Hi Sandra,
Good find on the video Designing for Diversity! It really helps the readers of your blog post to receive information in various forms. I like your two designs for two different groups of learners with specific needs.
The design for English language learners to be able to copy and paste so as to translate the texts into their first language to help with understanding does sound helpful and easy to do.
The second one however, I’m not sure if the no due date design would lead some of the learners to procrastinate till the end of the course when they have to do everything just to finish the tasks in time. And would it be better to still keep due dates for tasks and tell the learners that they could submit their works late but there will be a, say 10% deduction in the score as penalty so as to push them to try to finish everything in time as much as possible?
Looking forward to hearing from you if you’d like to talk about my suggestion! Best of luck!
Hi Xinyi,
I really enjoyed your story of learner Orlonia, as well as the extended thoughts on this case. The design of yours to meet the learners needs is also very specific and thoughtful. I’m amazed to see the detailed design of your survey for each learner and the the questions that help you figure out the learners different levels of literacy. Although on that note, I think it would also require a lot of work and time from you to read through every survey of the learners and then put them into different categories. Would it be helpful if you could have a category of different levels of literacy of the learners first, and then design your survey based on that to categorize the learners into different levels. It could be like a placement test and it would also give students advice on what they can read or do to improve their literacy based on the results they get from the test.
Tell me what you think and good luck!
BLOG 1
Sandra Wang’s article on how to overcome learning challenges. As an international student, this blog is her personal experience. Language difficulties and cultural barriers are the main difficulties faced by international students.
Xinyi’s post, she shared the learning experience of learning GRE vocabulary, reasonable use of root affixes, according to her experience, reasonable planning and combined with previous knowledge, can better remember and understand the next vocabulary.
BLOG 2
Sandra’s post pays great attention to students’ learning effect. Her post is experiential learning. The main body of the experience is the students, and the teacher is the auxiliary role, hoping that students can integrate into the curriculum, so as to achieve the best learning effect through the students’ experience.
Xinyi’s blog is about a famous cooperative learning method called jigsaw puzzle. The jigsaw puzzle method is proposed by Elliott arenson. It focuses on group cooperation to complete the task, hoping to stimulate individual potential through cooperation, and at the same time to explore the personal sense of responsibility, which is of great help to students’ future work and family, and also stimulates students’ communication ability.
BLOG 4
The video screen selected by Xinyi expresses the interactivity and Inspiration of body in teaching, which is very attractive to students, just like the answer of Q4, the teacher answers the students’ questions, and the students should know how to change, which is the essence of education.
On Sandra’s interaction design, I don’t agree with her point of view. Education doesn’t rely on cold notes and books to learn the core things. The best result of education is to let knowledge flexibly enter your work and life, while the flexible interaction between teachers and students is to make it easier for students to understand knowledge.
Hi Sandra,
Good find on the video Designing for Diversity! It really helps the readers of your blog post to receive information in various forms. I like your two designs for two different groups of learners with specific needs.
The design for English language learners to be able to copy and paste so as to translate the texts into their first language to help with understanding does sound helpful and easy to do.
The second one however, I’m not sure if the no due date design would lead some of the learners to procrastinate till the end of the course when they have to do everything just to finish the tasks in time. And would it be better to still keep due dates for tasks and tell the learners that they could submit their works late but there will be a, say 10% deduction in the score as penalty so as to push them to try to finish everything in time as much as possible?
Looking forward to hearing from you if you’d like to talk about my suggestion! Best of luck!
Hi Xinyi,
I really enjoyed your story of learner Orlonia, as well as the extended thoughts on this case. The design of yours to meet the learners needs is also very specific and thoughtful. I’m amazed to see the detailed design of your survey for each learner and the the questions that help you figure out the learners different levels of literacy. Although on that note, I think it would also require a lot of work and time from you to read through every survey of the learners and then put them into different categories. Would it be helpful if you could have a category of different levels of literacy of the learners first, and then design your survey based on that to categorize the learners into different levels. It could be like a placement test and it would also give students advice on what they can read or do to improve their literacy based on the results they get from the test.
