May 23, 2016



IDE 737 AdvancedInstructional DesignYuri Pavlov—Reflection JournalMay 23–June 14, 2016WEEK 1May 23, 2016Let the reflections begin…This is the first day of my capstone class in Instructional Design. The day before I reviewed the requirements on Blackboard, and once again realized that the IDD&E program at Syracuse University is basically Tiffany’s program. This is her 4th class I’m taking, and I already see that it’s going to be an unusual experience.Since I’ve just finished the semester, I’m still reflecting on how the spring semester went, what classes I liked and did not like. Most importantly—why? Contentwise, all classes were fantastic but the way they were offered was catastrophic. IDE712 was an awful Saturday class which could easily be transferred online, whereas IDE761 would be a better class if taught face-to-face. IDE641 was amazing in terms of group work, yet the quizzes downgraded me a lot, which was upsetting. Finally, IDE632 was a great example of a flipped class model, yet there was so much information to absorb that it feels like it was a long time ago and with somebody else. This is all in a huge contrast to my fall semester, where all classes were extremely engaging. So much so that I think like I studied at two different universities.Take-Aways from IDE632 and IDE761The biggest take-aways from IDE632 for me is the problem-based learning. Rob taught by giving theoretical knowledge to read as homework while class time was dedicated to problem solving/ cases, students’ presentations, and invited guests/ former IDD&E alumni. It was social learning theory in action, and it worked—something I would not have imagined in the fall after IDE621.As for IDE761, the biggest surprise was my engagement with the pre-activities. Who would have thought that sitting, reading, and answering questions would be so interesting and stimulating for my own learning. The discussions, however, were useless. First, the design of the discussions in Blackboard sucked; second, I could see that people reacted only insofar as Tiffany made us do it. Also, the group project cannot be done effectively if (a) people refuse to meet in person, (b) people do not take the group work seriously, (c) there is not periodic controlling and/or regulating coming from the ‘authority-figure’ aka the instructor.Take-aways from IDE641 and IDE712IDE641 was very complex and the most traditional as compared to other courses offered in the program. I will never in my life—if I’m an educator—will make close-ended quizzes a 60% part of students’ grades. But I will prompt students to meet regularly if they have a group project, this will help a group develop natural relationships, distribute the amount of work to be done, and help out to those in the group who struggled with a particular assignment. In IDE712, I realized that two papers to write within a semester is too much and too… unnecessary. Problem-based learning is much more engaging than 10-page papers.Take-aways from IDE621 and IDE631No course has yet beat the IDE621 and IDE631 so far, in my view. The former was tremendously eye-opening and—surprisingly—practical, while the latter was fantastically scaffolded and it was easy to do the project without the teacher’s help. I think this is what’s important: What a learner can do provided s/he only had instructions? Plus both textbooks (Smith & Ragan + Ormrod) were super useful for me, hence, my overall experience and learning were outstanding.Having this in mind, I’m starting the IDE737 with the expectation that this course will give me more freedom to do what I want to do.May 23, 2016IDE737 and reflections2872740131445Picture. Vocabulary list about personal relationshipsPicture. Vocabulary list about personal relationshipsIt took me 2.5 hours to familiarize with the course structure, Blackboard, all requirements, the syllabus, and initial tutorials. At first I thought this will be the course to storyboard a piece of instruction which I want to develop, but it turned out it should be enhancement of the existing instructional unit.Because I’m very interested in language instruction, I want to take a look at a unit of teaching in our Spanish classes at Syracuse University. In particular, I’m interested in the vocabulary instruction. The way it was done in the course was a list of vocabulary words at the beginning and end of the chapter. -------->>>This approach implies that each word in a language has only one equivalent in another language, which simply is not true. Polysemy, or the multitude of meanings for a word, means that a certain meaning of a word is realized in a particular context. Hence, a better approach is to learn a (new) word in a context.There is a methodology of learning vocabulary which is not widely used these days but that was developed in the 1990s. Michael Lewis introduced the lexical approach. His idea is very simple: new vocabulary should be learned in phrases. Learning vocab this way allows to learn grammar in addition to the words. But he does not say much about how to work with the vocabulary using this approach. So, my idea is to design activities that will work with activating vocabulary in context through activities such as translations, peer interactions, and reflections. His approach is endorsed by AJ Hoge, a director of Effortless English, an online instructor: He thinks that this is rule number one in learning a foreign language—learning phrases and not individual words (see his video on YouTube).May 24, 2016IDE737 Pre-Work: an instructional unit to critiqueThe chosen ContextThe instructional material I choose is a module on personal relationship in the Spanish class I took in the spring of 2016 at Syracuse University. The module is covered in Chapter 1 of the textbook Imagina (3rd ed., 2015), and seven 50-minute class sessions were allocated for the module between January 19–28, 2016. The course has an additional website with additional grammar exercises, videos, audios, and grammar explanations for students (some of which are mandatory).Because some activities are taught in class by design, others aren’t. Hence, I want to focus on the introduction class session (it sets the tone for the rest of the activities in the module), on the short movie (it fosters listening and speaking), and on one grammar review session (it should foster correct speaking as well as writing). Altogether it will comprise three 50-minute sessions.General Module StructureA typical module structure, according to the textbook, comprises 7 activities:Beginning (vocab presentation and exercises)A short movie (10–25 min)Imagina (2–3 short texts on the country studies)Grammar structures (3 grammar topics to review with explanations and exercises)Culture (a text in the form of a journal 1-page article)Literature (an additional authentic text by a famous author of the country that is studies in the unit)Extended vocabulary (repeats the basic vocab and adds on vocab from previous sections)Some activities for Chapter 1 were taught in half a class session (#1, #5, #6), some in one full session (#2, #3), some in several full sessions (#4), some are done individually at home (#7). Each of the activities have several exercises (a typical “prepare – do – analyze” pattern is observed throughout them). Electronic exercises on the course website repeat the exercises in the textbook and have additional exercises.The module is usually delivered in a hybrid fashion. Ideally, most vocab preparation and grammar exercises, readings as well as listening exercises are to be done at home by students on their own. Speaking activities from the textbook and the ones prepared by the teacher are to be practiced in the classroom. Take a look at the chapter in question and a screenshot from the accompanying website for students.Screenshot of the student website for Chapter 1 Activity 1—vocabulary introductionScreenshot of the student website for Chapter 1 Activity 3.1—grammar reviewThe Focused UnitI choose to focus on three activities—beginning (Sp. para empezar), short movie (Sp. cortometraje), and a grammar structure (Sp. estructuras). There is technically three 50-minute sessions allocated for these three activities.Purpose of the unit: To activate the vocabulary, listening skills, and grammar from passive into active.Performance problem: Students do not recall and use correctly 100% of the vocabulary (roughly 70–80 new words) and do not use grammar structure 100% of the time correctly in their speech after the designated sessions and homework.Importance of closing the gap: The vocabulary and grammar serves as a basis for other activities in the module (speaking and listening); therefore, poor learning of the new vocabulary and grammar slows down language acquisition in other activities, resulting in poor performance in a foreign language and waste of students’ time and resources (note: an undergrad course at SU costs ~$4,000 a semester).Current ProblemsThe activities on the website are exercises that serve as both practice and assessment. For example, the only way for students to practice using vocabulary is by flashcards, in other words, by rote learning. When they practice the so-called workbook online, it already valuates what students have learned.Class sessions oftentimes repeat what students have already learned at home (e.g., grammar review sessions: the teachers repeats the tutorials, losing the valuable time for in-class interactions).Debrief involves solely checking for the correct answers. Students aren’t prompted to self-reflect. In-class assessment does not actually happen.May 25, 2016IDE737 Case Study ReviewThe assignment to warm up is to review a case study on… customer service representatives and their training. Like in IDE631. The history repeats itself. Perhaps I’d want more diverse scenarios, but maybe it’s too much to ask. There were 8 questions posed to this case, which I’ll try to answer in the order they appear.What problems did you identify and how did you make this diagnosis?The major problem is the traditional way of thinking about instruction, which is the delivery of content. Which is, in fact, a gap in itself. Therefore, the instruction in the case study does not seem to attend to the learner—the main consumer of the instruction. There were no practical assignments, little engagement, no alignment between learning outcomes and instructional materials. The way I approached looking at the case study was by referring to the ADDIE model and to the Gagné’s 9 events of instruction and checking whether the necessary components existed in the instruction or not.Does this case seem familiar to you in your experiences in design, teaching, and/or learning? How?Yes, it does. In my studies for my bachelor’s, most classes where there were 50-70 students, were lecture-based where the teacher’s role was to demonstrate how much s/he knows. We diligently took notes. And recited them for the final oral exam. In my teaching in the beginning, I fell into the same pitfall and thought that by lecturing about translation I could “teach” translation. That semester students’ results were horrible, which made me rethink the design of the course. While content presentation is crucial at times, it can’t be the only way to teach, because it provides no opportunities for students to actually do something and see how well or badly they do it.Overall, is this instruction designed well? Why or why not?The instruction is bad first and foremost in terms of content presentation. 