed the idea of incorporating online resources into the lessons and activities. We also rely heavily on group discussions and problem solving which, after looking more into Hegarty’s (2015) attributes, could help further elevate these areas that are already present through the use of OERs. The biggest hesitation I have is thinking of how to implement OEP successfully in a younger elementary age group. In the end, I think it will boil down to us weighing the online capabilities of the learners with the OERs and online tools we are able to find, ultimately determining whether we think OEP is a beneficial approach to take.
The story you tell in your blog about your difficulties in math class being turned on their head is so familiar. It’s not that the exact same scenario happened to me, but the way that you and your dad changed a once difficult task into being relatable and therefore more digestible, is a trick I can remember from my own high school learning, specifically in the the maths and sciences. This technique, in a sense, shifts the learning from being behaviourist to more cognitivist or constructivist, by taking the information you’re expected to know and creating connections to make sense of it. From the example you gave, and from personal experience, it’s pretty incredible the power that these kinds of connections can have in creating that “Aha!” moment!
You wrote, “I think it is hard to break away from a behaviorist learning theory completely, but I believe it should only be used at appropriate times” and I could not agree more. The example you gave of the colour card system in your class was on par with the type of behavioristic approaches I remember from elementary school, and often still see in schools today. Your link between this approach and discipline is spot on and, circling back to the quote above, is the reason I agree it should be used so selectively. While there is a place for behaviorism in teaching and learning, I like your justifications and connections to personal experiences for why you feel more drawn to the other two approaches.
Upon reading this week’s articles, one prompt stood out as a good starting point to base my thoughts and questions off of: What is one idea from the readings or videos that you disagree with, and why? I will preface this discussion by stating that, it’s not that I disagree with a point, but rather question it based on my prior knowledge on the subject… (Could this be an example of why learning is hard?)
In Chapter 11, Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, of Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology, authors Ertmer and Newby mention the idea of not being able to restrict teaching to only one theoretical approach and to select from the options based on the particular situation. While this idea and it’s rationale makes sense to me, during the reading I found myself struggling with behaviorism as one of the options presented.
Having just finished up ED-D 301, Learners and Learning Environments, and EDCI 303, Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Canadian Education, these theories are fresh in my mind, although in a different light than presented in this week’s article. Based on my knowledge built up during these two classes, I have come to view behaviorism in a negative way. When looking at the effects this kind of teaching can have on elementary school learners, their motivation, their needs, and the relationships this approach fosters, just to name a few, I can’t help but feel like behaviorism is not a great method to choose, even if it “fits” the best and there are some benefits to learners. In contrast, the authors present it in a far more neutral, almost clinical way that did not get into the deeper psychological side of it. I understand that online teaching environments are a whole different ballgame that I am still working through and learning about, and that this approach may be more suitable in this venue, but this juxtaposition between what I thought versus this new presentation of the same theory created an information roadblock that I got quite hung-up on.
The realization of this contrast in the context of technology mediated-learning, an area I’m not hugely confident in, has left me wondering how the three learning theories mentioned in the article translate differently to an online environment.
I’m Megan. A BEd student going into my 3rd year of Elementary Education. So far, in this journey to become a teacher, I’ve taken great interest in outdoor and art education, which is where most of my volunteer and past/present related work lies. Outside of my status as a student I am also an avid baker (which can be seen from my past EDCI 336 blog posts), a hobby quilter, and a mom to an energetic two-year-old.
I’m really looking forward to this course as, despite taking classes online for the past year, online learning and technology is still a touch out of my comfort zone but something I’m eager to learn about and improve upon.