Tell me what you think and good luck!
https://sandraccw.opened.ca/inclusive-design/
https://thechefa.opened.ca/prompt-inclusive-design/
VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/61OzhSrgsd8
Q: What kind of interaction would the video require from your students? Does it force them to respond in some way (inherent)?
A: The video doesn’t require any interaction from the students. They only need to sit tight and watch the 5-minute video, while thinking about the illustrations of the 4 tips the video presented. It would be ideal for them to think about how the 4 tips work in practice.
Q: In what way are they likely to respond to the video on their own, e.g. make notes, do an activity, think about the topic (learner-generated)?
A: The students would be likely to pay close attention to the video and take some notes on the tips given. And I would expect them to take notes on the advice, the 3 rules, as well as the 4 tips that are shown in the video. After the video they would think about how the content of the video is related to the topic in our course: leadership skills. They would probably also have some questions to ask after watching the video that can be thrown out for everyone to discuss during our later course.
Q: 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?
A: After watching the video, I would like for the students to write a post on a forum created for this course. The post would include 2 parts. In the first part they would have to present at least one question they had during or after watching the video. The question has to be related to the video and the topic of our course. It could be about the 4 tips provided in the video and it has to be one that hasn’t been answered in the video. In the second part, the students are expected to write 3 things they have learned from the video. But they are expected to not only copy what was listed out in the video, but also what was said in the video that make them think about improving their own leadership skills, or at least what they can start doing now that would lead to their improving their skills later on. And then they would read and reply to the other students posts. Each student is expected to reply to at least 2 other students.
The activity would help the students with their critical thinking as well as they skills on communicating with other people in terms of giving feedback or suggestions to their posts. And they could use whatever electronic devices to get onto the forum to post and reply to their classmates.
Q: 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?
A: The activity would need me to monitor the students on their posting and replying to other students. I would need to check the forum once or twice in the whole activity giving guidance and feedback to the students. It would be manageable and worthwhile, for I can do the feedback as long as I have the internet connection and a electronic device. And it could be scaled for larger numbers of students because checking posts and replies should be an easy job.
Note: sorry, when I insert youtube, the display editor can’t complete the operation for many times, so I can only put the video URL in blog, I’m very sorry.
Huatian He
VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/61OzhSrgsd8
Q: What kind of interaction would the video require from your students? Does it force them to respond in some way (inherent)?
A: The video doesn’t require any interaction from the students. They only need to sit tight and watch the 5-minute video, while thinking about the illustrations of the 4 tips the video presented. It would be ideal for them to think about how the 4 tips work in practice.
Q: In what way are they likely to respond to the video on their own, e.g. make notes, do an activity, think about the topic (learner-generated)?
A: The students would be likely to pay close attention to the video and take some notes on the tips given. And I would expect them to take notes on the advice, the 3 rules, as well as the 4 tips that are shown in the video. After the video they would think about how the content of the video is related to the topic in our course: leadership skills. They would probably also have some questions to ask after watching the video that can be thrown out for everyone to discuss during our later course.
Q: 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?
A: After watching the video, I would like for the students to write a post on a forum created for this course. The post would include 2 parts. In the first part they would have to present at least one question they had during or after watching the video. The question has to be related to the video and the topic of our course. It could be about the 4 tips provided in the video and it has to be one that hasn’t been answered in the video. In the second part, the students are expected to write 3 things they have learned from the video. But they are expected to not only copy what was listed out in the video, but also what was said in the video that make them think about improving their own leadership skills, or at least what they can start doing now that would lead to their improving their skills later on. And then they would read and reply to the other students posts. Each student is expected to reply to at least 2 other students.
The activity would help the students with their critical thinking as well as they skills on communicating with other people in terms of giving feedback or suggestions to their posts. And they could use whatever electronic devices to get onto the forum to post and reply to their classmates.
Q: 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?
A: The activity would need me to monitor the students on their posting and replying to other students. I would need to check the forum once or twice in the whole activity giving guidance and feedback to the students. It would be manageable and worthwhile, for I can do the feedback as long as I have the internet connection and a electronic device. And it could be scaled for larger numbers of students because checking posts and replies should be an easy job.