2/3 of the time could be done individually (demonstrations and videos), hence, learners could familiarize themselves with the theory at their own pace outside the classroom. This instruction also seems somewhat disconnected as to what the learners had done before and what they will do in the future. Materials are simply given to the learners as is and then a short discussion is done: a debrief of a passive activity (notetaking and listening).What are the strengths of this design?The gap was identified: no knowledge in customer representatives of how to work with the calls; the gap necessitated the trainingThe expected outcome was defined in measurable termsThere is some interaction during the discussion periodTime (90 min) is appropriateUse of technologiesWhat are the weaknesses?Very heavy on traditional methods of instruction (lecture and demo = mostly presentation)Few opportunities to practice the theoryVery little engagement of the 25 learnersOutcomes, activities, and assessments are not alignedPractically no practice and assessmentLearning outcomes in the first two activities are about recalling and understanding (lower level thinking vs. higher order thinking)The role of the facilitator is in fact that of a lecturerWhat issues might you anticipate, given the expected learning outcomes and activities, in the instruction?Little participationLack of attentionBad retentionNo skills will be practiced and learnedOutcomes won’t be reached (learners will know “about” the customer service, not “how to” do it)If you had the authority and resources to modify this this instruction, what would you do?Transfer some materials to onlineDesign and Develop practical and assessment materialsUse advance organizers (graphs, infographics, charts, tables, etc.)Redefine the role of the facilitator as a ‘guide on the side’ vs. ‘sage on the stage’Rethink the use of technologies: engagement tools versus merely content presentation toolsIncorporate Gagné’s events of instruction to help learning (particularly: activate prior knowledge, provide guidance, elicit performance, provide feedback, assess final performance, stimulate retention)How might this case help you with this course?It models the type of activity I’m expected to do in this IDE737 course. It prompts thinking about the ways in which to view the existing instructional unit—what is good and what is bad, what issues can be anticipated, and what can be done to modify it. Finally, it epitomizes a common “best practice” that is (mal)used in lots of educational settings.May 25, 2016On Reading Merrill’s First Principles (2002)M. David Merrill (2002) identified five “prescriptive design principles” that are common to an amalgam of instructional theories and models (p.?43):Learning is promoted when learners are engaged in solving real-world problems.Learning is promoted when existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge.Learning is promoted when new knowledge is demonstrated to the learner.Learning is promoted when new knowledge is applied by the learner.Learning is promoted when new knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world.Chart. Merrill’s first principles—phases of effective instruction (source)Merrill (2002) states: “They relate to creating learning environments and products rather than describing how learners acquire knowledge and skill from these environments or products” (p.?44). In other words, “these principles are necessary for effective and efficient instruction” (Merrill, 2002, p.?44).Problem-centeredProblem = whole task vs. component of a task; the task is representative of those in the real world. Problem-centered instruction topic-centered instruction (task components taught in isolation). Show the whole task that students will be able to complete. Problems should be “interesting, relevant, and engaging” (p.?46). + authentic.Merrill: “Effective instruction should engage students in all four levels of performance: the problem level, the task-level, the operation-level, and the action-level” (p.?46). Problem progression: “Through a progression of increasingly complex problems, the students’ skills gradually improve until they are able to solve complex problems” (p.?46).Activation phasePrevious experience: “When learners think that they already know some of the material to be taught, then their existing experience can be activated by an appropriate opportunity to demonstrate what they already know” (p.?47) + advance organizers, schema activationActivation: “Activation also involves stimulating those mental models that can be modified or tuned to enable learners to incorporate the new knowledge into their existing knowledge” + “If learners have a mental model that can be used to organize the new knowledge, they should be encouraged to activate this mental model” (p.?47). + advance organizersDemonstration phaseDemonstration: “Instruction is far more effective when it also includes the portrayal level in that the information is demonstrated via specific situations or cases. Learners remember and can apply information far more readily when the information includes specific portrayals” (p.?48). + worked-out example, modeling example; information + example (portrayal) + practice = better learningDemonstration should be consistent with learning outcomes. Multiple perspectives should be given + students should be prompted to compare and contrast them. Learners should be directed to relevant information (learner guidance).Relevant media: text + graphic compete for attention; audio + graphic are harmonious (= promote learning).Application phasePractice should be aligned with learning outcomes. Gradually coaching, scaffolding, & feedback (error detection + correction) is diminished. Use a variety of problems, range of examples.Merrill: “Learning is promoted when the application (practice) and the posttest are consistent with the stated or implied objectives: (a) information-about practice—recall or recognize information, (b) parts-of practice—locate, and name or describe each part, (c) kinds-of practice—identify new examples of each kind, (d) how-to practice—do the procedure and (e) what-happens practice—predict a consequence of a process given conditions, or find faulted conditions given an unexpected consequence” (p.?49)."Most learners learn from the errors they make, especially when they are shown how to recognize the error, how to recover from the error, and how to avoid the error in the future. Error diagnosis and correction is a fundamental principle of minimialism" (p.?50)Integration phase (Transfer)Help learners to do, reflect, and create. Help them adapt new knowledge and skills.Merrill: “Learners have integrated instruction into their lives when they are able to demonstrate improvement in skill, to defend their new knowledge, and to modify their new knowledge for use in their everyday lives” (p.?50).“Learning is the most motivating of all activities when the learner can observe his or her own progress. One of the main attractions of computer games is the increasing skill level that is apparent to the player” (p.?50).ReferencesMerrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development,?50(3), 43–59. doi:10.1007/BF02505024May 26, 2016On reading Mayer’s research on advance organizersIt was a review of 44 papers on advance organizers published around 1980. Idea: when material is totally new, advance organizers help provide the necessary context (“anchor” for so-called prior knowledge) on which to base the new material. This is supported by the assimilation theory, but not reception theory. The reception theory “is based on the idea that amount learned depends on amount presented and received by the learner” (p. 25). Also, the assumption is that “advance organizers encourage a more integrated, broader learning outcome” (p. 31). In short, the assimilation theory is supported by the results of the studies on advance organizers (p. 37). Honestly, reading only the conclusion would suffice (p. 37–41).“The term “assimilation theory” will refer to the idea that learning involves relating new, potentially meaningful material to an assimilative context of existing knowledge. Thus the conditions of meaningful, assimilative learning are:Reception—The new material must be received by the learner.Availability—The learner must possess, prior to learning, a meaningful assimilative context for integrating the new material.Activation—The learner must actively use this context during learning to integrate the new information with old.The function of advance organizers concerns the second and third conditions—namely to make an assimilative context available and to encourage the leaner to use it during learning” (pp. 5–6).To have an effect, the materials should be unfamiliar and potentially meaningful; “advance organizers must provide or locate the meaningful context” and encourage the learner to use it; the learner lacks “conceptual context for the material”; performance measures (p. 6-7).The lenient version of the assimilation theory is addition theory, because “advance organizers allow quantitatively more information to be added to memory” (p. 32).Standard A.O. studies with a control group – 27 papers. In 4 of them, there was no difference between Advance Organizer group and Control group. + 17 Modified A.O. studies talk about the placement of A.O., unlike in standard studies. Advance organizer – before instruction, post organizer – before the test. Because assumption: A.O. are used for encoding rather that retrieval (“locus of the effect is at encoding”). Seven studies showed no difference in the test results. The author mainly criticizes the methodology and procedures in those ‘negative’ studies. + A.O. in those studies may have been ineffective in providing an assimilative context. So those two groups of studies generally corroborate the use of A.O. Specialized A.O. studies (Materials; learner characteristics; high/ low ability; multileveled posttest). Talks about Material * Treatment Interaction (MTI): A.O. are best for poorly organized materials and not good (actually, worse) for well-integrated versions of the same materials (may decrease performance; because it may interfere with the learner’s own/ already existing model). As for learner characteristics, the less background