Month: June 2023

Besides curb cuts, there are many examples of universal design in engineering. Choose an example of universal design in engineering and explain how it can be used as inspiration for a learning design.

Design is one of the most essential aspects of Engineering; and is the part I am most passionate about. To me, being able to design and then create something to solve a problem and help people encouraged me to go into the field. I first heard of the curb cuts from the excellent podcast “99 Percent Invisible.” And one of the things that this podcast does is inspire you to look for the 99% percent invisible designs that appear in your daily life. Another example of universal design, very adjacent to curb cuts, are the design decisions made for those with vision impairments. Next time you are about to cross the street, pay attention to all the things you don’t just see, and you’ll notice dozens of design decisions that make life for these people a little safer. One example is the noises made at a controlled intersection. Most modern controlled intersections use noise to indicate that a street is safe to cross and in which direction. Additionally, when someone crosses a street, there are also tactile markers on the ground, meant to be distinctly felt with a cane. These changes help make crossing the street a little safer for everyone. There is still a lot of work to make the road completely safe, but it’s improving all the time. This progress and innovation to solve these problems also inspires ideas on how the classroom can be made more accessible and interactive for those who have impaired vision. One way could be using physical models over visual pictures on a slide show. For example, take an average chemistry class, physical models of molecules could make grasping their structure much easier to understand for those who cannot see the diagrams. Even for those who can see, diagrams of molecules aren’t entirely intuitive, and this is another case where designing for inclusivity could help everyone understand the topic a little better.

Sources:

99% Invisible. (2021, April 29). Curb cuts. 99% Invisible. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/curb-cuts/

Provide an overview of the characteristics of the inquired approach and a discussion of how that approach does or does not align with your chosen topic.

What is Direct Instruction? Direct Instruction is a teaching and learning model that emphasizes avoiding misinterpretations of taught/learned material by providing explicit and Direct Instruction. For many, this style closely reflects a traditional classroom, as it is one of the most widely used forms of instruction. Direct Instruction often has a poor reputation for being archaic and encouraging passive learning. However, this reputation is often attributed to a poor understanding of Direct Instruction.

Direct Instruction, when properly used to teach a topic, follows these steps: 

1. Set expectations, and provide background information for the chosen topic.
2. Get the students motivated to learn by explaining why and how they are learning the chosen topic.  
3. Model what the students are learning and guide them through an example to provide context for what a good result/model is as an example. At this point, students should be encouraged to participate in creating the model so that they stay engaged.
4. Once students are familiar with the correct result/model example, they should be provided assistance and guidance through making their own model.
5. Finally, students are set to create a model without guidance with frequent assessment. With frequent assessment, misinterpretations can be re-directed and corrected.

Direct Instruction is usually used along with other instruction models and is optimal for teaching new concepts or skills to students. For instance, in our chosen topic of “Wellbeing & Mindfulness in Children,” Direct Instruction could be used to teach some of the sub-topics, such as what mindfulness is due to its high level of structure. Since videos can be considered a form of Direct Instruction, Direct Instruction is already being used to explain mindfulness to children, such as the videos created by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2023). While structure can be ideal in some situations, the highly structured nature of Direct Instruction can limit instructors and students. The highly structured nature of Direct Instruction is also a disadvantage in our topic. Since due to mindfulness’ highly experiential nature, it would be best to pair it with an instruction model that emphasizes that type of teaching, such as Experiential Learning.

You can read more about Experiential Learning on Mathews blog here.

Sources:

The Education Hub. (2019, August). A brief introduction to direct instruction – the education hub. The Education Hub. https://www.theeducationhub.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Direct-Instruction.pdf

Main, P. (2021). Direct instruction: A teacher’s guide. RSS. https://www.structural-learning.com/post/direct-instruction-a-teachers-guide

National Academies of Sciences, E. (2023). Emotional wellbeing in children and Youth. | The National Academies Press | Tools for Supporting Emotional Wellbeing in Children and Youth. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/other/dbasse/wellbeing-tools/interactive/

Based on your reading, would you consider your current instruction style more behavioralist, cognitivist, or constructivist? Elaborate with your specific mindset and examples.

The Software Engineering course load focuses on constructivist principles. While all Engineering disciplines strive to have active learning in real or simulated scenarios, Software Engineering has a distinct domain advantage. For example, having a Civil Engineering student design and build a bridge is not feasible for your average semester; however, in Software Engineering, designing your own web application from the ground up can easily be achieved. In addition to the highly practicable nature of Software Engineering, every engineering student is required to get 16 months of job experience before graduating. Work experience means that every prospective engineer that graduates from the University of Victoria has had months where they have worked alongside industry professionals leading to an active construction of knowledge that may not have been able to be taught in a classroom.

How would the learning be designed differently by a behaviourist, a cognitivist, and a constructivist?
Scenario: A high school social study teacher is planning a class on climate change.

I found learning about the different learning theories interesting, as it seemed someone would select one learning theory to direct all of their learning instruction. Discovering this surprised me, as I had assumed that various styles of instruction were chosen based on context and resources rather than that particular learning theory’s merit. For example, “if a high school social study teacher is planning a class on climate change,” I would assume that the best approach would be that of the behaviourist as it is a highly fact-driven topic in which constructing new knowledge of climate change would require a lot of domain knowledge.

• Behaviourist: A behaviourist would likely utilize frequent assessments and attempt to cover essential facts multiple times in many different forms. For the behaviourist, it would be important that the students had a stimulus that prompts the retrieval of facts from memory.
• Cognitivist: A cognitivist would likely focus on introspective and extrospective realizations of the topic through the use of conversation and tasks in which students are encouraged to research a sub-topic for themselves, such as research essays. By doing these, the students would process information about the connections and context of the given topic leading to learning.
• Constructivist: A constructivist would likely focus on active learning through performing tasks related to dealing with the given topic and by having students interact with experts in the field. By doing this hands-on application of the topic students would form their own connections with the topic, thereby causing the students to learn. 

All three learning theories have various approaches to instruction, and it is essential to recognize how each learning theory is leveraged to facilitate the maximum amount of learning for students.

Introduction and About me

My name is Caelum, and I am in my 3rd year of Software Engineering at the University of Victoria(UVic). I started my first semester at UVic in the fall of the 2020 academic year, in the middle of the global SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic, from my computer in Trail, British Columbia. During the following semesters, e-learning was utilized to continue instruction at the university, and it was during this time that the shortcomings of technology-mediated learning became prescient. In Software Engineering, my peers and I were keenly poised to recognize and work on solutions to improve the poor state of e-learning. However, despite how much we all wanted to make a change, our collection of first-year engineers lacked both the skills and domain knowledge to make any real change. Now that I’m in my third year of courses and I am approaching my final years of school; I finally have the knowledge and experience to where I could actively work to improve the technology that supports and facilitates learning digitally.

Improving the access and quality of technology-mediated learning is something that I am very passionate about. Before the Pandemic had shut everything down, I had been a tutor for local high school students. While I enjoyed the work, I felt the impact I was making could have been greater if I had been able to utilize technology to continue helping students through the lockdown. By taking EDCI 335 I hope to learn more about what makes online learning effective to make online learning technology more effective and accessible.

A version of this was first posted on About me.