Hi, Mickayla Beckett, Molly Cunningham, Sarah Tedford, Breanne Woogman
Thank you for sharing your interactive learning resource draft (“Learning Design for Technology-Mediated Environments” – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mCJj23zdmmMhxryQGGA4emN7eulOCm24PhaffLtnYYs/edit). I reviewed the whole course thinking myself as a student, and I think your design of the course has a very clear structure and the topic is both interesting and useful.
I think your overall plan has shown what we have learned from the class. The overall design and the structure are clear and logical. I like it that you started from the theory to design, and then questions and the learning outcome. It gives your design of the course a very specific and clear goal to work on and every step seems to be in place.
The design of your lessons as well as their corresponding assessments are very detailed and they compensate one another. As a student taking this course, I would feel comfortable doing the assessments for they are assessing exactly what I have learned in class. But for this part I also have some suggestions that I will put in my following post.
Designs for inclusion are detailed and as far as I can tell, they are very inclusive. What amazed me is that your design that contains both text and visual components not only benefits students with particular sensory and perceptual disabilities, but also makes it easier for other students to comprehend using multiple ways to access the knowledge.
But as for some details, I think your group could work on the content being manageable and understandable for the students’ age. Whether the tasks given to the students match their age psychologically can sometimes be overlooked. For instance, in assessment 2, the worksheet given to the students only has a few words which leaves a very large space for the students to fill in. Maybe your group could work on thinking whether the students at that age are able to do this task after one lesson on adjective. Also think if this task can be a bit frightening to 4-grade students even though it looks completely manageable for us. I have personally tutored some primary school students before and sometimes what we think are easy for us can be confusing to them, and they do need much guidance through out a task that require much creativity.
My suggestion on this is that for the first 1-2 questions， give them sentences that leave a few words in blank so they could fill them in using what they learned. Then, for the next 1-2 questions, leave half of the sentence blank so the students can use the pattern from the former sentences to answer the questions given. And for the last few questions, leave more blanks or use the 3-word hint and ask the students to make sentences using these word and the patterns from their previous answers.
I hope my suggestions are helpful for your learning design. And I do hope to see your revised version. Good luck!
Huatian He
Prompt: How will your interactive learning resource specifically ensure that the needs of all learners can be met?
Background: I would like to use a specific example, which is again, my experience in learning about coffee to illustrate this prompt. Roasting coffee beans is a skill you could take courses on and the primary purpose for a beginner on roasting coffee beans is to know about the coffee roasting curve. The curve shows the temperature of the coffee beans when roasted in an oven and the curve is THE factor that records the development of the beans in the oven and could be used later to analyze the taste of the coffee.
There is a group of learners, with some of them worked as baristas but no experience in roasting, some having zero knowledge in coffee, and a few who have had some experience in roasting without knowing the theory behind it.
My interactive learning resource would include the basic knowledge of coffee tasting. How a cup of coffee tastes and what makes it how it tastes. This part will be a simple chemistry class mainly talking about particles and their tastes (sweet, bitter, sour, salty) and will involve coffee tasting. For learners with experience, they could describe more flavors and get to know why those flavors are shown in a chemical level which will be useful in later roasting. While for learners with little or zero experience, this could be a simple tasting class that gets them to know simple flavors from coffee in a chemistry level.
The next part of the interactive learning resource would be the roasting. With all learners on the same level of knowing that we want coffee beans to have certain flavors (sweet, sour, bitter and sometimes savory) by roasting them, the roasting curve is introduced. And related parts of the oven that they could manipulate to control the curve will be introduced. Students are asked to apply the knowledge taught on how to control the oven, to roast the same beans with the curves given by the teacher. 4 curves will be provided.
The second part ensures that all learners’ need can be met because everyone gets the same information based one the first part and same tasks are given.
When the second part completes the students will be asked to taste the beans they roast and apply the knowledge given in the first part, which is analyzing the flavors. Then based on the flavor differences, they will discussion why they think the beans have different flavors when different curves are used when roasting. The teacher will reveal the answer at last.
The last part ensures that the needs of all learners are met because all tasks are given based on their previous learning content. Learners with more experience would apply the roasting skills to get the flavors they want using the roasting curve as they already know much about the flavors. And learners with less experience would still meet the basic need of knowing what a roasting curve is.
