Great blog post, Jason! I really like your idea for the activity that the students could complete after watching the video that you chose. I think that a role play scenario would be an extremely beneficial way for students to learn about the client/developer relationship as it fully immerses them in their learning process and gives them the opportunity to meaningfully engage with the material. It also makes the learning content much more authentic, realistic, and practical. Additionally, I would also suggest a brainstorming session before beginning the activity as it provides students with the time to gather their thoughts, learn from the thoughts of others, and better prepare for the task ahead.
I really enjoyed reading your post, Yi Yuan! Have you seen the video, “Shelley Moore: Transforming Inclusive Education?” I would definitely recommend watching it as Shelley Moore discusses the importance of reaching every student and to not just teach to the middle. She goes on to compare teaching to bowling and highlights the fact that when you aim for the middle, you can normally knock down most of the pins, but the ones on the outsides often get missed (this can also happen in the classroom setting as well). This is why it is so important to adapt lesson plans to try and reach every student. These adaptations often prove to be helpful for the rest of the students in the class as well.
Great post, Jackson! There are definitely many positive aspects for students to learn through the implementation of cooperative learning. The collaborative and social nature of this learning style teaches students how to work in a team and communicate with others. These are both valuable skills that they will use throughout the course of their lives. Additionally, this approach gives students the opportunity to learn new ideas and ways of thinking from the prior knowledge of their peers. This helps to broaden and deepen their own thinking as each individual has lived through a series of experiences that make their knowledge unique and useful to share with others.
Great first post, Harman! I enjoyed reading about your own personal learning experiences. It sounds like you benefit more from a hands-on/experiential approach to learning. I can relate to this as I also learn best from “doing.” I find that my learning is limited if I were to just read a textbook or listen to a lecture for longer periods of time. The immersive experience of being fully and actively involved in your own learning feels extremely rewarding and empowering. This style of learning is often much more fun and increases motivation for students as well.
In this post, I will be reviewing Pod 8’s Interactive learning resource, “Blockchain Technology Interactive Resource“. I found this topic to be quite interesting as it is a new concept for me (I am not the most tech-savvy person). I felt a little bit out of my league when engaging with this resource, but I feel as though I am walking away with a sense of newfound understanding regarding a topic that was completely new to me which feels very rewarding. I think that there was an abundant of excellent information that would be effective in teaching their target audience of higher ed/corporate learners as well as beginners like myself. The ample use of hyperlinks were also very useful and user-friendly as additional information was just a click away. However, I found the layout to be a little bit confusing. I think that it would be helpful if you were to briefly summarize each section of your resource on the “Home” page (there doesn’t seem to be any mention of the “Outcomes” section). Since there is a designated “Activity” page, I think it would be more effective to only have the article-reading activity on that page instead of the “Home” page as well (I was unsure when to complete this activity). Also, I wonder if the “Assessment Plan” tab of your resource would work better if it was one of the last few sections listed at the top of the resource to help with the flow (it seemed a little bit out of order for me as I was reading about the assessment pieces involved before engaging with most of the information). Additionally, I found the resource to be quite dense and text-heavy. I am wondering if you can include more of a variety of modes of engagement, representation, and/or action and expression as per the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines? For example, it might improve the user experience if you chose a different activity to place under the “Activity” page that is more active/engaging in nature rather than assigning the learner additional reading. I appreciated the 10 question multiple choice quiz and the 20 question multiple choice final exam as these activities are a little bit more interactive (even though they also involve more reading). The YouTube videos that were included throughout the resource were also a nice change of pace. Overall, I really enjoyed learning from your resource! My suggestions are just ideas to help, but please choose to incorporate what you feel works best.
