Category: edci335

Peer Review for Pod 12’s Learning Design

    For my peer-review post, I will be covering the learning design for Pod 12. Their chosen subject is “Micro and Macro in Economics”. The blueprint designed by LiWei Chen and Tingting Li is very dense, and is clearly the product of a lot of time, thought, and hard work. The learning design included appears to be a fraction of the intended course, and focuses just on the microeconomics side of things. 

    The subject of microeconomics is a subject that I have no familiarity with. While I was working through the slideshow (the resource that I assume would be given to learners) I felt a bit lost, a bit unsure about what I should be taking from the material. According to the blueprint, the intended audience for the course are single parents who are learning english. I am unclear what that means: is the course intended for people without a background in economics? Does this mean that the course is intended for practical application to peoples’ daily lives?

 I found the wording and the graphics  in the slides to be a bit abstract. As a layman on the subject (I may be incorrect, but I think that is the intended audience for this course?) I found the type of information included to be over my head, and beyond my expertise. As a learner, I think the material would be a bit clearer to me if there were some concrete examples. For example, in the blueprint there were a number of handy graphics that described the link between consumers and businesses, or short videos that described some of the key concepts behind economics. That is, including some of the resources in your blueprint could add variety to the material, to help make it more memorable, to break up the torrent of information, and to further engage the learners, rather than simply transmitting what is meant to be learned. 

The rationale for the course states that the design’s goal is to help single parents, who are learning English, to manage daily economic problems. I may be missing something, but I had trouble connecting the material in the slides with practical applications. That is, the slides seemed to mostly deal with the theory behind microeconomics, rather than with practical economic activities that we may encounter regularly. Judging from what was written in the blueprint, and with the slideshow, I felt that there was a bit of a disconnect between the intentions for the design, and how the design panned out.

What are the intended assessments for this design, and what is meant to be the interactive element? I saw some explanation in the blueprint: namely teacher and self-evaluation, tests, and a Q&A discussion. I would have liked to see what these assessments would look like. I liked the idea of discussion in particular – was the intention for learners to engage with each other, or for learners to engage with their instructors?

I’m a bit unsure about what the learning theory behind the course design would be. Some elements, like the discussion, seem to be in line with the constructivist approach, while the assessment plan seems more in line with the behaviourist approach? I could be incorrect, but it seemed that the focus was on encouraging learning through reinforcement through grades. Is this so? Are there intended opportunities for learning to apply, or reflect on what they’ve learned? 

Overall, I think that there is a lot of good content in the blueprint, and your design offers a detailed overview of the workings of macro and micro economics. From what I have seen, you guys have a lot of resources in place that I think could make your learning design much more engaging and informative from a learner’s perspective. Good job!

Blog 4

    The topic for my pod’s learning design is “Maintaining Mental Health as a University Student”, and the video I chose for this blog post is titled “The Importance of Social Support” from the Stanford Pain Medicine youtube channel. The video focuses on the role that social support can play for people who live with chronic pain. Though it isn’t strictly related to life as a university student, the lecturer, Matthew Hermann, addresses the biopsychosocial model of health, how the role of social support is often neglected, and how social support can enhance a person’s resiliency and self-efficacy. That is, I feel like the broader offers a lot of really interesting information, and has a broader application than its narrow focus.

    The video itself doesn’t prompt interaction from the student. Information is transmitted from the lecturer to the learner (though the delivery was perhaps a little dry, I found the material to be extremely interesting). The material isn’t really spoon-fed to the learner: instead, I hope that they would take in the material, grab on to it, and be able to reflect on it. 

    Our learning design is hoping to encourage interaction/discussion among learners, to encourage them to think about what they’ve covered in the material, and to make it more personally meaningful through interaction with their fellows. To that end, I would provide learners with a set of prompts that they could. Students could then share their thoughts, and provide comments on others’ reflections.

    My hope is that the comment section would give learners space to ask questions, and to respond to their classmate’s thoughts and questions. Considering the subject of our design, I don’t intend to have a rigid grading scheme, but instead learners would be expected to simply participate through an open discussion.

    Delivering the material in this way would create a manageable workload: the discussion is low stakes, without the high expectations of academic writing, and without the forced nature of the online discussion forums we complete for school. The material can be easily scaled for large groups, perhaps even dividing the learners into smaller groups, to allow them to build rapport with one another. 

Adjusting our Learning Design to Reduce Barriers

Prompt: Choose one (or more) of your planned learning activities from your blueprint and identify any barriers for student success. How can you alter or adjust your current plan to reduce those barriers?

Reflecting on the readings for this week, I really liked the idea of the “Myth of the Average Learner” (National #AccessAbility Week 2021). That is, a rigid, structured, standardized approach to education doesn’t really work when taking into account each learner’s uniqueness, preferences, and strengths. As a student at university, the ideas that we are given regarding learning clash with the principles of accessibility outlined in the readings: students are encouraged to measure themselves against other students (with grades, particularly when the professor releases statistics about grade distribution). That is, if the student can’t manage, then that is interpreted as a failure of the student to meet the requirements of the learning design, rather than a failure of the learning design to be flexible, and accessible (Inclusive Learning Design 2021).

My pod is creating a learning design titled Managing Mental Health as a University Student. The material will be delivered through a blog online, using videos and articles. Our intention for the learning activities is to focus on reflection, and with encouraging learners to make connections between their own experience, and the material covered in the learning design. For formative assignments, the learners will annotate the blog using the hypothes.is tool. For the summative assignments, learners will design a self-care journal.

As it is, our learning design offers some flexibility, with a blend of sources, like text, video, and audio. To improve accessibility, we could include a text-to-speech (TTS) plugin above each post.