Inquiry-based learning is a student-centered learning style. It starts from questions. The students have to figure out the questions by themselves through self-investigations and self-learning.
There are 5 basic characteristics of inquiry-based learning (“How Inquiry-Based Learning Can Work in a Math Classroom,” 2017).
Inquiry-based learning is process focused. Students are internalizing conceptual processes when they solve problems by themselves. The process to solve the given problems should the focus, not the results.
Inquiry-based learning requires investigation skills. The questions to be investigated may be developed on the content of the class or questions the students come up with.
Inquiry-based learning can involve group learning, where students help each other during the process that gets them to arrive at a solution by sharing and building upon each others ideas.
Teachers act as monitors. Teachers are actively moving from group to group to make sure the students’ understanding. Teachers also need to correct any misconceptions spotted from the students.
Students are solving the problems based on real life. This helps them to both see the real-life problems in a theoretical aspect, and understand the problems more easily based on their own real-life experience.
Inquiry-based learning is a very good approach for learning our topic on successful leadership styles. Leadership styles are real-life based and practical skills to learn through experiencing and solving problems based on real-life cases. They are students-focused, for students have to be the center in figuring out the solutions. There could be more than one answer and the students need to work with each other, learn from each other and finally arrive at a solution.
In our designing for the topic on successful leadership, there are discussions that include students working with each other on given topics. Teachers would monitor the discussions and answer any questions to be raised. We think this helps the students to think independently and gives them the freedom to investigate on related matters. This aligns with the inquiry-based learning approach and we think this approach could be the main approach in our topic learning design.
Huatian He
References
How Inquiry-Based Learning Can Work in a Math Classroom, Spetember 08, 2017，from https://academicpartnerships.uta.edu/articles/education/inquiry-based-learning-math-classroom.aspx#:~:text=5%20Characteristics%20of%20Inquiry-Based%20Teaching%201%20Process%20focus.,problems%20that%20have%20a%20meaningful%20life%20application.%20
[Prompt: Share a story about your best learning experience (could be a formal course or something more personal). Why did you enjoy it?]
One of my best learning experiences is when I took a course on being a barista. I enjoyed it because I like drinking coffee and I have spent a lot of time exploring different coffee shops to try new flavors. Learning to be a barista gives me a whole new aspect on coffee for I get to see it from the inside. It solves questions like how a cup of coffee is made, how the espresso machines work, why do americanos and pour over coffee taste so differently when they are both made from grind beans and hot water, etc.
So naturally, I became so interested in this course even before it had started. And when I attended the first class I enjoyed the experience even more because I found out that the latte art and pour over coffee making has a lot to do with my education background: mechanics and chemistry, which I also enjoyed learning in high school.
Latte art is how heated milk foam interacts with espresso coffee in order to make beautiful patterns. It is more like fluid mechanics in practice. The shape of the cups and the pitchers (which are used to steam the milk) also has a lot to do with the forming of the patterns. The professionals even use 3D modeling software to figure out the best shape of a pitcher. Pour over coffee is very chemistry oriented because the barista has to experiment on the temperature of the water, the amount of water used on given weight of coffee beans, the way to pour water over the coffee grind, and the time of the brewing process, to find the best way to extract the flavor of one kind of coffee beans.
This learning experience became one of my best experiences because it is a topic that I am already very interested in and curious about, and willing to take classes on. And it is relevant to what I already knew so I could extend my knowledge on mechanics and chemistry to coffee, making it easy to understand yet challenging enough to stay focused. And throughout the course I got the answers to the previous questions I had on coffee and at the end, I got the certificates as well as skills on coffee making so I could create and explore new coffee flavors on my own.
Huatian He
Hello, I’m Huatian he, a freshman in UVic social sciences. I’m an international student from China. Because of the relationship of covid19, I’m studying in UVic in China through online courses.
I like football and history very much. Through football, I can realize the importance of teamwork. History can witness the glory and desolation of a country.
I hope I can learn different knowledge in EDCI 335. Thank you.
Huatian He
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