Learning Outcome 3

Learning Outcome 3

• Design learning opportunities that apply technology-enhanced instructional strategies to support the needs of all learners

Supporting the Needs of All Learners

Pre-designing a lesson plan to demonstrate use of instructional design principles is not an easy task. Showing an understanding of program learning outcome 3 “design learning opportunities that apply technology-enhanced instructional strategies to support the needs of all learners” will be the goal for this assignment; explaining the choices made regarding principles and theories. Finally, a discussion will be included to explain the design and implementation challenges experienced during the redesign.  

Being a firm believer that students learn in various ways, Willoughby wrote, “No two students enter a classroom with identical abilities, experiences, and needs. Learning style, language proficiency, background knowledge, readiness to learn, and other factors can vary widely within a single class group. Regardless of their individual differences, however, students are expected to master the same concepts, principles, and skills,” (2005). Keeping this in mind, teachers need to design lessons that address as many learning styles as possible to engage their students in their own learning in the way that best suits the students. There are seven learning styles that can be targeted when creating a lesson plan:

·         Visual: Prefers using pictures, images, and spatial understanding

·         Auditory: Prefers using sound and music

·         Verbal: Prefers using words in speech

·         Kinesthetic: Prefers using a hands-on approach and sense of touch

·         Logical: Prefers using logic, reasoning and systems

·         Social: Prefers to learn in groups or with other people collaboratively

·         Solitary: Prefers to work alone and use self-study

By using a technology lesson originally designed by Microsoft, backing the lesson down to fit the technology level of the students was easy and allowed for the students to be “active participant(s) in the learning process,” (Dabbagh, 2006). Looking at the lesson through constructivism allows for the students to “build personal interpretations of the world based on experiences and interactions…in meaningful realistic settings…and by ‘assembling’ knowledge from diverse sources appropriate to the problem at hand (flexible use of knowledge),” (Dabbagh, 2006). The lesson was scaled back to include the use of the Internet and Microsoft Word, basing the already known skills as basic computer literacy.  Most students are introduced to computer technology and even the Internet in elementary school, so by high school basic computer literacy is almost taken for granted.

The redesign of the lesson actually worked backwards for this teacher’s students at the time of the EDU649 – Technologies for Teaching and Learning. The advanced technology would have been too much for them to grasp. The redesign added student collaboration and discussion rather than leave the original lesson as a mostly individual assignment. The discussion and collaboration add social, verbal and auditory aspects to a lesson that was designed as kinesthetic and visual. By adding these elements, more students engaged in the assignment and less sat around doing nothing.

In conclusion, this teacher is a staunch supporter of using multiple learning styles with or without the use of technology. However, when using technology and having to assume pre-existing knowledge, collaborative groupings give students the benefit of another’s experience with technology, too. 

Lesson: 

My choice of instructional design includes collaborative learning through the use of CLOZE notes.  Such a format is a form of cognitivism (Dabbagh, 2006).  Students are prompted to process knowledge from the source, while actively “structuring, organizing, and sequencing information to facilitate optimal processing,” (Dabbagh, 2006).  The lesson is focused on what helps students to remember and retrieve the information for later recall. “The outcome of learning is dependent on what the teacher presents,” (Dabbagh, 2006). In this lesson the teacher is using a visual aid of a PowerPoint presentation to engage the visual and auditory learners while reinforcing the lesson with the use of CLOZE notes for the kinesthetic learners. 

This lesson was designed to teach the elements of plot and figurative language to 8^th grade English Language Arts students. As the teacher vocally gives the lecture that goes with the PPT, the teacher will leave out words that the students must say out loud and fill into the notes handout.

Elements of Plot


Plot Presentation