The topic of interaction was quite educative. I learned the concepts of designing the Interactive Learning Resource around the interaction of students. More so, Bates (2019) says that there are three methods of interaction: learner-content, student-student, and teacher-student. In addition, I was able to go through several posts submitted by my classmates. They increased my knowledge on how interaction could be used.

Looking at the work of Enze, I agreed with most of the post:

Enze’s interactive learning resource involves learning on mean, median, and mode. I agreed with Enze that the video would require a learner-content interaction. The learner will be able to watch the content and comprehend the concepts shown in the video. However, Enze should have identified whether the interactive characteristics of the media, that is, whether it is inherent interactivity, designed interactivity, or user-generated interaction. Still, the post identifies the activities to be completed by students. The activities involve break-out rooms, forming groups, and solving math questions. Finally, the post identifies ways that Enze would overcome the lack of inclusivity. The teacher (Enze) would record the video and upload it to the workshop for those who cannot access it directly in YouTube. In addition, Enze would offer a different video for colorblind students.

Omar’s blog was interesting. I think I could also add some ideas to Omar’s blog:

I agree with Omar that the video does not force the learner to respond. It only encourages the learner to leave a comment. Therefore, I would like to add to Omar’s post that the technology used is ‘designed interactivity’. Additionally, I would also like to add that the interaction of this video is learner-content interaction. More so, the video can be inbuilt into a teachers designed activities that allows for the student to be assessed. Just like the Omar says, the tasks should align with the outcomes.

I have read various classmates’ posts and I have seen how they intend to overcome barriers found in their learning designs. Canadian laws requires that all learning institutions to be inclusive of all students in their learning environment. Blog post 3 addresses barriers that could affect the blueprint project or the interactive learning resource. My idea involved the removal of barriers that exclude people with disability from learning. From this week’s readings, I understood the need of including people who are neurodiverse (autistic) when designing the blueprint project. In a learning environment, Neurodiverse students should be referred to as people with diverse or different skills rather than referring to them as people with disability.

The post by Lidingwang showed how his/her interactive learning resource will include diversity:

Lidingwang’s interactive learning resource will mainly involve narration, activities, and homework. However, the interactive learning resource will recognize that not everyone/student can keep up with face-to-face or direct instruction learning style. Therefore, the instructor will record the lessons and post them online for those who were not able to attend the face-to-face classroom.

I believe that Lidingwang’s method of recording the lessons will help many students. Not all students learn at the same speed. It is necessary to include videos of the lesson to allow students to playback the lesson to understand the concepts at their own time.

Another post that piqued my interest was Enze’s post:

Enze starts by explaining how course EDCI 335 is using inclusivity by using blog posts. Rather than having fixed times to learn and submit assignments, the use of blog posts has the ability of including people in different time zones into the learning process. In addition to such a learning approach, Enze says that students will need stay in contact with the instructor. Therefore, it is necessary for the instructor to give various methods of contact, such as emails and phone numbers.

I agree with Enze on the ideas of online blogs and mobile phone contacts. These ideas will help students from different geographic regions. Enze also helped in increasing my ideas of inclusivity because I was only thinking about neurodiverse students, while Enze thought of different time zones.

I did a research on open pedagogies and it made me interested in how different approaches to learning environments could influence the learning experience for students. In addition, as I checked posts from my classmates, I realized that most of my classmates were not particularly interested in open pedagogies because all the other posts were on other approaches, such as direct instructions or cooperative learning. Still, their research was intriguing and I found a whole wealth of knowledge in their posts.

I took interest in the direct instructions method written by Loritech:

The post by Loritech offers a very succinct explanation on the direct instruction method. It starts by giving a historical overview of the learning approach. The learning style was started by Professor Siegfired Zig Engleman and his colleagues in 1964. Students attend classes and are taught by teachers.  Loritech says that they plan to use the direct instructions method in their project by adjusting it to the Korean culture.

I believe that this is the approach that students are most familiar with because it involves the classroom learning environment. Nonetheless, the learning approach is being overtaken by events. Other learning approaches are being used especially after the spread of COVID-19 and the subsequent closure of schools.

