Reflection #2: Learning Design

Designing lessons to best achieve my purpose seems like a rather daunting task at this point. It involves incorporating many aspects while trying to touch on everything that you want to, while working with diverse classes, and within a time constraint. It was a good reminder that no matter how busy we may get and how much we end up juggling, helping the students learn is our priority. If we can help engage the students with their learning and show them how it could be beneficial to them, they will be more likely to enjoy the process and retain the info. I am excited to learn how to coordinate the classroom environment and facilitate methods to encourage conversations and collaboration.

I did well in the traditional school set up of lectures and tests. I tried to study consistently with flashcards and rewriting notes, but often I ended up busy with other things and didn’t get to organizing my time as I planned. Thus, I often ended up cramming information into my mind by reading over notes soon before tests. This worked well enough for me, but from watching friends do the same, I know it isn’t always so effective. I understand that we will never be able to completely avoid having to memorizing things for school. But from my own experience, cramming facts into our head just for passing a test results in little info actually being retained.

I do have hope that we can further set things up to encourage learning in a more holistic way that ensures more long lasting retention and an increase in transferable skills. Even better if it can be done during class time and only key material that needs rehearsal is practiced outside of class. Today we touched on some methods that may help in this endeavor: constructive alignment, instructional wrap, the SAMR model, and the TPACK Framework.

• Constructive alignment is focusing on the learning goals at the start and then next building the content and activities to allow the students to actively learn and meet those goals.
• Using Instructional wrap involves incorporating activities and questions to encourage the students to engage further with the material. Example questions were “What do you see? What do you know? What do you wonder?”
• The SAMR model focuses on using technology to improve and transform current pedagogical practices.
• TPACK describes the integration of technology with pedagogical techniques and course content.

I am sure that the “best practices” will vary depending on the topic and group of students so building up and keeping current a wide repertoire of practices will be important. I will start a resource collection to help keep track of these resources.

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I found this book that was published in February 2022 titled “A Comprehensive Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning” on BC Open Collection. I just skimmed through and it has some great information on designing instruction to work better for all learners and example assessment strategies. There are also strategies for blended and online learning. I am intrigued by their push for helping students become expert learners, not experts in a subject. They define expert learners as students that “are experts in understanding how they learn, under what conditions they learn, what their preferences are, where they are likely to fail, who they should team up with, and when to ask for help.”

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In the following video by BLADE (Blended Learning and Digital Education), the speaker describes 7 aspects related to re-designing your teaching style. The acronym is S.T.A.A.A.R.T:

Science: Using scientific research to study learning practices

Theories: Learn and try incorporating learning theories into your work

Assessment: Identify opportunities for formal and informal assessment

Approaches: Learn about and try incorporating different instructional strategies

Alignment: align learning outcomes with assessments and content to achieves the best outcomes

Replicate: understand what does and does not work, then improve and replicate what does work

Technology: utilize different technologies to enhance learning