In this post, I will be referring to TED-Ed’s video, “What makes a poem … a poem? – Melissa Kovacs.” This video repeatedly asks its viewers to reflect on their own standards and criteria that they have in regards to poems and poetry. This video would require students to access their prior knowledge of poetry and critically think about the way in which they think about poems. This video definitely sparks learner-generated curiosity and a desire to uncover how they would actually define poetry. If I were to show this video to a group of students, I would have them take part in a Think/Pair/Share afterwards. This activity does not take very much time to complete and does not require any materials as its aim is to give students time to brainstorm ideas that surround the topic. First, the students are asked to take 1-2 minutes to independently think about the question: “What makes a poem, a poem” (I would write this question on the board as well). Then, students have the opportunity to share their ideas with a partner for another 1-2 minutes. Finally, we would come back together as a class and take a few minutes to share the ideas that the students brainstormed and I would write them on the board (so that they would surround the original question). Once we were finished with this brainstorming activity, I would organize them into groups (around 4-6 students in each group), give each group some markers and a big sheet of paper, and ask them to create a concept map to demonstrate their knowledge of poetry. After they had completed their maps, each group would have a turn to share their thinking with the rest of the class. This activity would deepen and extend each students’ knowledge of poems and poetry (which would help them write their own poems in the future) as they are able to learn from and with their peers. Additionally, I really like Rachel’s idea that she shares in her blog post, “Interaction,” where students are to complete a Google Form Exit Ticket that requires them to answer a few questions/summarize what they have learned. This is a quick and easy way to include formative assessment in a lesson. The video could have been designed to generate more activity from its viewers by asking more direct questions and giving opportunities for “think time” as this would have incorporated a partial Think/Pair/Share activity as the video took place. I wholeheartedly agree with the author of the blog post, “Interaction,” who states that “some sort of interaction is necessary for learning to occur.” I believe that without interaction, the learning material becomes less interesting, relatable, and personal and students are less likely to retain the information being taught as it does not resonate with them on a significant level.
My pod’s interactive learning resource will ensure that the needs of all learners can be met through the use of a variety of different activities, instruction styles, and an open-ended summative assessment piece for students to showcase what they have learned. Our activities include comparing and contrasting poems, creating their own concept map to demonstrate their understanding of the material (formative assessment), and completing a Kahoot! for students to test their knowledge of the various types of poetry and literary devices. Our teaching styles are comprised of aspects from a mixture of approaches such as direct instruction, experiential learning, and inquiry based learning. The inquiry aspects fit into the summative assessment assignment where students will be required to create their own poem. Students have the autonomy to choose the type of poem they wish to write as well as to select their own topic. Ideally, their topic will be one in which students are curious or feel passionate about. In my own personal experience, the best learning happens when all learners are reached and their individual learning needs are met. This is why it is so important to provide students with multiple means of representation, action or engagement, and expression as per the guidelines of the Universal Design for Learning framework. By following this framework and removing learning barriers, we can help to ensure greater success for all students. In the blog post, “Universal Design,” the author emphasizes that “when a design includes improvements for some members of the population, there can be a benefit for other users as well.” I couldn’t agree more with this statement because even when slight adaptations are made to a lesson to help a few students who have specific learning needs, the entire class is also helped with their leaning process. Additionally, Sullo discusses the idea of scaffolding in the blog post, “Post #3 Inclusive Design.” This is the ideal space for students to learn as scaffolding provides learners with the perfect combination of teacher support and challenge that they need in order to complete the task at hand. I would suggest having students complete a Know/Wonder/Learn chart (where they describe what they already know, what they wonder/are curious about, and what they wish to learn about) or another type of questionnaire before beginning to teach a new unit/topic to inform educators of their students’ capabilities and prior knowledge.
Experiential learning is the process of learning through experience. It is a philosophy in which teachers meaningfully engage with their learners in activities and reflection “in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people’s capacity to contribute to their communities” (What is Experiential Learning?, n.d.). Hands-on learning is only one part of experiential learning as it also requires reflection of the learning experience. This style of learning occurs when specific learning situations are chosen and supported by thoughtful reflection, drawing conclusions from the material, and implementing what was learned in the future. Both teachers and students choose activities to engage in that meet the learning goals that they set in advance. Additionally, this approach designs experiences that “require the learner to take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for results” (What is Experiential Learning?, n.d.). Essentially, learners are expected to be actively engaged in asking questions, solving problems, critically thinking, being creative, making meaning, and investigating throughout the experiential learning process.