knowledge, the more useful advance organizers. The more background knowledge, the more learners use it naturally as an assimilative context. In verbal and reading ability, A.O. are useful for low ability students rather than high ability ones. Regarding multi-leveled posstests, A.O. help perform better on far transfer or conceptual questions, whereas near transfer results were better for P.O.P.S. The text used noted different types of organizers: advance organizers, post organizers, comparative organizers, control organizers, and expository organizers.Kind of referenceMayer, R. E. (1979). Twenty years of research on advance organizers: Assimilation theory is still the best predictor of results. Instructional Science, 8(2), 133-167. doi:10.1007/BF00117008May 27, 2016Virtual Residency 1Why scavenger hunt?Tiffany explained that everything she does in our IDD&E courses is done by design. By now, we already started to pick up on it. Even if some things don’t appear useful, in fact, they are. The scavenger hunt (what a phrase!) was an activity to run across the Blackboard and see how the course is organized, what resources are available for us, and what deliverables we are responsible to produce. It was just 15 minutes and I was fooled by the activity. It was very intense. The hunt kept me very engaged and I may use it in my instructional unit enhancement for this IDE737 class. It was a great warm-up exercise, though I benefited more from my own 2-hour browsing on the website and reading stuff on Monday, May 23, when the class officially started.The Customer Service Online Case StudyWe don’t know how many trainers. Indication: maybe this instruction needs to be bumped up a bit. Learning objectives + assessment. Outcomes and activities do not address each other. No resources to get back to the job. Needs more hands-on.Storyboard: organized, context description. Helps to evaluate. Everything aoutlines in narrative + in design. Provides the format – how to use instructional unit and storyboard it. First few pages: narrative (big picture – pieces that go with it) + activities transitioned (video, demonstration). Ice-Cream Case Study. Storyboarding intro activityThis section records some ideas about the ice cream case study and the storyboarding reflection activity. It has a very detailed context information (environment, stakeholders, problem, performance problem, current instruction). It also has storyboards per se, and a rubric (16 criteria). Storyboards are nicely done. They have a title, duration, activity description, location, and resources. It lacks learning outcomes, key content points, and a field for notes or comments. The actual pictures were drawn by hand—I found it creative on the part of the instructional designer. The activity description is in the narrative format versus a list. The color coding adds to the nice design of the storyboards, too. I want to include all those elements in my storyboard. In this storyboard, there is little room for knowledge application, feedback, and review. The good things is the context is very authentic—actually, on-the-job training.Some questions to the existing storyboard: (1) why isn’t there any visual materials that can help learners? (2) why is there not much opportunity for practice? (3) why some activities have 30 seconds and documented perhaps with more detail than some activities that last 10 minutes? (4) the whole training is just 50 minutes and covers everything—but little is done for a better retention? (5) why isn’t there a concise 1-page summary versus a few pages of background?What would others include? DeBorah: (multiple) learning outcomes, why we add what we add (either journal or storyboard). Cassia: debriefing activities and practices to facilitate learning, desired outcomes (that align with the activities used), assessment after instruction. Tiffany said that for Virtual residency 2 she expects to have between 6–10 slides for our initial storyboarding, for each transition in the activity. My initial instructional unit needs to be rethought, I guess.Merrill’s activityThough I read Merrill’s article for the third time within this academic year already (IDE621, IDE632, IDE737), I made a few mistakes on the self-check activity. Specifically, true/false question “Learning is facilitated when learners can solve a higher level problem.” I thought it was true, but Merrill states that learning is facilitated when learners solve a progression of problems that are explicitly compared to one another. From simple to more complex.The key point of this article is that most I.D. theories, models, and approaches can be boiled down to a few principles of learning that enhance instruction. Namely, learning should be centered around a real-life scenario and go through stages such as activation, demonstration, application, and integration. This is crucial for this project because it can serve as a guidance as to what steps/ phases to include in my revised instruction so that it could be more meaningful, effective, an efficient. Maybe I will look at my rubric and will be “Ah! That’s what I may add to my rubric.”RubricsI have never thought of a rubric as an assessment/ evaluation tool that indicates areas for improvement and strengths. I thought a rubric was just a way to measure ‘objective’ success. Which is in itself assessment. But I just did not think that measuring and assessment are intertwined. I know, it sounds, as they say in Russian, “like I’ve fallen from the Moon.” A rubric can also be used for strategic planning in I.D. A rubric has several components: criteria, rating scale, N/A column, rating space with evidence descriptions, and a comment column. This is shown on the picture below:Figure. Components of a rubricDifferent instructional units of my classmatesCassia: how to serve bartending or waitressing at a restaurant (taking an order, checking the I.D., how to pour a drink, transaction, putting money in the cash-register).Bart: football coach – tackling technique, installing a play in general.Brittney: fundamental of perfect jump shotsDeBorah: training on leadership and team building, select a class in the courseYunkai: online course transformationCameron: 9-week session of Spanish teaching, 1 day-session – redesignMay 28, 2016On Reading Mayer’s Learning and Instruction Chapter 8 (2008)Chapter 8: Teaching by Providing Concreteness, Activity, and FamiliarityLearning by rote versus learning by understanding. Meaningful methods are concrete, discovery, and inductive methods. “Each represents a form of guided exploration in which a learner is asked to solve a problem and is given some support along the way-including relating the problem to concrete objects (concrete methods), giving hints to keep the learner on track (discovery-oriented methods), and relating the task to something the learner already knows (inductive methods)” (p.?295).“According to Wertheimer, the children who learned by understanding are able to solve transfer problems, whereas the children who learned by rote say, "We haven't had that yet." Thus, the payoff for meaningful methods of instruction is not in exact retention of the taught material but rather in creative transfer to new situations” (p.?294).Concrete methodsConcrete manipulatives—images and visuals that help make a problem concrete. Bruner (1964)—order of modes of representing info: enactive (action), iconic (visualizations), symbolic (language+symbols). The development of understanding, he said, can be fostered by following this exact order. Montessori materials (beads), Dienes blocks. “Other manipulatives include attribute blocks, Cuisenaire rods, and geoboards” (p.?300). These materials explain underlying structures, help with transfer. Drills may still be good later to ensure increased efficiency.“When it comes to meaningful learning, it appears that being able to build situation models using pictures of objects is a general skill that can enable transfer” (p.?304).“However, not all computer games are useful instructional tools. What makes a "good" game? The foregoing examples suggest that good games are based on appropriate design principles, are presented at a level that is appropriate for students, and focus on teaching generalizable skills that are fundamental pans of the academic program. Clearly, encouraging students to interact with, think about, and talk about concrete representations of otherwise abstract ideas provides a potentially useful path to meaningful learning” (p.?304).Also, think of cognitive load, overloading working memory. For low skilled learners concrete manipulatives may interfere with learning. Prerequisite knowledge plays a huge role.Discovery methodsPure discovery (no hints) vs. guided discovery (scaffolding) vs. expository (answers in the end). “[S]ome learners simply may not be able to discover the appropriate concepts and rules without some direction from the teacher” (p.?308). Guided discovery is better for retention, retrieval, and transfer than the other two forms. “Apparently, guided discovery both encourages learners to search actively for how to apply rules and makes sure that the learner comes into contact with the rule to be learned” (p.?310). The more prior knowledge, the less guidance needed. “Guided discovery is helpful because it helps students reflect on their learning so they are more likely to build general principles and strategies that enable transfer” (p.?313).Inductive methods“In inductive methods of instruction, learners are exposed to long periods of mental searching before they can verbalize the rule, or what Hendrix (1947, 1961) called "nonverbalized awareness." This period of mental searching helps activate more of the learner's prior knowledge and enables the learner to actively encode the strategy or concept to be learned into a wider or more meaningful context. In contrast, deductive methods of instruction do not encourage this search and predispose the learner toward encoding an isolated series of mechanical steps” (p.?319).“Research on sequencing of instruction suggests that deductive methods lead to superior performance in cases of one single rule to learn or a limited number of problems to be solved. Explicit instruction and practice in applying a specific rule is most effective when the goal of instruction is limited to behaviors that are similar or identical to those being taught. In contrast, the foregoing research demonstrates that inductive methods of instruction are useful when the goal of instruction is the ability to learn how to form rules (rather than learning of a specific rule) or how to transfer to new situations. By being encouraged to think actively about how to solve problems during instruction, the learner develops problem-solving strategies that can be applied in many situations” (p.?321).May 29, 2016On Reading Mayer’s Learning and Instruction Chapter 11 (2008)Chapter 11: Teaching by Fostering Learning Strategies“A learning strategy refers to cognitive processing performed by a learner at the time of learning that is intended to improve learning. This definition has three main parts: (1) a learning strategy involves intentional cognitive processing by the learner; (2) a learning strategy occurs at the time of learning; and (3) a learning strategy is intended to improve learning“ (p.?390). “The theme of this chapter is that teaching of learning strategies is an appropriate instructional activity” (p.?427).