Taking into account Universal Design’s three pillars (multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement), we could offer the learner some flexibility, and options for how assignments can be completed (Universal Design 2021):

  • We could offer prompts for the annotations (i.e., what is one thing that suprised you about what you learned? What is one thing that you would like to learn more about? What is one thing that you would like to start using?)
  • For the summative assignment, we could offer options, with either completing something written, or something creative (i.e., a drawing, a poem, anything they can think of), or even recording a short video or audio clip of their reflections.

The learning outcomes for our design aren’t rigid or complex, and are instead focused on improving our learners’ capacity to manage stress, and to improve their self-care. To this end, I think that the delivery of our material would be improved by offering this kind of flexibility, and offering an outlet for learner’s to engage with the material creatively, and to make it more personally meaningful.

Inclusive Learning Design. (2021, May 5). Retrieved from

National #AccessAbility Week (2021, May 5). Retrieved from

Universal Design (2021, May 5). Retrieved from

Experiential Learning

    Experiential learning is a very broad approach to education, and is characterized by learning through practical activities, ranging from internships, co-ops, and field trips, to classroom group work, open-ended discussions, and other hands-on activities. What makes the experiential approach distinct, is that learners are given the opportunity to apply what they have learned, to make decisions around it, and to reflect on the outcomes of these decisions (Barton 2019). That is, the learner is encouraged to take an active role in their acquisition of knowledge, and to become engaged with the material through reflection, critical analysis, and synthesis. The Association for Experiential Education (2021) state:

    “Throughout the experiential learning process, the learner is actively engaged in posing questions, investigation, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning” (Association for Experiential Education 2021).

    The experiential approach works from the assumption that learning is a lifelong process, and encourages students to approach situations creatively, and develop skills in critical thinking and reflection . Notably, this approach encourages a growth mindset (Barton 2019).

    Through school, work, and other activities, I’ve had a number of engagements with experiential learning. Those experiences have been the most memorable: I’ve retained more information from them, and that information has been transferable to other situations. These engagements were characterized by creativity, critical thinking, and challenge. Typically, the expectations for assignments were very loose, and learners were free to approach material in (almost) any way that they wished. 

    Based on my investigation, I feel that an experiential learning approach would lend itself well to my pod’s “Mental Health” learning design. Mental health is something which is deeply personal, and can’t be addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach. A degree of openness with how students can approach material could encourage them to put a bit of themselves into their work, and encourage engagement. Experiential learning offers a lot of flexibility in approaches, from group work, discussion, or even games. However, I do think it could be difficult to achieve learning outcomes without rigid structure.

Association for Experiential Education. (2021). What is Experiential Education. https://www.aee.org/what-is-experiential-education

Barton, Tara (2019, August 20). Experiential Learning In And Out Of Classrooms. Serve Learn. 

Experienced-Based Learning Systems (2020, May 15). Youtube.com. 

My Most Enjoyable Learning Experience

The most enjoyable learning experience was in a sociology course on social change, that I took this past summer. Speaking generally, the course was concerned with how our ideas of social change have evolved over time, and with understanding barriers to creating meaningful social change.

The course was delivered in a way that was heavily constructivist, but incorporated elements from the behaviourist approach as well. It was challenging, with minimal direction for engaging with the material or for completing the assignments, and we were given a lot of freedom with how we could approach our assignments. Despite the difficulty, I was engaged by what we learned, and found that it offered a new way of understanding parts of my own experience. I continue to think about this course regularly.

Following the behaviourist approach, the course used formal grades with a well-defined rubric, offering reinforcement (grades) to encourage performance (Ertmer & Newby 2013, pp. 3). Qualifying for the course required the completion of prerequisites, which is aligned with the behaviourist assumption that completion of these prerequisites would better prepare us to succeed in higher-level courses (Ertmer & Newby 2013, pp. 3).

The material itself was dense and challenging, involving a number of complex theoretical texts. The material wasn’t really broken down, or curated for us. Engaging with the course felt like I was being drowned, or overwhelmed by the volume of information. While the instructor was encouraging and flexible, succeeding in the course felt like a matter of finding my own way, rather than being guided through it. The text states that one of the goals of cognitivism is “to communicate or transfer knowledge to the students in the most efficient, effective manner possible” (Ertmer & Newby 2013, pp. 3). As a learner, I think that “chunking” the material, offering guiding questions, or learning objectives, would have made the volume of information more manageable, more digestible, and would have made the learning process easier.

The class environment was informal, and non-hierarchical, without a rigid distinction between learner and educator. The instructor ran classes like a group discussion, rather than a scripted lecture. We were invited to ask questions, to bring our own thoughts to the material, and to converse with each other. There was no emphasis on correct or incorrect interpretations of the material. Instead, the instructor hoped that we would develop familiarity with the ideas behind what we learned, and then apply them to our chosen subject for our term papers. The final assignment was graded based on the connections we drew between the course materials and our subject of choice. Consistent with the constructivist approach to education, we were evaluated on our ability to think critically and creatively, and to transfer our new knowledge from one context to another (Ertmer & Newby 2013, pp. 3). That is, taking the theoretical framework that we were taught in the course, and applying it to a subject of our choice.

Though the course was very challenging, I would also say that I felt a sense of accomplishment at completion. Beyond just receiving a grade, the material that I learned has personal meaning for me, and I continue to think about it regularly.

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71. Retrieved from: https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/behaviorism_cognitivism_constructivism

Self-Introduction

Hello Everyone,

My name is Nate. I’m in 3rd year, and I am pursuing a degree in sociology with a minor in education. I hope to use my education to pursue a career in mental health and addictions. I chose a minor in education because it seems like a practical qualification, offering skills that I will be able to use in the future.

I look forward to meeting and working with everyone!