Category: edci335 (Page 1 of 2)

Great job on your Interactive Learning Resource, Learning Pod 1! I hope you find my corrections and feedback useful. Thank you for letting me peer-review your paper, I loved learning more about Developing a Growth Mindset.

Learning Pod: # 1
Peers’ Names: Mikaela Curdyk, David Jeong, Mary Pesado, Pim Sgoontanag Kate Ueda

Interactive Learning Resource Topic:Developing a growth mindset

1. Identify components of the Interactive Learning Resource that might be missing (e.g., appropriate outcomes, alignment, interactivity, inclusivity, technology use and rationale, presentation, grammar, spelling, citations, etc.).  

• An easy modification- ensure all paragraphs consistently begin indented. The majority of your paragraphs are already, but I would just recommend revising the ones that are missing. 
• The introduction states phrases such as: “Children with a growth mindset outperform those with a fixed mindset and are more likely to bounce back from failures” and “Teaching children about a growth mindset will promote an increase in their love of learning, better learning, and sets them up for any challenges in their lifetime”. These quotes provide great context to your Blueprint, however, I recommend reconsidering replacing “children” with a more relevant choice of title to reference the target audience. Some appropriate options of terms for alluding to learners in grades 10-12, include: student/ learner/ person/ humans/ youth/ etc., 
• A minor restructure of your paper by mentioning the age range of the target audience earlier to give the readers an idea of the complexity could be beneficial. 
• Correct me if I am wrong, but it would be helpful to establish the number of questions the multiple choice quiz contains. 

Here I have listed a few spelling/ grammar suggestions that perhaps you’re group might consider taking a second look at: 

Original: A growth mindset can encourage a passion for learning and an ease when facing new challenges.

Recommendation: A growth mindset can encourage a passion for learning and (ease/ relief/ support/ aid) when facing new challenges.

Original: Our target audience for the Interactive Learning resource is grade 10 to 12. 

Recommendation: Our target audience for the Interactive Learning resource (is between grades 10 to 12.)

Original: Breakout rooms: Students will discuss their assessments results in groups of 3 and answer the question below:

Recommendation: Breakout rooms: Students will discuss the (results of their assessments) in groups of 3 and answer the question below:

Original: For 7 days, individuals will spend 5-10 minutes a day on up to five things which they are grateful for. 

Recommendation: For 7 days, individuals (/ participants)  will (be instructed to journal for about ) 5-10 minutes a day (dedicated to reflecting on up to five elements that they are grateful for.)   on up to five things (that) they are grateful for. 

Original: Final submission will be on Moodle as a blog post format.

Recommendation: (Candidates must submit their) final submission (to the) Moodle (in) a blog post format.

Original: This makes it much easier for students to participate in the learning experience, regardless of their location or access to technology, thus ensuring that all students have equal (opportunities) to learn.

Recommendation: (Regardless of the students’ location or access to technology, this method ensures students’ are granted equal opportunities to participate in the learning experience,)

2. Provide a summary of The Interactive Learning Resource’s strengths and weaknesses. Draw out specific examples from your peers’ work to justify your feedback.

Strength 

• The interactive learning resource uses an effective combination of experiential learning and cooperative learning. 
• The paper contains valuable details to inform the readers: defining experimental and cooperative learning in your learning design, and how it relates to growth mindset development. I appreciate how the paper states the beneficial components, and learning outcomes from each lesson.
• Well-organized layout and lesson plans with headings and subheadings to ensure the paper flows smoothly, but clearly divides each section. This makes it easy for learners, instructors, and readers to navigate. 

• I love the designated sections that explain the learning outcomes, specify the technology used, depict an activity breakdown, and clarify the lesson’s assessment method. 
• The rubric under the Summative Assessment chart establishes clear standards, expectations, criteria, and scoring evaluation. Students can refer back to this rubric to stay on track with assignments. This always promotes the learners to remain in touch with self-reflection, make personal connections, and improve critical thinking. 
• Great job with text citations! 

Weakness 

• Rather than focusing so much on journaling, I think it would be beneficial to offer the learners a few options for expressing their understanding (multiple means of expression). For example: in addition to journaling, a video/ audio recording, song/ poem, or drawing that represents elements which they are grateful for. 
• The paper reflects all the effort you put into the organization, the structure, and providing information about the growth mindset. My grammar/ spelling corrections could be wrong, but I think your paper would benefit from another proofreader. Sometimes getting a fresh set of eyes to review your writing can be useful, or reading everything out loud helps to notice potential errors.
• I am a bit confused about the setting this lesson will take place in. The paper states “Then students return to the large class setting where they share those ideas from the breakout rooms with each other” so will this lesson occur at home, or in a classroom? If it does in the classroom, will the students be using headphones? Is there a set time, and how will you monitor students’ engagement through online/breakout rooms? I agree that students in high levels of education collaborate better with technology but just confused about when and where these activities take place. 