“When the goal is to help students memorize paired associates as in foreign language vocabulary, mnemonic strategies are warranted. When the goal is to teach students how to figure out what is important and what is not important in a passage, structure strategies are called for. When the goal is to determine the theme of the passage, generative strategies can be taught. The appropriateness of any strategy training also depends partly on the learner (e.g., whether the learner would normally use the strategy). Before strategy training is carried out, each student should be tested to determine whether he or she knows how to use a particular strategy. If a student is already proficient in using a strategy, training is not needed for that student. (p.?427).Mnemonic strategies“Mnemonic strategies are techniques that help students memorize material such as facts” (p.?392). They help transfer in two ways: 1) you remember basic facts easily, 2) they make a difficult material meaningful.Keyword method (in learning vocab) seems to be more efficient than mere recitation and rehearsal, according to research. For children as old as 12, however, there needs to be imagery cues from the teacher, as children can’t form their own images spontaneously. Important: word + keyword + image + vocab word. Research endorses keyword method a lot. I hate it.Elaboration strategies (help students create a story). But this is for low-skilled students. Like with keyword, I think there is too much unnecessary cognitive load.Structure strategies“Structure strategies such as writing an outline or drawing a graphic enable the learner to impose organization on the material” (p.?398). “Structure strategies prompt active learning by encouraging learners to mentally select relevant pieces of information and relate them to one another within a structure” (p.?399). Good for memory, enhances transfer (inference skills) on problem-solving tasks. Structure methods are all about internal connections.Let’s distinguish between prose narratives (stories) and expository narratives (explanations). Generally, learners are good at remembering stories but have troubles with the expository narratives. Structure strategies can help low-skilled students with organizing unfamiliar expository narratives.Mapping (graphic outlines). Knowledge mapping: break a passage into parts (ideas) & identify relations among them (part of, type of, analog of, characteristic of, evidence for, leads to). Good for remembering main ideas but not details. High-skilled students don’t benefit, they have their own strategies. Knowledge mapping involves spacial learning strategy. Another such strategy is concept mapping.Outlining (written outlines). Students should know top-level structures: description, sequence, causation, problem/solution, comparison. There’s another (more sci classification) structure: generalization, enumeration, sequence, classification, compare/contrast. Helps in high-level memory (retention; but not low-level fact retention) and problem-solving transfer. Also, matrixes can be useful for both retention and transfer.Chart of the top-level structure. Underline key words in passagesGenerative Strategies“Generative strategies are learning strategies aimed at helping the learner integrate presented information with existing knowledge and experience” (p.?413). They are all about (external) connections among ideas. One way to do it is by notetaking. Mathemagenic activities give birth to knowledge: “taking notes, underlining, answering questions, or repeating aloud all are mathemagenic activities” (p.?413). “Generative strategies are intended to promote deep understanding by prompting the learner to put the material into his or her own words, distill its main message, and relate it with other knowledge” (p.?414).Summarizing strategies. “[T]he increase in far transfer performance is most consistent with the idea that notetaking in this study resulted in building external connections” (p.?414). Verbatim notes are worse than summary notes for retention (the latter promote transfer).Questioning strategies. Make sense as you read, be cognitively involved, do self-explanations (paraphrase, explain what a passage means, what does the statement mean, what do I not understand, etc.). Involve in self-questioning—helps focus on the main material and learn more deeply (explain why/how, what is the main idea of, what’s the difference between, what conclusions can you draw about, etc.). A teacher can ask questions, too (review questions, probing questions)—it helps even with remembering facts as well as organizing and integrating new knowledge.Self-regulated learning strategies. “[S]elf-regulated learners—learners who take responsibility for managing their learning activities” (p.?423). “[W]e can provide direct instruction in learning strategies that promote self-regulated learning” (p.?425). “This section showed that learning-even learning from lecture--can be an active process. The student can control the learning process by using generative techniques such as summarizing, questioning, and self-regulating” (p.?426).WEEK 2May 30, 2016On reading Luca and Oliver’s articleLuca, J., & Oliver, R. (2002). Developing an instructional design strategy to support generic kills development. Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the Australiasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. Auckland, New Zealand.Generic skills: “working in teams, communicating clearly, personal and interpersonal skills, problem solving, understanding technology and using mathematical concepts efficiently” (p.?1). Deep learning is the outcome of "learning settings that focus on processes as distinct from products" (p.?2). The emphasis is on both process and product of learning. Settings should: have/provide authentic content, encourage reflection among learners, promote self-regulated learning.“Developing learners’ skills in self-directed learning has value both as an educational learning strategy for promoting deep and meaningful learning, and also as a required graduate attribute to encourage life long learning” (p.?4). “Priority is placed on students setting goals and objectives for their learning, planning the learning, engaging in learning activities, monitoring and regulating how the learning progresses and maintaining motivation to continue learning. Other self-directed learner activities include the use of learner contracts, negotiating learning needs, setting goals and priorities, considering learning methods, peer mentoring, applying performance criteria, finding resources needed for learning, and learners deciding when learning is complete” (pp.?3-4).“Reflection is a deliberate act of thinking about past or future events in which a perceived problem or activity is examined so that a reasoned response may be tested” (p.?4). Activities: “revision, reconstruction and rethinking of ideas and problem solving sequences, exchanging ideas, commenting on others’ work, engaging in critical self-assessment self and peer assessment activities, and using reflective journals” (p.?5)."Authentic activities provide students with opportunities to develop knowledge and skills needed for specific contexts, jobs and roles. These learning environments should preserve the full context of the situation and allow for the natural complexity of the real world" (p.?5). “Learning activities used to promote authentic context include problem-based learning, real world activities, project work, teamwork, simulation, roleplay, work experience, practical work and industry visits” (p.?5).For authentic tasks, self-direction, and reflection there should be well-designed learning tasks, learning supports, and learning resources.May 30, 2016On reading how to enhance teaching activitiesActually, there were a few thing I disliked in this reading. Really disliked. So I’ll jot down things that I found useful. Even though I scored 10/10 on the quiz on first attempt.Promote multiple answers (“Give me at least 3 answers…”). If a lecture, consider stating objectives, chunking (15-18 min chunks), insert a review activity in between chunks (problem-solving?), provide handouts, do the conclusion, promote taking notes.If they read a textbook, do unannounced 3-4 item quizzes each worth of 10 points counting towards the grade. This can serve as a motivating factor. Encourage reflection journals, be specific what you mean by reflection: “What happened, so what, now what and what does it mean?” Prompt reflection by questions (what is the bottom line, why did we do the exercise, what did you learn, what would you do differently next time, over the past few weeks what have you discovered about yourself as a learner, etc.). Don’t ask “Do you understand?”—people do not know what they do not understand. Be specific: identify, compare,, list, evaluate the effects, calculate, etc. Before class, give them multiple choice questions to see if they did the reading.Also, books aren’t truth, they were written by people. Have them read 2 chapters on similar content in 2 different books (at least once). Ask specific questions about the readings that are not face recall. Also, role model critical thinking in your discipline—students don’t naturally grasp it. Give questions: what are the main ideas? what do you think about point A? how does it apply to your culture/ world? what is the impact of X on Y?“Try asking the students to graphically represent their reasoning either through a flow chart, concept map, time line relationship, cascade cycle, numerical graph of the relationship, etc. By forcing them to move from the verbal to a graphic they may better see what is wrong because they cannot use their arguments in the same way”. Allow students to ask questions either in writing or in oral at the end of the class. Answer those questions.Start engaging students on day on (trivia, bingo, course questions, etc.)