Another learning approach that I took interest in was the Inquiry-based based learning by Yuqixie:

Yuqixie’s post starts by showing what the inquiry-based learning style is all about. It is vital to note that inquiry-based learning approach intends to include the students in the creation of learning content. The teacher acts as a guide to the students in exploring new ideas and directing their curiosity. The students then ask questions on the topics being taught. The process then allows the student to think critically, have a deeper understanding, and increase student participation.

I agree that inquiry based learning could be vital to the learning process. However, it should not be used exclusively. It could be incorporated or used together with other learning approaches.

Consider the learning environment for your current design. What potential barriers can be reduced or eliminated to provide more pathways for learner success?

The blueprint project will teach the students on the Tuckman’s Model vs. Belbin’s Team Roles through various methods of teaching. The original plan is to use an assessment plan so that students can be engaged in the learning process. The three main areas are:

• Formative assessment with feedback – the students will be able to match a scenario to a particular stage.
• Blogpost – Students will write and post an article and at the same time reply to classmate’s posts.
• Group project with peer assessment – Each group member will be assigned roles in the group project.

Nevertheless, there are potential barriers that need to be eliminated to provide pathways for learner success. Removing barriers will call for an inclusive design in planning the learning environment. The inclusive design has to consider both typical leaners and atypical learners. Atypical learners or neurodiverse learners are people with autism. In the contemporary period, human rights laws in Canada provide that education should be accessible to persons who have disabilities.

Consequently, potential barriers that could be eliminated to provide better pathways include:

• The lack of guiding instructions. If there are no guiding instructions, students will not know how to work on various areas, such as working on the blog post. The scaffold method should be used to help in offering timely instructions.
• The lack of diverse learning methods. There are visual learners, auditory learners, and kinesthetic learners. Each learner requires different methods to learn and understand. For example, a kinesthetic learner will require engaging in an activity to understand the concept.
• The availability of the instructor. The instructor should be able to offer continued guidance to the students and be available in time of need. The instructor should offer a means of communication and hours of availability for any arising questions.
• The use of reminders. To be successful, it is necessary to keep reminding the students on the due assignments. Reminders could include announcements or emails that are meant to keep students aware of their obligations.

Open Pedagogies

            Open pedagogy is used to refer to a teaching method that involves the student as creators of teaching content. It is vital to note that ‘open’ means the educational material that could be found in the public domain. It also stands for ‘Open Educational Resources’ (OER). Pedagogy normally means a method of teaching. It refers to the how to teach. Open pedagogy means that open educational resources are used as a method of teaching. Through open pedagogies it is possible to share teaching practices with the aim of improving education.

            Therefore, open pedagogy involves the students as part of the teaching process. The students are engaged in the co-creation of knowledge. This is possible especially when students create their own exercises to do. The educational material created could also be collected into the OER. This method of teaching creates a high-impact practice and experiential learning method that gives the student an opportunity to create renewable assignments.

            The open educational practice challenges the traditional role of direct teaching. In direct teaching, the student is just a recipient of information. The teacher does all the creation while the student is passive and only replies as and when requested by the teacher. However, open pedagogies requires the students to become owners of information.

            Our pod group chose the topic ‘Group Work and Collaborative Project’ for the Blueprint Project. The main idea is to teach the students on the Tuckman’s Model vs. Belbin’s Team Roles. The Blueprint Project uses some ideas of the open pedagogy. The students will engage in a group project with peer assessment. In the project, peers will assign roles to group members. This method involves the students as creators in the teaching process.

Hi Kteacher,

I believe that your post exemplifies a behaviorist approach to teaching. As you have mentioned, you are do not know your students because you are a teacher on call (TOC). A behaviorist is mainly concerned about the stimulus and response. This idea is clearly shown in your assessment where you are only interested or capable (due to time constraints) of only offering the instructional material. If you knew your students better, it could be easier to include a cognitivist or a constructivist approach. However, I would have loved it if you had added the response or feedback you get from your students. The behaviorist approach works when the stimulus is accompanied by the appropriate response. It shows that learning is taking place. Nonetheless, as a teacher, the approach you use affects the learning and retention of each student. A behaviorist approach is widely accepted as one of the instructional theories.

