Welcome to the new world!

Learning Pod: #5

Peers’ Names: Jinyi Guo, Spider, Lawrence, Wanyue Mo

Interactive Learning Resource Topic: Inflation

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16zRc75n54Du99FkHNrueM9c02rlPpNZVZb-atsbWvG0/edit

Identify components of the Interactive Learning Resource that might be missing (e.g., appropriate outcomes, alignment, interactivity, inclusivity, technology use and rationale, presentation, grammar, spelling, citations, etc.).

This group follows the sequence in the requirements to construct the lesson plan, so the program is clear and organized as a whole. I can easily and quickly find the part I’m looking for. And many diverse teaching methods are used in this design which is very appealing to me and believing it will stimulate learners’ interest very well. But some points are missing and you can consider adding them if you agree: >> Definition and Causes theory of inflation. In the overview, you just simply the background in general. But for beginners, it is better to clarify the meaning of inflation, the body, and the causes(the relationship between supplier, consumer, and the government in the market) in the following part. I think it is the most basic knowledge the learner should learn. >> Specific questions on Activity. In this part, you are not only to show your plan of teaching but need to list the specific questions/tools to support it. For example, after watching a video on inflation, you ask learners to answer the short answer questions. In that case, you should post the link to the video there to let us know which video is it. Just be specific about the Activity you design!

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

Strengths:  1. The format is very diverse to meet the needs of different groups, mainly in the form of teaching and testing(e.g., short answer questions, essays, and multiple choice questions). It is possible to test whether the learner has digested the teaching knowledge in all aspects. 2. Activity assessment design is very detailed, the weighting of each exercise in the total score is divided so that learners can organize their study plan more rationally.3. Designed with many interactive learning methods. For example, by setting up scenarios, students can better deepen their understanding and memory of inflation while answering questions. That’s a very interesting method!  Weaknesses: In many parts, there are not many specific plans for the learning design. In the project, you need to write down the detailed questions you provide to students to answer.

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

You guys really did a great job on the Interactive Learning Resource and I enjoy learning it! But if you can pay attention to some small details would be better. 1. A very detailed point of knowledge that I think you need to add to it. Regarding the impact of inflation, you need to distinguish between long-term and short-term, because the difference between the two is significant. 2. Brief commentary and a few of its points have the same symbols. You might want to consider changing it, it will look a little neater. 3. It is too general in the rationale for the learning design, clarifying it in more detail helps the learner study better. 4. I think it is not reasonable for people who do not have access to computers at home to use their phones to write a 1500-words essay, Can you provide them with a better solution?

Here is the video I choose from YouTube on personal finance

Learning is supposed to be an intertwined process, interactive learning is one of the elements that cannot be ignored. “There are different kinds of interaction in the study: interaction with learning materials, the interaction between students and teachers, and student-student interaction” (Bates, 2019). Today, I’ll choose YouTube as the learning technique to provide to use with my learners to learn personal finance. Through this study, learners can understand and master the course content well and can apply it flexibly in their life.

According to the instructions in the video, students should first download Microsoft Excel to work on their finance methods. First, I would set up online tests after each section of the video to check students’ concentration, such as having them work with several virtual data in Excel to test their knowledge. Students cannot proceed to the next chapter if their scores do not meet the requirements. Then toward the end of the video, I will design a few questions for students to answer to find out how well they take notes in class, such as which items of data are covered in the video for collation? And after the students finish watching the video, I’ll set a few application questions for them to try to plan their finances. Furthermore, I will provide a list of books in relevant categories for students to search in the e-library for extended reading after class, which will help broaden their horizons about personal finance and foster their spirit of self-exploration.

After students have completed the series of activities, I will provide a learning forum for students to write down their thoughts and questions about the course topics after the class. In the end, the teacher and teaching assistant will give feedback to each student through the online forum to confirm that each student has digested the content of the chapter.

Interactive learning is an active learning method that can be very effective in motivating students to learn. By making good use of interactive techniques, learning designers can better understand students’ needs and help them achieve their learning goals quicker!

Reference:

Bates, A. W. (T. (2019, October 10). 9.6 interaction. Teaching in a Digital Age Second Edition. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/chapter/pedagogical-roles-for-text-audio-and-video/

Comment on Zhihao’s Blog4:

  Hi, the video you picked illustrates very clearly the 6 principles of personal finance and budgeting. After watching it, I have a much better understanding of personal finance! Your design of the interactive learning is also very complete and comprehensive. Passing a lot of quizzes is really an effective and simple form to test students’ ability, and I’m sure the students will gain personal insight into personal finance after learning through this process.

Here is the link:

https://czhinfinitortal.opened.ca/

Unlike traditional direct instruction, interactive learning pays more attention to learner engagement in the course to achieve teaching goals. The instructor can enhance learners’ motivation in this way. But the question of how to fully use interactive learning resources to maximize learning efficiency and meet the needs of all learners is a thought-provoking issue.

Interactive learning focuses on learner engagement, so learning designers need to categorize the details to achieve a manageable state of the course. Learning designers can start with the areas of environment, materials, tasks, and assessment to increase learners’ proficiency and make interactive learning resources relevant to all learners’ needs.

