pim's personal blog

Learning Pod No.8

Reviewed: Healthy Cooking EDCI 335 (google.com)

Peer’s Names: Matthew Kim, Finn Barker, Ashley Christison

Interactive Learning Resource Topic: Healthy Cooking 

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

Strengths: I really like how each section is divided into modules, I think that it is pretty straight forward to navigate the system. Google classroom in my opinion is a really great choice of technology to learn. The subtopics that learning pod 8 have chosen flow well with their topic and are very relevant to it as well, whether it is  basics of cooking; nutrition, kitchen safety, and basic techniques. I like how the audience will start off to get to learn about micro and macronutrients and then when the foundation is taught, the lesson plan moves on to kitchen safety to promote safety with contamination and sharps and ends with basic cooking techniques. The “work” to be done section at the end of each module is are very easy to find and well organized. The selection of links in this sections is relevant to the subtopics and easy to understand since it is an online cooking class, it will be very beneficial. 

Weaknesses: Navigating from my server, the subtopics are scattered and not in order so it might be a little inconvenient for audiences to navigate an find their ways to different sections. 

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.).

Although learning outcomes and technology use rationale can be seen incorporated into the paragraphs at the top of the site, I suggest that labeling them as a heading would make it more straight forward for readers to grasp. How are summative assessments determined and how will feedback be distributed? How is your design designed for inclusion?

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

Overall, I think that the group did really well on their interactive learning source. I like the format of the quizzes and how the lesson plans are outlined inside the modules. Some recommendations would be organization in terms of putting each section in their order or create smaller subsections for each module on the “stream” page. I find that some explanations are quite short with not much detail in it aside from its meaning. In the introduction, it was mentioned that students will then have the opportunity to try out new recipes after the final component in which I would like some more information about because it does seem like a really fun activity. Perhaps how it would be carried out and how learners can get help with these recipes when they needed. Other than that, I think everything looks great!

The video that I chose was the one my partner and I have created for an IDE Festival in the topic “Collaborating and connecting through resilience” when we were in Dental Assisting School. This video’s purpose was to inform new born parents about baby bottle syndrome and how it can affect their baby’s teeth. I have kept in mind Mayer’s Multimedia Theory and went ahead to edit a couple changes according to Mayer’s principles. 

The first edit I made was the cover page. The title of the text initially has a font where it was a little difficult to read so I went ahead and made all the font the same to make it easy for viewers to see. 

Before

After

The second edit I made was with its contrast. According to what we’ve learned, contrast is an important design principle because it lets you draw out the most important elements of a design and add emphasis as well as high contrast can help guide the viewer’s eyes to the most important parts of your design first. So here, I have changed the background color to a more vivid blue and paired it with a contrasting yellow to catch the reader’s eyes. This also adds the signaling principle where people learn better when cues are added to highlight the organization of the essential information (Mayer, 2014). 

Before

After

The other factor that I would have also changed in this video is leaving out more negative space to create shapes that can help highlight the most important pieces of information in my video. I find that because we were trying to incorporate all the information needed, it was a little clustered together where we felt the need to include as much information as possible in every slide. The factors that I would not change is the narration. According to Mayer’s 12 principles of multimedia presentations, it states that people learn better when the narration in multimedia lessons is spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice (Mayer, 2007). According to Mayer’s multimedia principle, people also learn better from words and pictures than from words alone, therefore, I will keep that aspect of having both words and pictures in my slides. In addition to that, the spatial contiguity principle also emphasizes the importance of placing essential words and graphics close together because people learn better when words and corresponding graphics are physically integrated rather than separated, which was also incorporated in the slides (Mayer, 2014). Reflecting upon this video, I also found that we really tried to incorporate Mayer’s Coherence principle by trying to delete as many extra words, sounds, and graphics off the slides (Mayer, 2014).

References

8 Basic Design Principles To Help You Create Better Graphics (15 min) – These basic principles can make a big difference in the look and feel of your media/multimedia materials. (There may be some repetition here, but it’s good to see other examples)

Mayer, R. E. (2007). Five features of effective multimedia messages: An evidence-based approach. In Fiore, S. M., & Salas, E. (Eds.). Toward a science of distributed learning (pp. 171–184). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Mayer, R. E., & Fiorella, L. (2014). Principles for reducing extraneous processing in multimedia learning: Coherence, signaling, redundancy, spatial contiguity, and temporal contiguity. In R.E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 279-315). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

What kind of interaction would the video require from your students? Does it force them to respond in some way (inherent)?