Hi Deanna,

I like the ingenious way you have explained behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. In behaviorism you do really capture the essence of creating an environment/stimulus and a response. By creating an exam, and filling in the appropriate answers, you have clearly used a behaviorism. A cognitivist will also concentrate on the learner in addition to the environment and response. Learning Chemistry by this method is much better than using behaviorism because Chemistry is a technical subject and cognitivism requires concentration on the mental processes. It allows the learner to understand a complex subject. Still, the most effective method for learning Chemistry is the constructivist approach. Constructivism will require the accomplishment of additional task that translate the knowledge into memory. The many tasks required could include quizzes and labs.

Instructions
Based on the chapter (Chapter 11) publish a post on your blog that is a response to one of the ‘Application Exercises’ in the chapter.

Application Exercise
How would the instruction be designed differently by a behaviorist, a cognitivist, and a constructivist? Scenario: A high school social study teacher is planning a class on the Vietnam War.

Behaviorist

According to West (2018), behaviorism was the leading psychological viewpoint in the first half of the 20th century. The instructional theory was developed in 1950 and it was highly influenced by behaviorism as it came up with the instructional design. In behaviorism, the main focus is the stimulus and response.

In the scenario, a high school study teacher is planning a class on the Vietnam War.  The teacher will begin by pairing particular responses to certain stimulus. For example, the teacher could come up with questions and answers for the geographic region or dates of the Vietnam War. Leaning is said to have been achieved when a proper response is given to a particular environmental stimulus. The environmental factors are emphasized more than the factors affecting the learner. Therefore, the teacher will produce observable and measurable outcomes/responses expected from students.

More so, the high school teacher could come up with cues that enhance the stimulus-response association. The teacher could form questions where the students are required to gain 100% knowledge. There are also visual cues where the teacher could use geographic maps for the student to understand and respond to geographic location of the war. Finally, the teacher would use reinforcement to ensure that a response is properly associated with the required stimulus.

Cognitivist

The cognitive theories came after the behaviorism. It created a shift from behavioral models by emphasizing on more complex cognitive processes, such as thinking, language, problem-solving, and information processing. In this part, educationists emphasize mental processing.

In the scenario, a high school study teacher is planning a class on the Vietnam War. The teacher will be concerned with how the information is received, organized, stored, and retrieved by the mind. Just like behaviorism, the cognitivist teacher will prepare instructional explanations, illustrative examples, and demonstrations on Vietnam War. Nevertheless, unlike behaviorism, the teacher should take note of the mental processes and include additional elements, such as learner’s thoughts, beliefs, and values. Memory plays a vital role in cognitivist theory. The teacher should also observe the way learners rehearse, store, and retrieve the information on Vietnam War.

The teacher could organize the information in a simplified and standard manner. This allows for better mental processing of the information. The Vietnam War could be organized in a chronological order allowing the learner to understand important dates. While behaviorism will use cues to reinforce behavior to the desired direction, a cognitivist teacher will use cues to ensure that there is mental connection of the important chronological events.

Constructivist

Constructivism is a branch of cognitivism in that they both acknowledge the importance of mental activity in learning. The major difference is that constructivism goes a step further by realizing that the mind filters the input given to it by the environment and comes up with its own unique reality. So, the mind is able to interpret the information given to it rather than just acquire information from the real world.

In the scenario, a high school study teacher is planning a class on the Vietnam War. The teacher realizes that both the learner and environment are vital. Learning should take place in an environment that is conducive and enhances the memorization of the lesson on the Vietnam War. Unlike the behaviorist and constructivist teachers who require the learner retrieve intact knowledge structures, the constructivist teacher will use different specific scenarios for students to adapt to them. Therefore, the teacher will engage learners in different tasks that allow the learners to recall information on the Vietnam War.

A constructivist teacher will use various methods. The teacher will create situations that the learner can identify in the Vietnam War. More so, the tasks will engage the learner toward expert performance while mixing different situations with increasing levels of complexity.

References

West, R. E. (2018). Foundations of learning and instructional design technology (1st ed.). EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations