Pod 6: Peer Review

Hello, Pod 6! 

I just want to begin by saying I enjoyed reading through your draft and I believe your final resource has a lot of promise!

Appropriate outcomes

I am a little confused about what your outcomes are. I imagine your questions must be your outcomes because there are 6 of them, but then I am confused about what your big ideas are. I would consider clearly identifying what your outcomes are.

Alignment

Your document stays consistent throughout. It is clear what you are trying to get your audience to learn. 

As a side note, I love that you added misconceptions. It is so important to include misconceptions on this topic so that your audience can really think about what they already know about stress.

Interactivity

The assessment plan shows promise for interactivity. 

In the first formative assessment, learners are able to individually create concept maps about their workplace. I love the formative assessment idea of the concept map. In the education program, we use these all the time for formative assessments. 

In the second formative assessment, the audience will assess whether their reactions have been healthy or unhealthy. I do however wonder what this will look like in your resource. Will the audience post in a discussion form? Will they create a blog post? You should provide the forum that will be used for this assessment. 

For the first summative assessment, the audience writes advice on how to approach stressors. I love this idea because it allows learners to step outside of their own scenarios and look at something from the outside. I also wonder what kind of platform you are providing for this assessment.

For the second summative assessment, the learners look at their formative assessments and create a plan of action. What will this plan of action look like? You might consider creating a template or creating an assignment outline for this assessment. 

Inclusivity

While reading this, I was unsure of what your contexts are for inclusivity. As per the assignment outline, you should have 3 contexts present in the group of learners. For example, you could include hard of hearing, and if you decide to include auditory technology then you can include citations. 

Technology use

I did not see any technology that you plan on using for this resource. I would consider providing the materials that you would plan to use for each resource. For example, there are a ton of great websites for creating a concept map on the web! This way your audience can create the web, and share it with you for feedback. 

Additionally, as stated above, you should consider how your learners are sharing their assessments. My group has created a google classroom for forum posts, but you could also have them create blog posts on WordPress. Google docs/google drive are other great open resources that could be used. 

Rationale

I agree that stress management is an important topic to discuss. This is why I chose to peer review your resource! Do not forget to include what type of technology you are going to use for your resource.

It is also unclear what your learning theory and designs are so perhaps you might consider including this in your rationale. I would assume it falls more under the constructivism theory because learners are using their knowledge to create new ideas. Once you create the layout of your resource, I believe you will be able to find what learning design you hope to achieve. 

Presentation

The layout of your resource is laid out nicely. Although, it looks like your draft includes a play-by-play of what you would do for your interactive resource, rather than providing the interactive resource itself. As a learner, I was looking forward to working through the activity and learning more about how to reduce stress. One idea is to create a PowerPoint so that the audience can work through the resource and the activities. 

Another thing to note is that I do not see a target age for your resource, so you might want to include who your audience is. 

Grammar and spelling

Grammar and spelling are overall good!

Citations

Perhaps you might consider adding some more in-text citations to your explanation and effects. Thanks for creating a reference guide at the end of your document, I am looking forward to checking these out!

Thank you for sharing your draft with us! Link to Pod 6’s draft:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Jmjg4VDZebLqOJsvlNYt_JfH41nrMMX2z6Qdl45yTc/edit?usp=sharing

Reply to Kathryn’s Post #4

Hi Kathryn!

I love that you mentioned that you could do a science experiment with your video. This is a great activity for making predictions and for helping students visualize the content you are teaching them. I see this being a full lesson of just experiments. I wonder what ways we could include students in this experiment so it is more interactive for them. Maybe having small groups partake in safe experiments within the water cycle, and have them report back to the class what they learned.

Great post!

Blog Post #4

For our interactive learning resource, our group is planning on doing an Edpuzzle video. This is where you take a video, and provide questions within the video for students to answer. For this video on the water cycle, there are a ton of different questions that could be provided for students to answer. I see our group using a mix of reflective questions and observable questions as interaction with the material (Bates, 2014). This type of activity would be designed because students will not be able to progress in the video without first answering the questions that come prior (Bates, 2014).

Prior to watching the video, we can have students take part in student-student interaction with group discussion in think-pair-share. This way, students will be able to share what they already know about the water cycle and the instructor will learn about any prior knowledge.

After watching the video, students can do an activity to build on the knowledge they just learned. They can draw a picture of what the water cycle means to them, or how water affects their daily lives. Students could also choose to write a small paragraph, create a comic, etc.

The instructor will have all the answers to the Edpuzzles available. This feedback would be given back to each student and will involve any comments from the video. This video is not being used as a summative assessment, so there will be helpful comments and further questions in the assessment. This feedback will be given verbally since they are in grade 2. To save time, teachers can group up students who had similar answers and chat with the group.

Barriers that may be faced with the Edpuzzle are students who are not able to read, students who have hearing loss, students who have visual impairments, and more. To curb these, we would read the question out loud before the question pops up on the screen, make sure closed captions are available, and provide the computer lab for students to complete the activity so they have a larger screen.

Bates, A.W. (2019). Chapter 9. Teaching in a Digital Age – Second Edition. Vancouver, B.C.: Tony Bates Associates Ltd. Retrieved from https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/

Reply to Alecia’s Post #3

Hi Alecia!

I like that you mention some students could do a digital format of the water cycle diagram. I wonder what sort of platforms this could be done on? I wonder if there is something online already that could be used for filling out the diagram.

I also wrote about the Edpuzzle in my post. I like that you mentioned that reading and listening to the audio is beneficial to EAL students. I never thought about it this way!

Blog Post #3

How will your interactive learning resource specifically ensure that the needs of all learners can be met?

In my group’s learning resource, we have chosen two exceptionalities: colourblindness and hard of hearing. Throughout the lesson we will keep these exceptionalities in mind, as well as other ways to make our lesson inclusive in other ways.

In order to make this an inclusive resource for all of our students, we need to think of all of the barriers. Some barriers may be faced in the content we are providing and our assessments.

Kahoot:

Kahoot is a great tool to use in the classroom. Kahoot should not be used as a learning tool, but rather for review and as a fun way to internalize ideas learned throughout lessons. We realize that Kahoot is not always fair, and not all students like competition, so we will make the Kahoot anonymous so that we do not have a podium of students’ names at the end of each round. The kahoot will be presented on the projector, and we will also read out loud each question as they pop up. We will also read each answer out loud. Each answer will have a short sentence answer, as well as a picture.

Edpuzzle:

Edpuzzle is great at considering accessibility. When we create the Edpuzzle, we will record each question so that it plays out loud when the questions pop up on the screen. Additionally, we will create the option to have closed captions when playing the video. We will also give students the option of using speech-to-text when filling out their answers. Each student will be doing the Edpuzzle on their own so we will give each student a set of headphones.

Final assessment:

It is important to include multiple means of action or expression in the classroom, therefore we will include multiple ways to complete the final assessment (Universal Design, n.d). The goal of our summative assessment is to answer the question: What happens when there’s no rain? With this assignment, students will have to present a text to share with everyone in the community. This is a meaningful assignment because it will be constructed with the intention to share it with the larger community. There will be student choice when creating the assessment. Some students may choose to create a comic strip, some may choose to create a poster, some may create a written paragraph, some a video, and so on. We are open to options that the students provide. With whichever form of representation the students choose to complete, we will assess each student with the same learning goal in mind.

Throughout the unit:

Throughout the unit, we will plan our lessons to have teaching cues that allow tasks to be broken up into manageable chunks (Inclusive Learning Design, n.d). This will involve us giving step-to-step instructions for all lessons so that no student is left unsure of what to do. Additionally, we will ensure we are speaking and enunciating loudly so that all students can hear. In anything we present, we will zoom in on what we are teaching so that it is large. We will also print on the board large. We will also recognize when students need brain breaks and do so accordingly, our assessments can be done at a later time if that is the case (Universal Design, n.d).

EdTech Admin. (n.d.). Universal design. EDCI 335: Learning design for technology-mediated environments. Retrieved October 22, 2022, from https://edtechuvic.ca/edci335/universal-design/

EdTeach Admin. (n.d.). Inclusive Learning Design. EDCI 335: Learning design for technology-mediated environments. Retrieved October 22, 2022, from https://edtechuvic.ca/edci335/inclusive-learning-design/

Reply to Hannah’s Post #2

Hannah, I really connected to your post on Inquiry as it is something we have learned about in the Education program. When I was first learning about inquiry, I was very confused about what it entailed. I love that in your beginning paragraph you narrowed it down to students facilitating their learning with the teacher’s support. This single sentence would have helped me understand it better a couple of years ago.

I connected with your experience of there being a lack of inquiry in your education journey. There was specific content and we were to always report on this content, not from our own particular interests.

After reading your post, I realized that recess is a great inquiry opportunity for students. Students will often play with nature they find outside such as twigs and sticks and use their imagination to take part in play-based inquiry. It makes me wonder how we can incorporate play-based inquiry into the classroom as well so that we can maximize students’ indepdence.

Thanks for sharing Hannah!

Post #2: Open Pedagogies

The instructional approach that I inquired about is open pedagogies. According to KPU, open pedagogies is committed to helping students access open resources, and helps students use these open resources to create content (KPU, n.d.). After researching this instructional approach, I realized that open pedagogies are a lot more accessible to the Elementary classroom than I anticipated. Before reading, my knowledge of using open resources was mainly skewed toward academic articles, although there is a whole range of open resources such as Youtube, Google Drive, and more (IA State, n.d.).