In terms of the environment, the learning designer can design several questions in advance to ask students in class or in small groups for students to explore and answer. Besides, learners will be asked to list any uncertain ideas from both a group and individual perspective and then ask the instructor questions in class. The preparation of materials is also critical. Learning designers can upload information related to class knowledge in advance for students to preview. Making good use of technology, such as using the course recording function in class to help students digest after class, and opening a course forum for post-class Q&A. For students with higher needs, provide some after-class extension resources to enrich their knowledge. Learning designers can also get to know students by assigning tasks. Before the lesson, students can be given a reading task and an entry ticket to find out how familiar they are with the content they are about to learn. In class, a mini-test is given at the end of each lesson; after class, weekly assignments and phase quiz are combined and feedback are given at the end of the lesson to help students reflect on themselves. What’s more, assessment is also an important step in understanding the needs of learners. Students who have a good grasp of the knowledge can improve their knowledge through training and extended activities after class. For students who are weak in mastery, we can re-teach them and give them some basic questions to consolidate and then increase the difficulty to reach the level required by the teaching objectives. For those students who are still not good enough, we can have a personalized conversation to better understand the student’s needs and help them. Refining and implementing different measures to meet various demands.

Comment on Zhihao’s Post 3 – Inclusive & Differentiated Design

After reading your article, it really gave me something to think about. In learning, we can use as much technology as possible to break through the time and space barrier to achieve the purpose of common learning, such as using Google docs for group tasks. This is a very convenient learning resource, which can meet the needs of different people, different times, different locations of the office. What a great idea it is!

Link to Zhihao’s post:

https://czhinfinitortal.opened.ca/

Direct instruction is a teacher-directed instructional approach, which means this form is that teachers provide learning methods and knowledge directly to students in the classroom. (Renard, 2019) Compared with other emerging teaching methods, direct instruction is a more traditional and effective teaching mode, and is more suitable for most study requirements. The subject we choose today—personal finance is also equally applicable to this teaching method. This method generally follows 6 steps：

• Introduction

There are two goals at the beginning: the first is the teacher can use an entry ticket, Mentimeter, or arithmetic widget to find out the basic financial background of the students. The second is to provide a guideline for the students to introduce what we will learn in this course so that students will have a basic understanding of the course setting to learn better.

• Present new material

We can present new materials by these 2 methods: giving a lecture or demonstration. For personal finance, using the form of storytelling or photo widgets to state the main points in a lecture, is conducive to improving the visual experience, enriching the interest in learning, and making it easier for students to accept.

• Guided practice

This is a process of increasing student engagement by setting questions to answer. For example, the teacher can set a specific financial management topic: how to allocate one’s funds reasonably for personal financial management. Communicate and explore in the form of pairs, and summarize a conclusion to report.

• Feedback and correctives

Through student performance, teachers can help students by promptly pointing out their right and wrong and giving corresponding feedback.

• Independent practice

After the theoretical study and questions are resolved, the students already have a relatively strong financial management learning ability. At this time, teachers can send exercises and quizzes using multiple-choice questions and mind maps to detect students’ learning levels.

• Evaluation

By collecting and summarizing students’ data, teachers can determine whether the students have mastered the relevant content of personal finance, to determine whether the direct instruction is effective or not.

Using direct guidance to learn personal finance, students can easily acquire personal finance-related knowledge through the teacher’s introduction. At the same time, teachers can closely grasp the students’ learning situation and make corresponding adjustments, which is a well-controlled and more efficient learning method.

References:

Renard, L. (2019, March 28). Direct instruction – A practical guide to effective teaching. BookWidgets. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2019/03/direct-instruction-a-practical-guide-to-effective-teaching

Comments on Claire Liu’s blog post #2—Experiential Learning:

Hi Claire! After reading your post I learned that experiential learning is a more interesting way to learn than generalized direct instruction. Learners can learn by doing with curiosity to explore problems, discover and solve problems in practice. This method pays more attention to the learner’s autonomy and participation, which can greatly improve the learner’s enthusiasm for learning. David Kolb’s model you gave also easily and clearly describes the process of this learning method. I am very interested in this learning method, and I will try this learning method to learn new things in the future!

Link to Claire Liu’s post:

https://claireliu.opened.ca/

Learning plays a vital role throughout our life, we are constantly learning from the moment we are born to the moment we grow old. Therefore, to ensure the efficiency of learning, in the beginning, clearing our learning motivation, and mastering the learning methods and strategies to solve the problems we meet are very important.

   In the past, I always preferred the teaching model similar to behaviorists. It’s like a self-discovery process, which pays more attention to cultivating students’ learning initiative. And the learner designer observed the learner’s reaction to determine what works for different people. 

However, in one of my Zither lessons, I found that I was wrong– common progress of teaching and learning cannot be parted. In the past, I always blindly accepted the music theory that my music teacher exported to me. I practiced my zither day after day, but it never reached the standard that she expected, I was so down at that time since I made every effort to do the hard work but it doesn’t work. But one day, my partner inquired me something about music knowledge, I found that it is difficult for her to comprehend the knowledge by simply talking to her about theories. Therefore, we practiced the tough part many times together, each time getting better and better than before, and finally, she could play a piece smoothly. From then on, we often practiced zither together. We could learn each other’s advantages together, pointing out each other’s shortcomings in time and putting forward appropriate methods to solve them. In this way, we enjoy the good time that music brings us every day and without a doubt, we both made great progress! What’s more, We became the best of each other and even started our own little band, playing pop music in the park from time to time. That was the best and happiest learning experience I ever had!

Hey guys, my name is Chuyi Zeng, I am a transfer student from China majoring in economics for 2 years.

  I am fond of playing the zither when I am free, I used to play some Chinese classics but now I’m trying to play some pop music as well. So if you are interested in Chinese classic instrument, I’m so glad we can communicate with each other:) What’s more, I have always been interested in skiing but never tried it before. Anyone like skiing? It might be a good chance to go skiing together in the winter hahah~