EDCI 335 - Riley Brooks

Hi Danae! I thought you did an excellent job at highlighting how students could interact with both this learning material (video) and their peers using a relatively straightforward activity. I especially liked that you pointed out that enabling students to share their experiences with anxiety may foster more understanding for one another. Additionally, I appreciate your idea of the instructor compiling the most common themes to share with the class. Thank you for your thoughts!

Post 4

Hi Taiya,

I enjoyed reading about how we could adapt our learning resource to better align with the principles of UDL. I thought your idea of beginning the course with heavy student support and tutorial that could gradually be lessen as students gain skills and understanding was a great way to both account for the different comfort levels our students may have with online learning, while fostering self efficacy. I also appreciated that you would like to provide students options as to how they will express their learning. Finally, I really liked that you highlighted the importance of incorporating culturally responsive materials which represent and pertain to students from all backgrounds. Thank you for this insightful post!

Post 3

Hi Amira,

Thank you for your post! You did a great job of indicating how a pandemic or unforeseen event may pose barriers to students in our interactive learning resource. I especially appreciated that you highlighted that moving to an isolated learning environment may raise students anxiety. This is important to note since our learning resource is designed to help provide students with the knowledge to help identify and manage anxiety!

It was great that you brought up how providing different formats of content can help students with a multitude of different learning styles best adopt the material. I also thought your suggestion of a technology training session would be immensely beneficial as given the age of our learners, many students may not have prior experience with online classes and the nuances of the formats they use such as Microsoft Teams.

Blog Post #3

Hi Taiya,

I really appreciated the time you took to break down the open-pedagogy learning approach into all its essential components. I thought you did a great job at explaining the nuances of the open pedagogy framework. I enjoyed reading about how this learning approach can align with our interactive learning resource topic. I think it’s really interesting how students can participate in such a broad range of learning activities using open pedagogy. It was great to see that using this approach can allow for students to directly reflect on their own experiences, but also encourages them to do their own research and exploration to share with their peers and the community. It seems really supportive of students making their own connections and expressing their learning creatively. Great work!

Post 2

Hi Sophie!

I thought you had a really comprehensive explanation of cooperative learning in your blog post. I really appreciated how you highlighted that cooperative learning can be effectively used for the topic of our interactive learning resource, as students will be able to work with one another and likely all be able to contribute first-hand experience to class or small group discussions.

I thought you made a really good point about how there is potential for students to be hesitant to engage in group learning situations with a sensitive topic like anxiety, but you pointed out the importance of a positive classroom climate to help mitigate this potential discomfort. Thank you for your insights!

https://sophiemurphy10.wordpress.com

Hi Danae!

Thank you for sharing this story. I thought the connection you made between your experience and constructivism was quite insightful. Parents often do play a large role in supporting us as we gain independence and you are very right that this experience is reflective in many ways of an apprenticeship. I don’t think I would’ve made that connection myself so I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on the matter. I also enjoyed reading about your experience with the behaviorist learning design and how the financial behaviors you changed were reinforcing through the positive impacts they were having on your situation.

Post 1

Completed by Group 1: Danae Bennett, Amira Davey, Taiya Scorey, Riley Brooks, Sophie Murphy

Aspects we liked: 

• I like that you are targeting an under-discussed health-related topic and aiming to educate individuals on the risks and benefits of the supplement industry. I especially like the activities you have laid out, I think they are very interactive and will encourage learners to dive deeper into the subject. 

• Your learning topics are very insightful! Many learners could benefit from understanding how to critically evaluate supplements and determine their validity. Your models of assessment are constructed well and I look forward to seeing your final product.

• You did a great job highlighting the lack of regulatory oversight in the supplement industry and its risks to consumers. The learning outcomes were clear and well-connected to the main idea, keeping the resource focused and cohesive.

• Your content is well thought out and addresses a critically important topic that many individuals, including myself, do not have much prior knowledge of. I appreciate that your group has a broad range of activities that you are planning to develop for your learners, to support different learning strengths amongst your students. 

• Awesome! The topic is very intriguing and I like the variety of activities that can engage the students rather than just testing them. This would really help the student think critically and place their knowledge in a real life setting.

Areas that could use improvement: 

• Looking through your project, I am noticing that there is no description of sub-topics, lesson plans, assessment plans, or examples for assessments. It may be beneficial to revisit these topics and incorporate them in your final project. 

• In your final project, it could be helpful to include some images or text variations to enhance learner engagement. 

• While the content is thorough, the learning activities could benefit from more clarity and connection to the learning outcomes. For example, interactive tasks such as “Fact or Lie” and “Marketing Tactic or Scientific” seem like awesome activities but lack detail in the instructions for execution and alignment with the learning outcomes. 