Because the video provides students with questions to reflect upon at the end of the video, it calls for engagement. It would require students to self-reflect and think about the question, “what do you think about the idea, is the idea overly simplistic”, and “do you believe it is possible to make a permanent switch from a fixed to a growth mindset?” and comment on the comment section beneath it. That is a good way for viewers and students to provide feedback and share their thoughts. 

In what way are they likely to respond to the video on their own, e.g. make notes, do an activity, think about the topic (learner-generated)?

Students are likely to respond to the video through self-reflection and peer discussion. The video did a great job of providing examples of behaviours of students with a growth mindset vs. students with a fixed mindset in an everyday life basis and ultimately, it provided a comparison of the outcome of the situation and also each person’s place in life. This makes it easy for students to relate and reflect upon themselves, their current mindset and brainstorm what they need to do moving forward in order to achieve a growth mindset. Students can communicate their ideas with one another through various online platforms.

What activity could you suggest that they do, after they have watched the video (designed)? What type of knowledge or skill would that activity help develop? What medium or technology would students use to do the activity?

After students have watched the video, they could discuss the learning outcomes with one another though online learning platforms about what it means to have a growth mindset and how they could achieve it. Similar to the examples provided in the video, students could reflect, recognize, and give examples of their personal fixed mindset of a personal task or situation and develop ideas of how they can change that mindset. That way, students can develop critical thinking skills that can also be used towards developing their growth mindset. Students can use online tools such as Mattermost, zoom, skype, or messenger chat in order to communicate their ideas and then each individually create their own blog posts of the learning outcomes through WordPress. 

How could the video have been designed to generate more or better activity from viewers or students?

Because the video is animated, I think that it catches viewer’s attention. But in order to generate more activity from students, the video could have been designed to create more engagement from students such as generating questions that prompts students to engage in a student-student interaction other than just themselves. 

References

(117) Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset – YouTube

Inclusive Design for Learning is a practice that supports optimising unique human differences and creating the conditions for a diverse yet cohesive global learning community of lifelong learners. Our group has chosen our learning design to be for ELL students or English Language Learners grades 10-12 with a focus on self-paced study. Recently over the years, self-paced instruction has become more popular as education shifts from the traditional models of classroom learning to the Internet.

The main advantages of self paced learning include:

– It is suitable for individuals with different learning styles as some people learn fast, while others take their time to learn. Self-paced learning makes it possible for learners to adapt to their own different learning styles.

-It reduces pressure and foster more quality work. With self-paced learning there are no pressure to complete the assignments and learn at the same speed as others. Learners can review materials on their own based on their understanding. -Setting your own schedule

-It enables learners to create their own schedules. It is especially helpful for learners that have less motivation to attend a live class. Even if there is a deadline to complete a course, for example, they can choose how they would like to execute it.

-It is a way of practicing self-discipline. When learners plan and create their learning schedule, they are learning self-discipline. They can pick the time where they can focus best and when they have fewer interruptions from other distractions outside of school and hence, learn to be responsible for their own learning.

In a journal, The experiences, challenges, and acceptance of e-learning as a tool for teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic among university medical staff, researchers conducted an experiment to see staff’s perceptions on e-learning. It was concluded that the majority of participants strongly agreed with the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and acceptance of e-learning (Zalat et. al, 2021). But on the other hand, the highest challenge for accepting e-learning were insufficient/ unstable internet connectivity, inadequate computer labs, lack of computers/ laptops, and technical problems. They also concluded that e-learning was underutilized in the past, especially in developing countries. However, the current crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic enforced the entire world to rely on it for education (Zalat et. al, 2021). According to my own experience, I was in an era where I having a hard time going to classes regularly which I find that a lot of adolescents also do. Therefore, self-paced learning especially for English Language Learners would be extremely beneficial for them to navigate their learning based on their level of understanding and how fast they learn. It is also a considerate learning design for learners with difficulty of learning or learners who may have any form of challenges or learning disability. 

References

Zalat MM, Hamed MS, Bolbol SA (2021) The experiences, challenges, and acceptance of e-learning as a tool for teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic among university medical staff. PLOS ONE 16(3): e0248758. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248758. The experiences, challenges, and acceptance of e-learning as a tool for teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic among university medical staff