My Pod group is entirely elementary education students, so when researching open pedagogies I had this focus in mind throughout. Open pedagogies can look like a lot of things such as co-creating policies with students, creating meaningful assignments, and using open resources (KPU, n.d.).

Co-Creation:
Our group is doing our interactive learning design on the water cycle. Due to the nature of this course, we cannot co-create policies, rubrics, and schedules with our students because we are not working with our target group for this assignment (KPU, n.d.). However, if we were to take this topic and use it in our future classes, we could definitely apply these ideas. It is often talked about in the education field to create rubrics with our students so that they have more autonomy and understanding of assignments.

Meaningful Assignments:
KPU mentions that in open pedagogies, students should be creating projects that have a larger impact than just in the classroom (KPU, n.d.). IA State also mentions that a great way to do this is by collaborating as a class to create a textbook (IA State, n.d.). Our target students are in grade 2, so creating a textbook might be a little challenging. However, we could have students collaborate to create a collage of ideas they have learned. To go even further, students could then share this collage by presenting it to another group, creating a video of a puppet show, or putting it out on a bulletin board for others to see. This way, students are able to share what they have learned. Another way that we could incorporate this into our learning design is by having students write a letter or draw a picture about water conservancy for the local council.

Using Open Resources
One of the main parts of using open pedagogies is having students use open education resources so that they learn how to be a part of an online community (IA State, n.d.). In connection to creating meaningful assignments, when students use and contribute to the public good, students learn how to be a part of the public in a relevant way (IA State, n.d.). If you search on Youtube ‘The Water Cycle,’ there are a ton of videos created by hundreds of people that can contribute to the learning of students. Additionally, there are open resources students can use to store their files such as google drive. For the interactive learning design, students could use spaces such as google drive to store and share their work with other peers, and even the public.

Essentially, using open pedagogy can be a series of practice, learning style, or state of mind (IA State, n.d.). Educators can decide how they want to incorporate this instructional approach into their teachings, and whether this is something they feel students should be assimilating into their learning path. As we dive more into the technology generation, it is important to consider the prospect of open pedagogies and how this type of instruction can change the way technology is used in society.

Here is an example of an open ed resource on the water cycle:

References

Open Pedagogy. (n.d.). Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Retrieved Oct 5, 2022, from https://www.kpu.ca/open/pedagogy

Open Pedagogy. (n.d.). Iowa State University. Retrieved Oct 5, 2022, from https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/oerstarterkit/chapter/open-pedagogy/

Response to Alecia’s Post #1

Hi Alecia,

I love what you wrote about your experience with driving. When reading your post, I thought to myself the importance of constructivism in this specific scenario, because the best way to learn is by doing. Of course we took our written test and observed many people driving over the years, but this does not translate to us knowing how to operate a vehicle. In order to learn, we have to experience and practice over and over again.

Thanks for sharing!

Blog Post #1

There are a lot of things that I would change about my past practicum. I learned a lot about the new curriculum, inquiry, and the best ways students can learn. Although knowing all this, I still thought back to when I was in school and how I learned. When I was in school, the curriculum was much more content-based. This meant that I learned about many topics, some useful and some not so useful, and was expected to learn these concepts through memorization and regurgitation. Even though I had just learned that these were not the best ways to learn, I still found myself wanting to teach this way during my practicum. This reminds me a lot about the ‘The Backwards Brain Bicycle’ video by Destin Sandlin. Due to my prior knowledge of how school is supposed to look, it was very difficult to change this image. I now realize that it will not take a few classes and one practicum to change how my brain views the school system, but over time as I develop professionally I will see myself making this change.

A strategy I learned, and a strategy we practice in the education department constantly, is partaking in practice lessons. In my classes, I am constantly teaching my classmates. This is great practice for how I should be teaching lessons to fit BC’s curriculum as opposed to the old curriculum. We are also actively debating the best ways to teach our students. By using this constructivist approach, we are taking part in tasks that are meaningful because we practice our lessons, and eventually will be able to use what we have learned in front of our real students (Ertmer & Newby, 2018). 

Based on this realization, and off on the readings, I would consider myself to aim toward constructivist instruction. As I practice lessons with my colleagues, I understand the importance of making meaning through experience (Ertmer & Newby, 2018). I also remind myself that memorization will not help students critically think and problem solve, and therefore students may lack the skills they need (Ertmer & Newby, 2018). My goal is to increase student engagement and participation in all my lessons so that they are actively learning, rather than sitting back and observing. By including my students in my lessons, they will receive the best education I can give them.

References

Ertmer, P. A. & Newby, T. (2018). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features From an Instructional Design Perspective. In R. E. West, Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology: The Past, Present, and Future of Learning and Instructional Design Technology. EdTech Books. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/behaviorism_cognitivism_constructivism

SmarterEveryDay. (2015, April 24). The Backwards Brain Bicycle – Smarter Every Day 133 [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved September 24, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0&t=376s

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