I believe this approach to learning environments somewhat aligns with my learning pod’s topic for our interactive learning resource: Poetry. In our resource, we are going to design several smaller activities for our target group of learners (grade 6 students) to complete in order to teach them several aspects of poetry. These activities will require students to be creative, make meaning, think critically, and investigate. However, I do not believe that these activities are as holistic/immersive as the experiences that are typically provided through experiential learning. Although the students will be required to draw conclusions and apply what they learn to create their own poems, the reflective piece that is critical to experiential learning is not as prominent in our resource.
When I think about my best learning experiences, I think of the tasks, projects, and activities that I was excited to tackle and that were relatable/enjoyable for me. For example, in grade 4 or 5, we were required to create a project and presentation on the topic of immigration. I decided to make the project more personal as my mom and her family immigrated from Portugal to Canada when she was a young child. I became very invested in the immigration process as well as my own heritage as it was apart of my own family’s recent history. I interviewed my grandparents for this project to learn more about what life was like in Portugal and their personal immigration experiences. The hands-on and personal nature of this project resulted in me learning much more about immigration as well as my own family! Harman shares a similar positive learning experience in his blog post, “Learning, Motivation, and Theory,” in which hands-on learning proved to be successful in deepening his learning process and increasing motivation. He goes on to describe his best learning experience in Astronomy 101 where his class used the UVIC telescope to look into outer space. When learning is made fun, students are more likely to learn a great deal more as well as enjoy learning the material!
Another example that comes to mind is when I would learn a new figure skating skill. I was a competitive figure skater for 10 years and it would take many hours of practice and dedication to master new elements. I would often fail many times before finally being able to successfully perform a new skating skill. It was definitely a very rewarding feeling once I was able to master a new element. This feeling drove my desire to develop my skating skills and accomplish my own goals. Concurrently, in Alison’s blog post, “All About Motivation,” she describes a positive learning experience where she worked on improving a soccer skill: her penalty shot. Alison affirms that the motivation to put in the work to develop this skill and to strive for success stemmed from the fact that she was “personally interested in getting better at doing penalty kicks.” This is why it is important to provide students with learning experiences that give them the opportunity to learn about topics of interest to them and ones in which they feel personally curious or passionate about.
All of these examples of positive learning experiences provide evidence for the statement given by the author of the blog, “Motivation and Learning,” where they emphasize the fact that “learners who are motivated will engage and persist on a task.” In my future teaching practice, I hope to motivate my students in their learning process by incorporating a mixture of aspects from multiple learning theories (behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism) as each student is unique and may benefit from different learning styles (depending on the situation), making the learning content more relatable for them in the hopes that they will meaningfully engage with the material on a deeper level, and including the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines in order to try and meet the diverse learning needs of each student. As a new teacher, a future goal of mine is to include at least one inquiry or open-ended project per unit where students will be given the freedom and autonomy to pick a topic of their choice that they wish to investigate and learn about further (as long as they relate their topic to the learning outcomes of the unit). This way, students are able and encouraged to make their learning personal and meaningful to them. They will also be allowed to demonstrate their learning in the mode that works best for them (presentation, poster, written composition, video, etc.). My hope is that this type of project will increase student motivation, engagement, and enjoyment of learning!
I am a new teacher who is taking this course to go towards achieving a technology certificate as well as to complete the courses necessary to complete my Category 5 upgrade. I have always wanted to be a teacher as I love learning, teaching, and helping others. I love playing and watching sports, reading, exploring, and getting outside. I have really enjoyed my first year in the profession and I am excited to continue to grow and evolve as a teacher. Throughout the duration of this course, I look forward to learn from and with my peers in order to extend and deepen my own knowledge of the content.
Sam Shares 