Well, I have made it to the end of the summer and the end of my second course on my journey to obtaining my Master’s degree. CEP 811 has truly been a fun experience and believe it or not, I actually enjoyed this “summer school”. I certainly kept myself busy the last few months between work, school, seeing friends and family, and working on my goals!
My last project for CEP 811 was compiling one picture from every day of this course. Presented with this challenge a short 7 weeks ago seemed daunting, but with some help I actually managed to succeed! I used the app “Be Real” to help remind me to capture one picture every day, and a perk was that a lot of my friends used it as well so I got to see what everyone else was doing too! It turned out to be a really fun experience, and looking back on this compilation I can see that I am truly a creature of habit. I learned a lot about myself and my intersectionality from this video of clips of my life. I feel that although this video doesn’t share a lot about my life, it shows some key parts of my identity. I think this slideshow sums up my summer pretty well, and I hope you enjoy!
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This week I was challenged to take a look at the space in which I learn from a critical point of view. This was a challenging task for me, as my learning space is not always consistent. When I think about my learning space, what immediately comes to mind is me, a desk, a chair, and my computer. Being a remote student taking classes in between my 40-hour work week, oftentimes I find myself learning in whatever space I am in when free time comes my way. One space that has remained consistent for me though is a study room at my public library. This is a space that I have found myself to be the most productive in, and most Sundays I am found here preparing for the week. While it is far from ideal, it is secluded and quiet and is a consistent space for my learning. With that being said, I took some time this week to look at it critically (not that there is much to look at). After learning more about what makes an innovative and productive learning space, I realized while this space works for me, there is so much more potential for success in redesigning the room. Even though I do not have any right to make changes to this space, applying what I learned about innovative design to this room gave me inspiration and motivation for when I am able to create an office or learning space of my own. The first change that I made was removing the chairs and fixed-height desks and replacing that area with adjustable standing desks. Being able to have the freedom of movement promotes active learning and “fidgeting”. The current chairs in this space are swivel chairs, and I find myself constantly moving back and forth or fidgeting. One of the first suggestions in The Third Teacher+’s “79 Ways You Can Use Design To Transform Teaching and Learning” (2010) list under ‘Bodies in Motion’ was making peace with fidgeting. While I am limited in movement currently, a standing desk provides the opportunity for more active learning. The second change I made was the addition of carpeted floors and warmly painted walls. While I didn’t think this would have an impact on my learning, a study showed that “color, choice, complexity, flexibility, connection, and light- had a significant effect on learning” (Barrett et al. 2013). This study showed that more natural light and warmer colors proved to enhance learning of older students. While there is no way to change the amount of natural light in the space, I added a warm desk lamp to provide warmer lighting instead of the harsh overhead light currently in the space. The last change that I made to this space was the addition of artwork to one of the walls. The Barrett et al. (2013) study also showed that too much artwork can be overstimulating and even distract from learning, but the right amount of decor can be inviting to learners. I enjoyed working to redesign this area even though it is unrealistic in terms of the power I hold over this communal space, so I decided to design a perfect future space for learning and working! I am going to be moving in the near future and one of my goals when apartment hunting is to find a place that has room for an office/learning space. With this in mind and thinking about what I now know about the impact that design has on learning, I came up with a hypothetical ideal learning space. This space includes elements of warm color, flexibility in movement, natural light, and an overall welcoming space to create. References: Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Moffat, J., & Kobbacy, K. (2013). A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on on pupils' learning. Building and Environment, 59, 678-689. The Third Teacher (2010). 79 Ways You Can Use Design To Transform Teaching and Learning. https://d2l.msu.edu/content/enforced/1470983-US22-CEP-811-733-222510684-EL-14-204/Unit%206%20-%20Innovative%20Learning%20Spaces/79%20Ways%20You%20Can%20Use%20Design%20To%20Transform%20Teaching%20and%20Learning.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=5t2pNRAgX0x4fXxK8B7s2ryqF&ou=1470983 For the past few weeks I have been working on making a fun and innovative learning plan for a few of my coworkers. When thinking about what I wanted to teach these adult learners I had to think about what would be beneficial for them to learn. Because we all work with large sets of data and it is vital that we are paying attention to all details, I decided that I wanted precision and accuracy to be a learning goal of this lesson. Through using the MakeyMakey tool kit and application, my learners are going to replicate an image of their choice. This lesson is intended to not only teach them accuracy and precision skills, but also introduce them to a new technology and way of learning. If you want to read my lesson plan you can find it here. In order to make this lesson the best it could be, I received feedback from multiple peers (as shown above) and my instructor of CEP 811. Most of the feedback I was given proved to be very helpful and introduced me to multiple viewpoints that I had not considered before. I learned a lot from reading comments about my lesson from an individual with a UDL viewpoint. I discussed UDL in my previous blog post but looking at my own lesson with a UDL perspective this week was interesting (it’s funny how some things are much easier said than done sometimes). One suggestion that was given to me was to allow the learners to choose their own image to recreate. I had to ponder this for a while, as I had my lesson set up around the assumption that I would be providing all learners with images to recreate. After a lot of internal debate and thinking about how this would impact the lesson, I decided to implement this suggestion. What I found was that by allowing learners to take this control over their learning experience, I could foster more engagement and excitement for the activity.
One suggestion that I actually did not implement was the suggestion of posting the learning goals for my learners throughout this activity. Because I am dealing with adult learners, I felt as thought they did not need a constant reminder of what I was specifically looking for and this could actually hinder their experience. What I did include in my lesson though was letting the learners know what I was hoping to get out of this lesson before they begin working with the kit. While I don’t think it’s important to have a constant reminder as adult learners, I think it would help to give them some guidance and purpose knowing what I was making them do this for. I made a lot of these decisions based on not only my peers’ and teacher’s suggestions, but also based on some of the research I found through MSU Libraries. Surprisingly, there is not a whole lot of research on adult learning, specifically as it relates to technology, but I did find a few guiding points of research. When considering the ‘why’ of adding UDL aspects to my lesson, I found that“learning environments designed based on UDL acknowledge the uniqueness of each learner so that all learners have opportunities to maximize their strengths” (CAST 2018). This was an important aspect when it came to revising my lesson, as I wanted to make sure each learner was able to get the most out of it. I also dove into some research done surrounding adult learning theory, technology, and intersectionality. What I found was that PAL, or the psychology of adult learning, has developed over the past decade to include “intersectional inclusion, decolonisation of knowledges, and learner-centered and learner directed approaches” as well as “creativity and collaboration skills in adult and lifelong learning practice” (Uflewskai et. al 2021), something that has not been included before. All of these aspects have played a critical role in crafting an engaging, equitable, and productive learning experience. References: CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. http://udlguidelines.cast.org Uflewska, A., Lido, C. M., & Dey, S. (2021). Innovative, interactive and individualised (i3) teaching and learning practice in higher and lifelong education. Widening Participation & Lifelong Learning, 23(2), 55–69. https://doi-org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/10.5456/WPLL.23.2.55 |
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