Month: June 2023

Inclusive learning is an essential part of learning designs, as it ensures the availability of the resources and learning materials, and helps the learners to have similar learning experiences and achievements as other learners with different prior knowledge or accesses.
My interactive learning resources consist of two parts: an online YouTube video and an online reading article. The YouTube video has subtitles and other accessories like pause, replay, change play speed, etc. Those features allow learners to get learn at their own pace. The subtitles in the video meet the need of learners with hearing disabilities, people who might need to watch the video muted, or learners that are still learning English. The online article is good material too, since it is an article people could translate it into the language they are comfortable with. However, it can still be improved. The “scaffolds” are important in learning designs, and I think I should add them to our design. For example, we should add instructions or add a rubric at the top of our BrightSpace page. The instructions would help learners to have a brief look at the steps we are about to go through, and it helps learners to have a clear guide. Another scaffold is to upload recorded lectures for those who are not comfortable with readings. The recorded lectures will give the same level of knowledge as presented in the readings.
The assessment in my learning design is a BrightSpace quiz, it is suitable for learners during unexpected events — a pandemic. Students have the ability to access the learning materials and assessments even when they have to stay at home.
Besides curb cuts, there is one universal design in engineering, and that is the new rotatable desk in UVic. It has a rotatable desktop that both right-hand writers and left-hand writers could use, and people only need to switch the desktop to the other side.

Direct Instruction is the most common use of approach to the learning environment in the old days. With the development of learning strategies, direct instruction continues to be proven less effective for learners, but it is still commonly used by a lot of teachers. There are 5 key principles(fundamentals) of direct instruction(Cox):

• All children can be taught.
• All children can improve academically and in terms of self-image.
• All teachers can succeed if provided with adequate training and materials.
• Low performers and disadvantaged learners must be taught at a faster rate than typically occurs if they are to catch up to their higher-performing peers.
• All details of instruction must be controlled to minimize the chance of students’ misinterpreting the information being taught and to maximize the reinforcing effect of instruction.

Those principles stated that every student was placed at the same level and was given the same level of education. Direct Instruction was found less effective because not every students have the same prior knowledge and background, or the same learning rate. 

I think direct instruction aligned with our group topic. In our design, the course of introduction to the use and impact of AI is an online course on BrightSpace followed by live courses. It is inappropriate to say that an online course uses fully direct instruction, but it somewhat uses this strategy as the teacher gives the same, clear, well-structured knowledge to every student in the course. Also, we have synchronous online courses in learning design, and that is no different from a face-to-face course. Furthermore, our course strictly followed the steps of direct instruction(Lucie,2023):

1. Introduction. Our first subtopic is to give introductions to what is AI

2. Present the new material. We have five other subtopics to give new information(the use and impact of AI) to learners.

3. Guided practice. We have discussions and debates as practices.

4. Feedback and Correctives. We will BrightSpace forums to provide feedback to learners.

5. Evaluation/Review. We have quizzes as assessments to check if learners meet the expectations.

References

Cox, C. (n.d.). Basic philosophy of direct instruction (DI). National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI). https://www.nifdi.org/15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=27

Lucie, R.(n.d.). Direct instruction – A practical guide to effective teaching. BookWidgets. (2023, March 24). https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2019/03/direct-instruction-a-practical-guide-to-effective-teaching#:~:text=Direct%20instruction%20is%20a%20teacher,guided%20instructions%20to%20the%20students.

If we consider the scenario of a high school teacher planning a class on climate change, learning could be designed very differently by three approaches.

As a behaviorist, the teacher focuses on the stimuli and the consequences. For example, the teacher could make flashcards with one-to-one pairs of what causes climate change. The emissions from manufacturing goods cause air pollution, or the greenhouse effect cause the temperature to raise, or the lack of forests causes the lack of nature’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide. To make the students learn the knowledge, and perform better in exams(taking the exam is an example of stimuli and response), the teacher might give them previous exams and answers as practices and cues of linking the causes of climate change. I would say that behaviorism focuses on doing the correct thing using the previous templates as examples. Also, it relies on one-to-one pairs as A will always led to B, therefore, further learning and development are not provided.

Cognitivism, on the other hand, focuses more on how students learn the causes and the consequences of climate change, and how to store the knowledge. The teacher might make mind maps to make the students think and connect the cause and effects of climate change by themself. More importantly, the teacher focuses more on the students than on teaching. If the mind map doesn’t work for some students, the teacher will think of another way such as storytelling. The main idea of teaching in cognitivism is to let the student make the connection, instead of simply giving questions and answers.

Constructivists are the type of learning designers who believe that learning is best by actually doing, and linking the experience with the previous knowledge and experiences. As a teacher trying to teach climate change in high school, he/she might have a class outside of the classroom, and let the students feel and think about the cause and effects of climate change. Take them to the nearest forest, or the factories that produce emissions, and the teacher could let the students do some experiments about greenhouse gas emissions. Constructivists emphasize the ability to develop a way of studying and apply the ability in future studies.