—something that will connect what they already know with the new knowledge in the course. To make a class livelier—do a game show, people in the same team may transfer their communication outside the classroom.May 31, 2016On reading about rubrics (2 articles)1) Allen, Tanner. (2006). Rubrics—Tools for Making Learning Goals and Evaluation Criteria Explicit for Both Teachers and LearnersRubric is “a type of matrix that provides scaled levels of achievement or understanding for a set of criteria or dimensions of quality for a given type of performance, for example, a paper, an oral presentation, or use of teamwork skills. In this type of rubric, the scaled levels of achievement (gradations of quality) are indexed to a desired or appropriate standard (e.g., to the performance of an expert or to the highest level of accomplishment evidenced by a particular cohort of students). The descriptions of the possible levels of attainment for each of the criteria or dimensions of performance are described fully enough to make them useful for judgment of, or reflection on, progress toward valued objectives” (p.?197).There is a holistic rubric and an analytical rubric. Holistic rubrics have details (criteria and grading scales). Analytical aren’t so detailed, but they are detailed in their own way: they define precisely what needs to be done or accomplished.“a “usable” rubric are to ask both students and colleagues to provide feedback on the first draft, particularly with respect to the clarity and gradations of the descriptions of criteria for each level of accomplishment, and to try out the rubric using past examples of student work” (p.?201). “descriptions for each level of performance provide a “real world” connection by stating the implications for accomplishment at that level” (p.?201). For example, ‘you study would convince peers and be published in a peer-review journal.’“rubrics allow for both quantitative and qualitative analysis of student performance” (p.?202).“can give students a clear sense of what the expectations are for a high level of performance on a given assignment, and how they can be met” (p.?203).2) Mertler, Craig. (2001). Designing scoring rubrics for your classroom“Rubrics are rating scales—as opposed to checklists—that are specifically used with performance assessments” (p.?2). A “holistic rubric requires the teacher to score the overall process or product as a whole, without judging the component parts separately. In contrast, with an analytic rubric, the teacher scores separate, individual parts of the product or performance first, then sums the individual scores to obtain a total score” (p.?2).Holistic rubrics do not give much feedback to students, more summative by nature. Analytical rubrics give a lot of feedback to students and teachers alike. Because each specific performance task is assessed. “Regardless of which type of rubric is selected, specific performance criteria and observable indicators must be identified as an initial step to development” (p.?4). “If an overall, summative score is desired, a holistic scoring approach would be more desirable. In contrast, if formative feedback is the goal, an analytic scoring rubric should be used” (p.?4).But rubrics aren’t grades. Converting rubric ratings to a grade is more subtle, more logical than numerical. Find a system of conversion.may 31, 2016On reading about contextual learning and pErsonalizing learning1) “What is contextual teaching and learning?” (4.5 pages) (CTL)CTL “helps us relate subject matter content to real world situations and motivate students to make connections between knowledge and its applications to their lives as family members, citizens, and workers and engage in the hard work that learning requires” (p.?1). “According to contextual learning theory, learning occurs only when students (learners) process new information or knowledge in such a way that it makes sense to them in their own frames of reference (their own inner worlds of memory, experience, and response)” (p.?1).CTL characteristics (p.?2):Problem-based (more meaningful)Using multiple contexts (school, community, workplace, family, etc.)Drawing upon student diversity (different values, social mores, perspectives)Supporting self-regulated learning (becoming lifelong learners)Using interdependent learning groups-communities (share, discuss, peer teaching)Employing authentic assessment (in real-life contexts)“Many of these strategies are used in classrooms today. Activities such as team teaching, cooperative learning, integrated learning, work-based learning, service learning, problem-based learning, and others support CTL and are already occurring in many classrooms” (p.?2).Techniques:Location-based learningProblem-based learning (example, p.?4: "learners in medical school are faced with emergent health issues in simulated patients… they must identify symptoms, run tests, diagnose, and develop treatment plans .. the ultimate outcome is a treatment plan and healthier patient")On-the job training / On-the-job-learning / Job-embedded learning (learning by doing, time efficiency is maximized and promotes immediate application; it is opposed to workshops; + it costs less); examples: “Study groups, reflective logs, action research, peer coaching, and mentoring,” reflective logs, action research (p.?5)2) Martinez, M. (2002). Designing Learning Objects to Personalize Learning (10.5 pages)Honestly, useless article.Emotions, intentions, and social factors are important in learning (+ “whole-person perspective” which unites cognitive, conative, and affective aspects) = learning orientations. “learning objects are content objects meaningfully presented to accomplish specific objectives related to learning” (p.?152). Cognitivism alone cannot guarantee successful online learning (turn out to be more informational than instructional). Passive learning = no interaction with the content, no experiential feedback.Personalization strategies: “(a) name-recognized; (b) self-described; (c) segmented; (d) cognitive-based; and (e) whole-person-based” (p.?154). Acknowledge a person’s name. Pretest to determine what a person needs to know. “Learning orientations suggest that as individuals have different learning experiences, and as they mature as learners, they gradually become more confident, sophisticated, and adept at understanding and managing an increasingly complex interplay of personally relevant affective, conative, social, and cognitive learning factors. Thus, the significant contrast in how individuals approach learning, their "learning orientation," lies in the unique, personal way that they understand, assess, and manage learning to achieve or accomplish goals” (p.?155).Categories of learning orientations: Transforming, Performing, Conforming, and Resistant Learners.June 01, 2016On reading Hattie & Timperley’s “The power of feedback”Hattie, Timperley. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112 (24 pages)This is my favorite sentence: “In general, feedback is psychologically reassuring, and people like to obtain feedback about their performance even if it has no impact on their performance” (p.?95). “Simply providing more feedback is not the answer, because it is necessary to consider the nature of the feedback, the timing, and how a student “receives” this feedback (or, better, actively seeks the feedback). As already noted, students can bias and select feedback information” (p.?101).“[F]eedback is conceptualized as information provided by an agent (e.g., teacher, peer, book, parent, self, experience) regarding aspects of one’s performance or understanding. A teacher or parent can provide corrective information, a peer can provide an alternative strategy, a book can provide information to clarify ideas, a parent can provide encouragement, and a learner can look up the answer to evaluate the correctness of a response” (p.?81). “It is most powerful when it addresses faulty interpretations, not a total lack of understanding” (p.?82). But feedback is not a reinforcer (like in behaviorism), it may initiate no further action. Also, it can be both intentionally and unintentionally sought by learners ,not simply provided by someone or something to the learner.“Those studies showing the highest effect sizes involved students receiving information feedback about a task and how to do it more effectively. Lower effect sizes were related to praise, rewards, and punishment” (p.?84). “[F]eedback is more effective when it provides information on correct rather than incorrect responses and when it builds on changes from previous trails” (p.?85).How to reduce the gap? Provide appropriate challenging and specific goals. “[T]eachers can create a learning environment in which students develop self-regulation and error detection skills” (p.?87). Where am I going? How am I going? and Where to next? – these questions aren’t solely the domain of teachers, learners can ask them from themselves, too. Feedback allows learners to set new goals once the current ones were attained.“Too often, the feedback given is unrelated to achieving success on critical dimensions of the goal. For example, students are given feedback on presentation, spelling, and quantity in writing when the criteria for success require, say, “creating mood in a story.” Such feedback is not effective in reducing the gap relating to the intention of creating mood” (p.?89). “Teachers and parents often assume that students share a commitment to academic goals, whereas the reality is that developing this shared commitment needs to be nurtured and built” (p.?89).How am I going? “Feedback is effective when it consists of information about progress, and/or about how to proceed” (p.?89). Where to next? Provide “information that leads to greater possibilities for learning. These may include enhanced challenges, more self-regulation over the learning process, greater fluency and automaticity, more strategies and processes to work on the tasks, deeper understanding, and more information about what is and what is not understood” (p.?90).Feedback at self-level is least effective, feedback about the task level is most powerful. Process level and self-regulation level can be powerful. Feedback at task level: “feedback about how well a task is being accomplished or performed, such as distinguishing correct from incorrect answers, acquiring more or different information, and building more surface knowledge. This type of feedback is most common and is often called corrective feedback or knowledge of results, and it can relate to correctness, neatness, behavior, or some other criterion related to task accomplishment” (p.?91). “FT is more powerful when it is about faulty interpretations, not lack of information. If students lack necessary knowledge, further instruction is more powerful than feedback information” (p.?91). Too much feedback is detracting from performance: focus of trial-and-error efforts and on immediate objectives, not goals. It should be simple. Too much feedback on incorrect answers results in a leaners remembering the error itself. Plus, it’s extra information detracting from the correct response. Written comments are more effective than grades (they don’t affect performance, though can increase involvement), it’s better not to include both.Feedback on processing tasks. Providing oneself with feedback