3. Provide general, specific, and practical recommendations to your peers on how to improve their Interactive Learning Resource.  

• Great Interactive Learning Resource assignment! Your project provides learners with a very clear outline of each lesson to improve their growth mindset. Students in grades 10-12 tend to get distracted during unsupervised group activities. I would recommend having very strict expectations for the breakout rooms or finding a substitute activity. Providing more explicit instructions for each activity is always beneficial and reduces confusion about expected outcomes. For example, a visual demonstration performing each lesson, identifying time duration, and group size, would help learners grasp instructions better improving their engagement. 

Thanks Sidney for your forth blog post! Technology is such an effective and useful tool, that I think will be a great approach to educate kids in kindergarten to grade 3 about racism within our digital book! I loved your idea for an art project activity as a way for students to express their understanding of the video. You chose a great kid friendly scene to demonstrate racism.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PruRq94Klck

• Caillou Stands Against Racism | Caillou Cartoon
• A scenario, more entertaining and seems less educational than the other 2 videos but conveys a good message  

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrHIQIO_bdQ

• Systemic Racism Explained
• Good explanation outlining racism  

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNEKbVq_ou4

• How to Talk to Kids About Race 
• Talks about why informing children about race is so important, and suggest effective conversation approaches 

After exploring several youtube clips that represent kid-friendly explanations of racism, I decided on a 20-minute clip from Caillou Cartoon. My group plans to utilize technology learning for our Learning Design Blueprint and create a digital children’s book titled “Underneath the Umbrella”. We intend to educate students ranging from kindergarten to grade 2 on the importance of racism. To recognize Universal Design from the previous blog post, particularly the first pillar, multiple means of representation, which advises providing learners the option of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic activities to interact with the academic material. 

The Pressbooks media and student interaction template classifies Youtube videos in the category of learner-generated, implying the students are required to interpret and understand the clips’ meaning and purpose in relation to the course. Unlike other types of student interactions, YouTube videos are learner-material. Within our Blueprint lesson, we incorporate a portion of time for students to form small discussion groups, to share, elaborate, reflect, and express their thoughts and opinions of the lesson. Speaking and collaborating with peers helps students to improve or clarify any confusion the content addresses. In response to the video, an activity could be to answer the following questions in an audio/video recording, paper, or type, etc., 

1. Describe racism 
2. Attitudes about the issue
3. Propose an accommodation to reduce racism 
4. Provide an example of when you encountered racism
5. What did you learn from the video?

These questions are designed to encourage the learners to analyze the author’s messages, make personal connections, and provide the instructor with a representation of the level of the student’s understanding of the material. 

A potential barrier to showing Caillou’s Cartoon as a form of education addressing a serious topic involves students not recognizing the valuable lesson. Combining informative entertaining videos with education is effective to keep students engaged, however, tends to convey less in-depth and direct descriptions. To reduce this potential barrier, I followed up the Caillou Cartoon with 2 alternative videos that directly outline and inform students about racism.

The vision of my group’s Learning Design Blueprint is to create an innovative, interactive digital children’s book that addresses the topic of racism, with a target audience of learners between the ages of 4 and 7. According to Meyer, Anne, et al. (2014), “Digital media is far more malleable than print options,” and is an effective tool that accommodates all our participants’ needs. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) outlines three categories of barriers, followed by suggestions for preparing and accommodating each participant. The first UDL pillar is “multiple means of representation” (Meyer, Anne, et al. 2014), which indicates learners are provided with a visual, auditory, and kinesthetic pathway option throughout the storybook. Our virtual book provides learners with three pathway options to interact with the learning material to provide multiple means of representation. To assist the auditory learners from this pillar, we implemented an audio version into our slides. Similarly, visual learners are provided with multiple video resources, on top of offering various interactive hands-on activities, group discussions, and lessons for those who prefer kinesthetic education.

