Author: summer

Hi Hazel, I really like your post! You shared a lot of ideas about how important interactions are in learning design, and you also gave me some your own experience about the interaction in your past course. You also gave detailed thoughts about the four types of interactions based on Vrasidas, thank you for your sharing!

Hi Stephine, thank you for sharing your ideas about inclusive learning. You provided great points about inclusive learning in your learning design, including setting up asynchronous format and discussion content. I really like your inclusive part about the online discussion session to help students with disabilities to avoid potential negative perceptions of others, your design shows that you really think a lot about inclusive learning! Also, great choice of the reference!

I strongly agree with you about the example that you made(the Chinese middle school), behaviorism is definitely very useful and effective when it comes to exam-oriented education. Given stimuli and the response is a quick way of rote learning, and I personally think it is effective. I believe that cognitivism is more suitable for students to have the ability to structure a system of learning in their minds so that even when they forget the response of the stimuli, they could figure it out again using the mind map in their memory.

Hi Xinrong, this is an impressive post. You provided a brief introduction to what inquiry-based learning is, and you provided tons of examples of how this approach aligns with your subtopic. The samples were so detailed, it looks like you did tons of research before hand, and you know your subtopic well. You also connect the approach with one of the three learning designs together, this is awesome.

I typed “AI in your phone” on YouTube and choose “10 INSANE AI Apps You NEED to TRY!” by Sam Beckman since it is highly related to my topic. In this video, Sam provided 10 apps we can download on our phone that contains AI, and those apps are incredibly useful in our daily life or at work. For example, he introduced an app called Starryai, which can generate artwork based on the prompt we type in.

The interaction required from the students would be to ask them to download 1 to 2 apps listed in the video and try to make some work using those apps. They would likely follow the instructions in the video, and produce their work. I would suggest they create similar work as shown in the video, to let them get familiar with AI apps, but no need to force them to learn deeply about each app, because my learning objective is to help students to recognize how AI is used in our phones.

This activity is manageable and worthwhile because the only thing they need to complete the activity is their phone. Also, learning by doing is a great strategy for students to learn and feel the usefulness and coverage of AI. This activity could be scaled for larger numbers of students, because it is not a group project, and it is an asynchronous activity.

After they tried those apps, I would like them to submit their AI generated work to BrightSpace, and also conclude some similarities about those apps. For example After they tried those apps, I would like them to submit their AI-generated work to BrightSpace and also conclude some similarities between those apps. For example, they both take some kind of input and then generate corresponding outputs. Their submission can be seen by other students in this course if they are comfortable doing so, and there will be a discussion page for them to do peer review and be given feedback from me.

Reference

Sam Beckman. (2023, May 22). 10 INSANE AI Apps You NEED to TRY! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydlu3XcpVQ8

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.