is in focus (students’ own strategies for error detection). Can give cues that lead to “information search and use of task strategies. Cues are most useful when they assist students in rejecting erroneous hypotheses and provide direction for searching and strategizing” (p.?93). This feedback enhances deeper learning. Good when combined with task feedback.Feedback about self-regulation. Kind of internal feedback. Self-assessment is (a) self-appraisal (review of knowledge and abilities) and (b) self-management (planning and correcting). “Feedback has its greatest effect when a learner expects a response to be correct and it turns out to be wrong” (p.?95). If low expectation and wrong answer, feedback is ignored. Better option—further instruction. Instrumental help-seeking – seeking for hints, not feedback. But it’s emotional: can be a threat to self-esteem.Feedback about the self of a person. It doesn’t result in learning gains. “It is important, however, to distinguish between praise that directs attention away from the task to the self (because such praise has low information value to achievement and learning) and praise directed to the effort, self-regulation, engagement, or processes relating to the task and its performance (e.g., “You’re really great because you have diligently completed this task by applying this concept”). This latter type of praise can assist in enhancing self-efficacy and thus can be converted by students back into impact on the task, and hence the effects are much greater” (p.?96). Praise can be unwelcome if the learning environment doesn’t praise achievement. Praise is generalized and never seems to be attached to a specific task that the learner has done. Leads to social comparisons, self-handicapping, learned helplessness (p.?97).Timing of feedback. Immediate good for easy tasks, delayed for midrange and difficult tasks.Positive/Negative feedback effects. “positive feedback increases motivation relative to negative feedback for a task that people “want to do” and decreases motivation relative to negative feedback for a task that people “have to do”” (p.?99). Feedback and assessment. “Assessment can be considered to be activities that provide teachers and/or students with feedback information relating to one or more of the three feedback questions (at the FT, FP, or FR level)” (p.?101). I don’t understand this, but it is ineffective.“With inefficient learners, it is better for a teacher to provide elaborations through instruction than to provide feedback on poorly understood concepts” (p.?104).June 5, 2016Rest as BoostI am very happy that, having spent 22 pure hours, I completed the assigned readings and self-checks on Wednesday and had 3 days off. Because of the visa thing, I went to Minsk. Precisely because I was able to relax, I sat on Sunday and created 5 slides (out of 11) for my initial storyboard. I find that it is actually hard to put things back together. Although I’m describing what I personally experienced 5 months ago, I still have to generalize it somehow and decide what detail to include in the storyboard and what not to include. In general, I enjoy what I do—I think I am really both a teacher and an instructional designer by calling.My storyboard in progress…WEEK 3June 6, 2016Initial storyboarding done…It took me a bit more than 6 hours to put together the initial storyboarding. What did I learn from doing it?It is hard to find appropriate images, you need to generalize the picture of what is happening in the classroomEach frame takes 20–30 minutesIt is important to give credit to what has happened in the instruction, without blindly criticizing everythingAssessment with the use of rubrics is something I haven’t done before with so much detail; it was hardThe final slide was the flowchart (though it is in the beginning of the presentation), because I had to abstract from what I’ve outlined in the frames and conceptualize the sequence that the teacher followed in his Spanish classes in January 2016I already asked 2 people to review my initial storyboard. I am happy with what I have, but another person’s look will always show you where you weren’t very clear.June 7, 2016Virtual residency 2Storyboarding helps convince people in business (by realistically showing what will happen)—a visual that makes simple (if created well enough) and shows the client the problem, what can be done, and what can be done to close the gap. Tiffany used the storyboards in work, not just for the class. Has to look good and be very clear. IDs selling solutions to performance gaps – knowledge, skills, or attitudes deficiencies.The session was all about sharing about initial storyboards. I was the first one to go—which was nice, because it was like a burden off my shoulders. Mostly people commented on the design part of my initial storyboard. Tiffany commented, though, that content is more important than design for our purposes. Here’s students’ words verbatim:DeBorah Little: Yuri... GREAT JOB! I'll have to start from scratch to kick my project up a notch now that I see yours!Terrel Hunt: agreed lolJiaming: Yuri good job!Brittney Sykes: I agree Yuri you did a really good job!Alvin Cornelius III: Yea Yuri, this is a really good job. Well set up. I know how it can be when learning a language.Brittany Gregory: Great Job Yuri! I really like the design and layout of your storyboardsCameron Blake: This makes me think a little harder about my project. ThanksBrittany Gregory: I simply used the template that she provided so mine will definitely need some revampingDeBorah Little: Yuri has set the bar REAL HIGH!Then DeBorah presented her storyboard. It was about a full-day instruction in Seattle to high schoolers. It was nicely done, she uses a lot of flipcharts—I’ve forgotten about them, they are associated with the trainings but not day-to-day lessons. In the storyboard she also evaluates her own system.Cassia’s idea is about training bartenders—something she will do for her job in the summer. The major drawback, as she pointed, was a lot of demonstrations that went very fast—like five demonstrations in 25 minutes. It is more of an informal instruction, and 25 minutes is small. Enough activity for an instructional unit but a lot of content. Cassia used actual pictures of the bar where she will work—I found it very authentic. It’s a fast-paced environment, no days off, a 5-hour instruction period, extending from 25 min to 1 hour. Maybe a self-study (orientation) packet. Netxt step: separate 5 sessions, 1 practice session, 2 separate assessment sessions.Cassia’s storyboardBrittney Sykes’ storyboard: shooting the perfect shot in basketball for middle schoolers. It wasn’t all about teaching, it’s more about the practice. But it requires some guidance. But her estimated time was June through September. There was also a narrative in the “Notes” section (she called it “background”). Cassia commented: “Being realistic in this situation is really important and I'm glad you only make the improvement expectation 65%, not everyone will be perfect in a sports environment.” I agree. Brittney also used her own photos to demonstrate what exactly needs to be done, it was powerful. But she only had 1 slide, she will add more slides for the final storyboard.Lucas’ idea: pass rushing (defensive lineman) in football, a 4-hour unit to enhance players’ ability to effectively pass rush against an opponent. He has a big narrative in the storyboard—and a very short presentation of it in class. He used demonstration, then practice, then feedback session. He wants to enhance feedback, more two-way feedback. Lucas used funny pictures, one was a coach at SU who was shouting when giving feedback. One thing to learn something in the classroom, then take to the field in the game, then – to professional sports (transfer). He wants to incorporate a video after practice so that players can see what they’re doing in the practice. So the person comes back and sees a video of him- / herself—it makes an impact on how to correct it.Lucas’ storyboardBrittany Gregory: beginner tap class in a privately owned company. Clearly layed out the performance problem. The flow is simple: warm-up (20 min), new material (20 min), choreography (20 min). It was simple and great.Cameron: Spanish language learning for missionaries for teaching purposes. He has 140 minutes. No hands-on demonstration, practice, Cameron wants to add problem-based activities. On the debrief—the transfer element is missing. They talked about what happened, but not “what are the next steps?” ON the debrief: lead through what has happened, what they learned, what they think they need to improve upon, a few videos, other missionaries teaching where they’d critique compared to how they taught. Engage learners more with the content. Help them transfer.Terrel: marketing side of teaching learners how to do scheduling. Audience: athletes, artists, actors. Outcomes of the instruction: successful ways to do cold calls. It’s very complicated, grab a person’s attention instantly. He didn’t have a storyboard, he narrated it.Jiaming: a 3-session mind map workshop. Warm-up, presentation, assignment. Content isn’t relevant to the workshop, little interaction between students, also between students and the teacher. To improve: more relevant for teachers, interaction between everybody. First, people need to know each other in the beginning. Then clarify objectives. There was little use of technology either.Alvin and Yunkai didn’t have their storyboards. And I unfortunately was a bit tired to be focused on what they were saying. It is much easier to focus when there’s visual simulation. Overall more social interaction, guidelines, clear outcomes, feedback, assessment.What did I learn in this debrief? Listen to everyone present, feedback of others stimulated my thinking. I want to incorporate different elements from other presentations. Skills that I learn here, I can use anywhere. A lot of opportunity for entrepreneurship.June 8, 2016initial storyboard: NEXTI received the critique for my storyboard from three people. Major points:Add evaluation and debriefCheck timing and the elements that go in different class sessionsMake practice activities more interactiveWhat would I want to change?Re-think the structure (remove explicit grammar teaching, reduce warm-up activities, remove duplication of watching a movie, extend time to practice vocabulary in speech, inform of objectives)Prepare vocab activities (lexical approach)Prepare assessment activitiesFocus on feedback and promote self-reflectionsInclude writing activitiesJune 8, 2016Storyboard Redesigning. First sittingI spent 3.5 hours today to redesign the initial storyboard, using the critique of the reviewers as well as my own knowledge of what can be done to enhance the instructional unit. The easiest part was to eliminate that which was unimportant. It was relatively