The second UDL pillar, “multiple means of action or expression” promotes learners to demonstrate or communicate new insights, knowledge, skills, and abilities in different manners. With the help of technology in classroom settings, educators can conduct flexible lessons, adjust assignments, and allow students to be in control and learn self-efficiently. By instructors providing learners with multiple means of actions or expressions such as visual, oral, hands-on, or written academic pedology, students can determine the most suitable form of displaying expertise. Educators recognizing and accommodating learners’ needs resolves potential barriers and promote successful academic lessons. The formative assessment establishes communication between instructors and students regarding the most suitable and effective learning design for each individual and assesses whether any adjustments are required. To demonstrate this, we included a small group discussion approach, similar to progress resorts to evaluate students’ comprehension of the material presented. Our assessment is designed for instructors to observe students’ comprehension of the information presented. The evaluation indicates how accurately the learners are processing and retaining the material, to distinguish if any adjustments are necessary.

The final UDL pillar is multiple means of engagement underpins our program’s framework, as we provide learners with a variety of pathway options to fit all learning experiences. We plan to display the material in several different interactive methods, to encourage self-efficiency from each learner and to establish their preferred method of engagement. UDL conveys high expectations and expects learners to work hard, which the closing portion of our virtual book reflects. Following the virtual activity, we requisition children to express their sentiments and key takeaways from the material, to challenge and encourage self-efficiency and learning potential.

In conclusion, our Learning Design Blueprint incorporates and follows the UDL framework’s principles, to reduce potential barriers and create an interactive, inclusive, and innovative learning environment that is universally accessible.

Right to Education – Inclusive Education, retrieved from: https://www.inclusiveeducation.ca/learn/right-to-education/

Meyer, Anne, et al. Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice. CAST Professional Publishing, an Imprint of CAST, Inc., 2014, UDL Theory Practice, retrieved from: udltheorypractice.cast.org/

https://meganc.opened.ca/

Hi Megan, I loved your blog post! Your post was a great reminder for multiple reasons. Firstly, it’s important to remember that elementary students admire, look up to highschool students as their role models and really value their time. The experience represents how much the little girl appreciated Megan’s attention, and clearly Megan really cherished the positive feedback she received. Importantly, Megan points out, despite the age gap between her and the little girl, this interaction remains significant to Megan, so never underestimate toddlers, children, teenagers, adults, or elders, you can learn something new from everyone! These takeaways from your memorable experience, and overall what you learnt from Mr. Wiebe in your leadership 12 class is relevant for your future career plans!

For my first blog post I decided to expand on the prompt “Share a story about how you overcame a learning challenge. Why was it a challenge? What strategies did you use? Use the language you learned in this unit”. Overcoming learning challenges is very relevant for me and had a large impact on my life. Reflecting on the most influential experience in overcoming my academic challenges occurred in early highschool. Immediately after starting kindergarten I was diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD and other learning disabilities. I was unaware of what my diagnosis meant, and so were my classmates. Unlike most students I started tutoring in kindergarten, never took a language; overall my learning was adapted to suit my academic abilities. Due to my diagnosis I thought there was something extremely wrong with me, and became super embarrassed, anxious, insecure and secretive about my diagnosis. After years of hiding my learning struggles, people slowly started catching on. One day at lunch one of my friends started making fun of my learning setbacks and although I thought my world was ending, I now wasn’t able to hide that side of my life and now am very comfortable with it. My story isn’t conventional, and I remain having the same learning disabilities; however I now recognize my mental mindset was the barrier, not my learning style. Now that I am comfortable with people knowing I struggle with school, I am more confident asking for help, using my extra time, taking tests in quiet rooms, instead of struggling in silence. The blog page “Why is learning hard?” says “learning is changing your mind about something” which I agree with. No doubt, learning is difficult, but I’ve realized if you are motivated, focused, and believe in yourself you can accomplish much more than you might expect! This relates to constructivism, and how learners develop foundation knowledge through experiences and interactions. For my situation, unlocking my confidence improved my understanding of my studies, which resulted in increased satisfaction.

Hi, welcome to my blog! My name is Nicole Campbell and I am in my third year at UVIC completing a dual general major in sociology, and technology & society with a minor in business. My academic interests involve learning about health & nutrition, current & future effects of technology on societies, investing money and finance. Essentially all over the place with my studies, but I ultimately see myself finding a career in business. EDCI 335 was a course option of approved electives which goes towards my minor and seems appealing to me! Human reliance on technology has rapidly increased during the last decade and has a large influence on society. Throughout my university education, technology has played a large role in expanding learning techniques and strategies. Through the learning objectives of EDCI 335 my awareness around the effects of technology on learners will expand which I believe is super important to recognize. I grew up on Vancouver’s North Shore, surrounded by my parents, sister and brother. I love living near the ocean, and nature. I love traveling, athletics, cooking/baking, boating, and spending time with family and friends!