• I have noticed that your group has included links to many research articles and grey literature! This is great, however I am curious as to if these are resources that students are expected to overview as part of homework or after-class readings, or if they will be used by your group as literature to inform your class modules. 

• I think your project could benefit from a little more instruction on how the students will complete the activities or how to complete them. The ideas are there and they seem great! 

Suggestions and/or constructive feedback: 

• I think your ideas for this project are great and I am very interested in the materials you have chosen. There is a lot to learn about the supplement industry. One suggestion I would make is to come up with sub-topics and lesson plans to make your learning resource more digestible for learners. Overall your ideas are clear and well thought out. I am interested to see the final results of this project. 

• Your project introduces an important discussion regarding the regulation and validity of supplement marketing. Adding some small adjustments, such as adding text variations and images, can ensure that learners fully engage with your content.

• Your project could benefit from detailed instructions or examples for the interactive activities to enhance their practical application. For instance, provide a clear structure for the “Fact or Lie” activity, such as how groups will collaborate, what criteria they should use to identify facts, examples and lists of “facts and lies”, and how the activity will be reviewed or assessed. This will ensure that the activity is clear to whomever is leading the class.

• It may be beneficial to outline which readings specifically you would like your learners to do outside of class and what they are to be used for. For example, are these resources for students to use when working on activities or are the readings supplemental research to deepen student understanding? Additionally, you might consider creating a grading rubric or assessment criteria of sorts in order to assess students’ work on your proposed assignments. This may better enable your group to efficiently seek evidence of your students learning in alignment with your learning objectives. 

• Your project could use some more instruction as there is not much. I think the lessons would flow smoother if there is clearer guidance and could ensure the students are getting as much knowledge as possible rather than trying to understand the activity entirely. In doing so this can help the students engage quicker and for longer.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpolpKTWrp4

Please watch the video linked above that was chosen to be included in our group’s interactive learning design project. Though this video does not directly ask students to respond in a particular way, there is an innate interaction between the student and the learning material. Our group has chosen to design a course for teens about anxiety in adolescents. This means that since it will be teens who are viewing the video from Anxiety Canada (2019), students are likely to reflect on the material in the context of their own mental health experiences. Additionally, since our students will be given quizzes and a unit exam that covers all course content, students will likely make notes or summarize the video in order to make studying easier. These would all be considered learner-generated forms of interaction since they do not involve a direct interaction between the learner and fellow students or an instructor, yet still an interaction between the students and the course content (Bates, 2019). 

An activity that students could do after viewing the video includes working together in breakout rooms of about 3 students to identify a time in each group member’s life where they have personally seen anxiety to be adaptive. They might then have a small activity such as creating a mindmap or visual representation of their experiences. They could also add in feeling or emotional descriptor words that come to mind when they think about the word ‘anxiety’. 

This activity would not be graded, and further, be more directed towards getting students to reflect on what they have just watched and discuss their ideas with their peers. That being said, students might still receive a participation mark and feedback from the instructor. Feedback from instructors is extremely important when automated answers or feedback cannot be given (Bates, 2019), such as the case with this activity. Moreover an instructor could give groups feedback through a printed medium, such as email, assessing the quality of their answers and offer further examples that were not identified by the group. Additionally, an instructor could join a breakout room or zoom call with any group that is struggling to generate ideas, or understand the benefits of the assignment.

This activity would be manageable regardless of class size as each individual student will bring a different perspective and there are no “right” or “wrong” answers. I believe this activity may be a worthwhile assignment as it gives youth a potentially new perspective on anxiety that they can work to reconcile with their prior thoughts and feelings. It would be a somewhat substantial amount of work for an instructor as they will have to read through each group’s mind map and reflect on the effort that students have contributed towards its completion. Additionally, it is important for instructors to remember that they would be marking students efforts to visually represent their reflective ideas related to the video that they have watched, not simply how “good” the visual representation itself looks. However, in terms of giving students feedback, I believe this is still a manageable workload. Therefore, by completing this activity, students will have interacted with the content, fellow students, and the instructor. 

References 

Anxiety Canada. (2019). Fight Flight Freeze – Anxiety Explained For Teens [Video].YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpolpKTWrp4

Bates, A, W. (2019). Interaction. In Teaching in a Digital Age (Second edition). Pressbooks

Universal design, an essential concept to the inclusion of diversity, is characterized by designing architecture, structures, concepts and products that are usable to the most number of people possible without further revision (Burgstahler, 2009). Furthermore, universal design is primarily about ensuring that what is designed makes everyone’s lives easier, instead of simply designing for a specific need (Kim & Jeong, 2020). Another example of universal design in engineering is flexible seating that is moveable and has a variety of options to accommodate individuals of varying physical abilities, heights and weights (Bilt, 2023).