simple, because certain things were off the wall. For instance, reviewing grammar at the end of Class Session 2 is absolutely unnecessary, because there are tutorials that students can and should watch outside the class. Also, duplicate exercises were removed. One of the reasons for duplicate exercises was that the teacher possible didn’t know that online homework has already required students to do certain exercises. Finally, I reduced the size of the words and phrases to mandatory learning from 93 to 60. Because students will have to learn them in one sitting, it is reasonable not to overload them. Plus, at least 20 words in the lists repeat the words that students definitely learned in previous Spanish classes.The next thing was to add something meaningful. I use Gagné’s instructional theory as my working tool. It was clear that the current instruction lacked certain events (gain attention, inform of objectives, provide feedback, assess performance). Not all those steps could be used for Class Session I; however, most could. I also added more work for the teacher. S/he has to prepare certain activities at home that were not created by the textbook authors. Specifically, the translational warm-up activity and a hand-out to students with tips on how to learn vocabulary in a foreign language. To explain my theoretical (and practical) reasoning, I added two appendices on vocabulary acquisition at the end of the presentation. Finally, to give explanations to other changes in the storyboard, I decided to use boxes with the blue font and a glowing frame. These boxes signal what exactly has been changed and a simply why-answer. It will look like this:Storyboard re-designedI know I still have perhaps 2.5 hours before I complete this project and will be done with the course. Plus 3 hours of another online session. As of now, I already spent 41 hours on this class: 7—virtual residencies, 2—familiarizing with the Blackboard and materials, 22—readings, self-checks, and reflection journal, 10 hours—storyboarding. Expected time spent on this course: 50 hours. Almost as much as I spend on the Project Management class in the spring semester. Only, this class will be done in 4 weeks. Four weeks. Cool!June 9, 2016Storyboard Redesigning. Second sittingAnother 2.5 hours, and mu storyboard is complete. I again sent it to the 3 reviewers to take a look and possibly comment. This time I had to create two new storyboards in place of the previous grammar section and a section that duplicated watching the movie in class. So this requires certain intellectual efforts.My biggest struggle was to create a debrief activity. Because it is something that has to synthesize many things learned in the two class sessions, it should be done meaningfully. So I decided to do 2 activities: first, students share what universal principles they learned in the 3 hours of instruction; second, students answer “what-if” questions asked by the teacher that promote higher order thinking and transfer.After I’ve finalized the storyboard and did the rubric thing, I realized there is one big gap that I simply overlooked. That is—students’ introductions. This is a new group, perhaps most people don’t know each other, so any ice breaking activity would do the job. However, it might have taken up to 25 minutes—half of the class—so my solution was to implement name tags so that students get to know each other while doing pair activities together.In general, I am happy with what I have. I was able to improve the instruction and explain the steps I decided to make instead of the ones that were done initially in January. I’ll see what reviewers have to say and then perhaps make some minor adjustments. I don’t think the storyboard will require any major changes.June 10, 2016A very insghtful comment from Virtual Residency IIDeBorah Little: In developing these storyboards, for example, the way that Yuri’s look—where it looks dynamic, it’s colorful, it’s attractive to the idea—is this a tool, therefore, that you take in when you make a pitch to try to sell a service?Tiffany Koszalka (~6 min): Absolutely. Even when I have worked internally, and my job was training manager, instructional design, or director of whatever. In a business it’s different: you do training, you take people off the job, they’re not productive. So training is always looked down as an expense. However, hopefully after training you’re gonna get that money back and more. But we’re always taking storyboards in to convince the CFO or the president that they needed to make an investment in the training. And the more realistic you could show them what was going on, the better they’d be able to understand what was going on, ‘cause they didn’t know anything about training. Nobody does. So you’re telling them: ‘This is what I can do.’ That’s where you pull the stuff together. When you take a course in needs assessment, that tells you what the gap is, right? We don’t create training just to create it. We create it to fit the job. So now you can say—just like what we did in IDE631—here’s the gap and here’s what we wanna do to start to close that gap in terms of training. The storyboard is a visual that makes it very simple (if you create them well enough) that shows your client—whether it’s externally or internally—‘Here’s what I think the problem is, here’s what we can do to begin to close that gap.’ So these tool that you guys are playing with in these courses are things that, at least in my experience (I’m doing this for over 30 years now), I’ve used out in the real world. It’s not just for classwork that we actually do this, this is what we do.So, your question is “Would a storyboard be something that you can take out and sell your product?” In a form, yes. But it has to look good and it has to be very clear. And you have to have that argument. You have to go to somebody who knows that they have a problem, or really doesn’t know what the problem is, or has a different idea about the problem. I ran into that all the time in training. “I want training because our numbers are down and they need sales training because they are not selling enough product.” Well, rarely if you have a sales force is the selling issue related to the experience of the sales people if you have a good salesforce. They know how to sell. There’s something else going on there. People aren’t buying it either ‘cause it’s a bad product. Now, you hear that story if you’re a good salesman, you could sell anything to anybody. Well, no, not if it’s a bad product. You can get around it, you can do it for a while, but it’s not gonna go further than probably you want to.But when we go in, what we’re selling is solutions to performance gaps. And performance gaps are based on knowledge, skills, or attitude deficiencies. Because that’s what instruction does. The advantage that you have is that you develop them around something where you have some level of expertise. What you need to do with your client is you need to convince them that you have that expertise and the problem that they have is related to something that you can solve: “And here’s my solution.” So that’s what this becomes. Whether you’re selling for money or as part of your job, you say, “This is what we need to do”—it doesn’t matter. The storyboard is a communication vehicle. That’s where you have to put your thinking as an instructional design person and someone who understands learning better and you make it into some sort of document that can really help communicate your thinking and your expertise out to someone who’s looking to solve the problem.From an entrepreneurial spirit, I am in conversations with a couple of different groups right now who are saying, “You know what? Now that we know what instructional design is all about, we need groups of people who are instructional designers to come and help us solve these problems, but we’re not exactly sure what a goal yet.” So, I’m meeting tomorrow with a nursing school and I take storyboards with me. I say, “Here’s what we can do.” Because they can see it and start to understand. It’s like, “Oh.. OH! That’s what you wanna do!” So they get the [???] with it, because it relates to things that they already do—they’re nursing educators—but they don’t do it consistently or in a way that necessarily is going to be really-really effective in terms of whatever their new goals are. So, storyboards are wonderful tools. To think that they were never invented for instruction, they were invented for the movie industry, but we’re really good at taking other people’s tools and using them to support our work. June 11, 2016On reading Ch. 7 in Smith & Ragan (2005)Chapter 7. A Framework for Instructional Strategy DesignI didn’t read this chapter when I had IDE631, but it was amazing to read the chapter after almost a year of thinking about instructional design. My major aha-moments were:9 events of instruction can be actually 15 eventsEvents can be in different order, seamlessly combined, or interspersed across lesson sectionsDepending on the locus of cognitive processing, the instruction may be “done to the learner” or “performed by the learner”The best strategy is when you consider learner, context, and learning tasksExpository (didactic) approach vs. discovery (inquiry) approach = generalities+examples vs. examples+generalitiesBoth efficient, though discovery is better for recall and transfer (though time consuming)“A discovery approach is fundamentally generative, as giving learners the primary responsibility for information processing is the crucial attribute of generative strategies” (p.?134)Gain attention + inform of objectives can be 1 event, informal rather than formal:DemonstratePose a questionsDo it in the end if inquire/discovery approachActivation of prior knowledge allows the learner to feel “in a driver’s seat” (+ recall prior cognitive strategies)Comparative advance organizer (features of Buddhism vs Christianity)Analogy (eye and aperture)Expository review (restatement of relevant knowledge)Elaboration and negative transfer (invent analogies/comparisons; incompatible prior knowledge, e.g., Russian syntax is not like in English)Focus attention: graphic (arrows, boxes, circles), leading questions, “notice!”, highlighted textEmploy effective learning strategies to better encode information (note taking, mental images, concept maps, outlines, mnemonics, etc.)Spontaneous learning doesn’t happen over time, so you need to give more challenging tasks to students for practiceConsider where learning goes wrong and design activities that will have students confront it; it will pique their interest and provide more successful learning experiencePromote overlearning and automaticityFeedback second try feedback (cycle!)Peers may provide feedback for open-ended questions“Why”-answer feedback, correct/incorrect feedback, faulty solution strategies feedback, possible consequences feedback, video replay feedback, pattern of error feedback, closeness to the criterion feedbackConclusion purpose: ensure that learners recall and synthesize parts of the instruction into a memorable whole; consolidate new learningRemind learners of what they’ve achievedDo not include any new informationConclude on a positive note, prime the importance of learning (“You’ve been very attentive, class dismissed”)Transfer (near / far) doesn’t occur spontaneously: ask “students to find examples or apply principles in real-life conditions that they would anticipate encountering subsequent to instruction” (p.?138). Student develop their own examples & applications, analogies between new and prior knowledge, paraphrases of declarative knowledge lessons. For declarative knowledge, the transfer is correct inferences from the informationAssessment (paper-and-pencil tests, on-the-job performance, simulation, etc.) is closely related to the statement of the goal“Designers use the information to continuously revise instruction” (p.?139)Common practice – combine several goals into an assessment period (unit test)If delayed, carefully plan reviewRemediation addresses learning strategiesInstructional strategies: generative and supplantive (mathemagenic) – low level vs high level of scaffolding & cognitive supportGenerative strategies tend to result in the “bonus” learning of cognitive strategies, may often be more interesting and engaging (that really depends on so many other factors, but it’s one of the widely accepted benefits of using “learner centered,” inquiry, learning environments, and other relatively generative orientations). On the other hand, generative strategies tend to take more time, result in more variation of learning outcome among students, be more difficult for beginning learners in a domain, rely upon learners’ possession and use of appropriate cognitive strategies, and be inappropriate when learners have high anxiety.Supplantive strategies tend to take less time and result in more consistency between learners as to what is learned, provide needed help for beginning learners in a domain, and supply assistance in finding and using appropriate cognitive strategies.June 12, 2016What is formative assessment in WIKI?Formative assessment is to modify or improve instruction. Students have a central part in it. It promotes learning through goals (+ criteria for success), feedback (central function of F.A.; where to improve and how), and (active) questioning (reflection) in the classroom. It increases self-efficacy, improve metacognitive awareness, motivation. Purpose: students take charge of their own learning. Their thinking must become visible. Everyone has to participate. Feedback promotes revision and rethinking. F.A. is very helpful not for high level students but for low and average.Grades—bad idea, rather moving towards the learning goal. Comments + grades = bad (focus on comparisons, competitions). Example: “This has 3 errors. Find what they are and correct”, “The answer is … Can you find out a way to work it out?”, “You’ve used substitution. Try elimination this time.”Other names: diagnostic testing, assessment for learning, educative assessment, classroom assessment.WEEK 4June 13, 2016Reviewers’ comments about the final storyboardReviewer 1: “I think it looks great! Everything is easy to understand and all your activities and forms of evaluation make sense.”Reviewer 2: “I like this new design. I think all the activities are around the topic personal relationship. This makes the whole design more meaningful and relevant to students and these are good for language learning. The expected learning outcomes are narrated in a more clear and precise way. I especially like that you offered students some learning strategies, which will be helpful for their future leaning as teaching them to learn “learning”. Also I find some formative assessment and reflection pieces, these are also great instruction activities for language learning based on my own experience. These activities help students to not only memorize new words but also use the new words. I just had a one quick question on page 7. One of the key learning outcome is to predict 60%-70% of the plot of the movie. I am not sure what the purpose of this is, as it may be related to students’ other skills not about language? Overall I think you did an awesome job!!”Reviewer 3: “Your storyboard looks great! I liked how you kept the Spanish instruction close to its original form, but enhanced it with instructional design strategies (reflection, review objectives). I think students will respond to that well. There are minimal comments on the storyboard. The only element that I did not see you address in either storyboard was the textbook. Is this particular textbook appropriate to the material? Do you have to use this textbook for a specific reason? Usefulness/ support of the textbook may be an element to add to your rubric.”June 14, 2016On Reading an article on learning theoriesErtmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective.?Performance Improvement Quarterly,?26(2), 43-71. doi:10.1002/piq.21143A great overview of three learning theories. The word “digital natives”/ “digital immigrants” was absolutely new for me. A digital native has a hypertext mind, has a unique ability to learn visually and socially, prefers to learn by doing (doing is more important than knowing). Therefore, conversation should become the driver in learning these days. They have instant and effective access to information, prefer high level of interactivity, and key skills are problem solving, creativity, and critical thinking, working collaboratively. However, the core of how learning occurs hasn’t changed much, though we see a change in learners, technologies, and teaching methods. Constructivist theories are in play (situated learning/cognition, connectivism, social constructivism, mobile learning). “[L]earning designs for today’s students must be highly contextualized, personal, and collaborative” (p.?69).Why research and learning theories? Because when limited time and resources, we want the selected instructional solutions to have the highest success. Research-based selections are more reliable than heuristics. It gives room for flexibility, spontaneity, creativity.What is learning? “Learning is an enduring change in behavior, or in the capacity to behave in a given fashion, which results from practice or other forms of experience” (definition by Schunk, 1991).Empiricism: “experience is the primary source of knowledge”. Instruction: “how to manipulate the environment in order to improve and ensure the occurrence of proper associations.”Rationalism: “knowledge arises through the mind.” Instruction: “how best to structure new information in order to facilitate (1) the learners’ encoding of this new information, as well as (2) the recalling of that which is already known.”How should instruction be designed?Behaviorism: cues + reinforcementCognitivism: organize and structure information + relate it to the existing knowledge + arrange feedbackConstructivism: show students how to construct knowledge + promote collaboration + help arrive at self-chosen positions“[C]onstructive learning environments are most effective for the stage of advanced knowledge acquisition, where initial misconceptions and biases acquired during the introductory stage can be discovered, negotiated, and if necessary, modified and/or removed” (p.?57). “That is, behavioral approach can effectively facilitate mastery of the content of the profession (knowing what); cognitive strategies are useful in teaching problem-solving tactics where defined facts and rules are applied in unfamiliar situations (knowing how); and constructivist strategies are especially suited to dealing with ill-defined problems through reflection-in-action” (p.?60).June 14, 2016Virtual Residency IIIReview of Merrill’s first principles was the first activity in the virtual residency. When we create instruction, we include activities for each one of these principles. Look for instances where these things are happening. Real-world problem – you don’t take people in space, but rather what’s going on in space? How well does instruction fit with all of these principles.Concreteness article was second. We need to help learners with abstract concepts. Example: counting: give kids things that can count (sticks, pencils of different colors and sizes—count out two, count out three; these are manipulatives). You’re taking abstract concepts and use manipulatives. Molecules: little kits, balls with halls in them, sticking them together. If an element can hold two elements, there were only two holes in them. Those concrete things (manipulatives) help understand rather abstract concepts. Hands-on, peer discovery. We design classroom to enhance transfer, linking new exploratory activities to familiar things. There are inductive and deductive methods.Did I use it in my revised instruction? Not so much, because working with a vocabulary may require a different kind of manual. The textbook used does not visualize words, so it was harder to do it. At the same time. But there were links to familiar experiences, problem solving activities (in the short film discussions). Also, rules were given first! The appendix, for instance, was developed anew.Readings for enhancing teaching and authenticity. Did I use it? Short-quizzes were used, interactive formats were endorsed, authentic problem, reflections were encouraged, critical thinking was mostly done with asking the question “why?” and “why not?” Work in pairs was the most common form of work, I refrained from doing groups of three in my instruction.Advance organizers—a start that should be encouraging, help encoding, better or worse for different students. I don’t think I used them for this particular instructional unit that I was involved with, but it may be systematic. Advance organizers can present themselves in a plethora of ways. These can include anything from skimming the reading material to the use of graphic organizers: 1. Narrative, 2. Expository, 3. Skimming, 4. Graphic Organizers, 5. KWL Chart (know, want to know, learned). “Advance organizers are NOT (1) A review of what was covered in the previous class session, (2) A simple overview, (3) Recalling what was done last week or last year, (4) Telling the students about tomorrow, (5) Recalling a personal experience and relating it to what will be learned, (6) Stating the objectives of the lesson.”Cassia’s storyboard: the use of colors, you had 50 minutes, now you have more time, more feedback, more practice, more time to think about what you’re doing in a restaurant—great when you’re a new person. Manuals added. Cameron mentioned the assessment.What’s the simplest I can do to bring value?Virtual residency III ................
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