The example of universal design in seating can be used to inspire universal design in a learning context in a number of ways. For example, a course with a universal learning design may implement flexible due dates (for instance an assignment is due on Sunday, but everyone may turn it in until Friday without penalty), which would allow additional time for students with diverse learning needs, but also for students who are working, and students who have personal matters come up. I have previously taken a course which has implemented this option and it was very helpful for both myself and a number of my peers over the course of the semester. 

Additionally, a course with a universal learning design may offer a variety of project options that students can choose from to demonstrate their understanding of course material. Examples of such projects may include art pieces, digital design, community involvement, group work, or more traditional writing projects. I am a psychology major and many of the courses I have taken expect students to write a term paper. This may be difficult for students with dyslexia, students who are still learning English, or students who simply do not enjoy writing or find the process stressful. Moreover, term papers might not always be an accurate representation of how much many students have truly learned over the semester. By allowing students to choose a medium that they enjoy, students may be able to better convey the knowledge they have learned, regardless of their writing ability. 

Overall, we can take inspiration from the flexible seating universal design in engineering to reflect on how learning design can be adapted to serve the maximum number of students and not trap learners in a one-size-fits-all course structure.

References

Bilt. (2023, July 14). Universal Design Principles And Construction. Bilt by Jaffer. https://www.bilt.ca/2023/07/14/universal-design-principles-and-construction/

Burgstahler, S. (2009). Universal Design: Process, Principles, and Applications. DO-IT.

Kim, J. S., & Jeong, B. Y. (2020). Universal safety and design: Transition from universal design to a new philosophy. Work (Reading, Mass.), 67(1), 157–164.  

Kim, J. S., & Jeong, B. Y. (2020). Universal safety and design: Transition from universal design to a new philosophy. Work (Reading, Mass.), 67(1), 157–164. https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-203261

Direct instruction is a learning strategy characterized by presenting information to students in a straightforward manner then allowing them opportunities to subsequently apply their knowledge (Chase & Klahr, 2017). Direct instruction usually includes breaking down knowledge, instructions, and complicated tasks into a series of smaller, clearly stated, steps (Gersten, Woodward, & Darch, 1986). This learning strategy provides a number of advantages including potentially reducing the cognitive load of students (Chase & Klahr, 2017), minimizing the potential for students getting off-topic during instruction, and enabling teachers to better determine where specific learning misunderstandings occur during lessons (Gersten, Woodward, & Darch, 1986). Nevertheless, the direct instruction learning strategy may present drawbacks such as limiting individual students’ abilities to make connections to the material (Schwartz et al. 201, as cited in Chase & Klahr, 2017).

The direct learning approach can be effective when teaching about anxiety in teens, which is our group’s chosen topic. For instance, since our course is designed for secondary-aged students, this may be the first time many participants are encountering psychological principles or studying anxiety in depth. The direct learning approach should generally minimize any assumptions that students already have knowledge or an understanding of the given curriculum (Gersten, Woodward, & Darch, 1986). This means that using the direct learning approach, providing comprehensive, basic information about anxiety in adolescence is of utmost importance. It should also be broken down appropriately into manageable modules.

Furthermore, it is important to allow students to then utilize this information, sometimes referred to as “tell and practice” (Chase & Klahr, 2017). This may include giving students a practice worksheet where they will need to apply the knowledge they have acquired during class to help solve a specific problem. Additionally, learners can apply their knowledge through quizzes and tests. This would allow teachers to identify which specific aspects of the course content are not being proficiently learned by students, and enable instructors to give feedback to students. A teacher using the direct instruction learning approach may then repeat instruction or demonstration of a concept that is difficult for students (Gersten, Woodward, & Darch, 1986). 

Overall, this approach would present potentially new information about anxiety to students in a straightforward and clear manner. This approach may be effective in covering the most potential information, broadening students’ understanding of anxiety. A drawback of this approach, especially for this course, is that many students may have personal connections to the topic of anxiety in adolescence and the direct learning approach may limit student’s ability to contribute to the class or enhance the connections they could otherwise make.

References

Chase, C. C., & Klahr, D. (2017). Invention Versus Direct Instruction: For Some Content, It’s a Tie. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 26(6), 582–596. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-017-9700-6

Gersten, R., Woodward, J., & Darch, C. (1986). Direct Instruction: A Research-Based Approach to Curriculum Design and Teaching. Exceptional Children, 53(1), 17–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440298605300102