Month: November 2021

I think POD 1 took this job very seriously. I think their work now looks good enough for a full teaching process. The introductory video is suitable for beginners and English learners alike. As a complete novice in psychology, I learned some very useful knowledge. It is clear that the academic resources and references are abundant and, after my browsing, I think they are consistent with the course content. However, I think there is still some room for improvement.
First, POD 1 is targeted specifically at hearing impaired and English learners. Inclusiveness can be explained in more detail. For example, why YouTube is chosen among many video websites with subtitles? Second, I don’t know if this course is completely online? If so, I think there could be more richness in the use of technology. For communication and communication between students and students should use more intuitive or fast technology tools. I think course blogs and personal blogs limit students’ ability to work in groups because they are not convenient. In addition, the designers should consider the inconvenience of group activities for students with hearing impairment.
Moreover, I noticed that the grading criteria for this course were not clearly stated in the introduction section. If I were a student, I would be very nervous because I don’t know if the grade in this course is going to be a letter grade or a percentage grade. What’s more, I also want to know how many points I need in the final test to pass the course. And the description of grading does not mention the grading of group activities. Does this mean that group activities are optional in the learning process? How to ensure that each student is deeply involved in their group discussion rather than enjoying the benefits?
Finally, I think this course lacks communication between teachers and students. There is no set meeting time and no channel through which students can consult their tutors. This is a serious issue because teachers should be aware of their student’s understanding of the course content and give feedback in time or make adjustments to inappropriate content.

Here is the link to pod1’s work https://pod1.opened.ca/

According to Shelley Moore, it is clear to me that each learner has characteristics that affect teaching, so we need to design a teaching model that is suitable for as many learners as possible. First, designers should consider as many types of learners as possible before starting to design interactive learning resources. We should consider every kind of learning difficulty that learners may encounter. For example, if we are going to teach visually impaired learners, we should include as much course material as possible that can be addressed by listening and reducing reading. Or we should set up video or audio material matching academic articles for students to choose from.

Second, designers should search for unexpected situations they have encountered from their own learning experience, and then set up alternate plans to deal with them in the course design. For example, our Chinese courses include lectures. If a situation like COVID-19 or a natural disaster makes it impossible for students to meet with their tutor, we will quickly switch to an online course and ensure that students pay attention to the lecture screen by turning on cameras and asking random questions in class. This is a common practice during the pandemic, but I would like to add that in case students are unable to attend due to equipment damage, lecturers should record the screen in advance so that they can keep up with the progress.

Moreover, I think the key to the inclusive design is to make it easy and clear for everyone to participate in the learning process. The complexity of learners is that many times they encounter more than one difficult situation. As course designers, we should consider whether the original strategies and methods can solve multiple emergencies simultaneously when they are superimposed. One design process I support is to first design a basic teaching process and then assume different situations multiple times to refine and add content. The end result may not be perfect, but this approach is inclusive for most learners.

I think direct instruction is one of the learning environment which is very suitable for language teaching. The advantage of the direct instruction method is that the lecturer can teach the content that students need to learn more intuitively, clearly and quickly. Lecturers refine their teaching process by preparing lessons ahead of time, which means that what students gain in class has been filtered and delivered in easier-to-understand sentences. Instructors can design courses based on students’ educational background and experience to ensure that as many students as possible can understand the content. Another advantage of direct teaching is that students can ask questions at any time. It is well known that learning a new language is difficult for most people, especially Chinese. In direct teaching classes, instructors can adjust their teaching process by observing students’ reactions, such as using examples or illustrations to explain. In this way, the teaching method close to life is widely used, which helps to cultivate different ways of thinking in different languages or cultural backgrounds. Students also feel free to raise their hands to ask questions or give feedback on their doubts and ideas. Our course as a combination of Chinese and Chinese culture requires a lot of interaction between students and tutors to promote each other. Therefore, I think direct introduction, that is, lecturers teach how to speak Chinese and the evolution of Chinese in class, is a good teaching method.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our courses will be conducted entirely online. We will use YouTube, Teams, Quizlet and Bright Space to support student learning. First, the basic course videos will be posted via Bright Space. Students will learn the basics by watching a series of 50-minute videos. Lecture videos will explain the basic information on each topic and briefly outline all the material (2-3 videos or articles) under each subtopic. Theme attached videos will be available via YouTube. Teachers will find some simple videos on YouTube to help students understand the lectures. Although students watch the same video, they will get different understandings due to different educational backgrounds and their own experiences (constructivism). Tutors will answer students’ questions online in small groups. This event will organize interaction between students and tutors, allowing both sides to better understand each other’s situation. Quizlet is a tool that helps test students’ self-perception. The model of the tool allows students to learn and recite by themselves. Students are free to add what they need to remember and study on time to achieve their goals. Tutors can also add learning sets and share them with all students. Students can check their own shortcomings by browsing the tutor’s learning profile. This tool enhances the interaction between students and content, as well as between tutors and content.

learning outcomes：

  Students will be able to…

– describe some characteristics of Chinese culture.

– Describe some characteristics of Mandarin.

– have a simple conversation in Mandarin

– describe their impressions of Chinese culture (reflection)

 Brief comments on each topic

 Topic 1: The main differences between Chinese and English. Ancient Chinese characters are a kind of hieroglyphics, which is essentially different from English as phonetic characters. Modern Chinese characters have been simplified based on ancient Chinese characters and become an ideograph. Because Chinese is not composed of letters, China gives 26 new sounds to reduce the difficulty of learning Chinese

Topic 2: we will introduce to you the origin of Chinese characters and how the Chinese language and Chinese culture are related. And we will introduce some useful Chinese characters like Hello, where is this place, through this study you will know how to pronounce these Chinese characters, how to write these Chinese characters, if you decide to travel to China, this will help you a lot.

Interactive activity: Learners should simply have a Chinese conversation with their classmates based on the learning resources of the article, such as hello, goodbye and so on.

Assessment plan:

We will ask the students to do a quiz and give a group presentation. The quiz is to check the difference between Chinese and English and the basic knowledge of Chinese culture. The scores will give a visual indication of a student’s proficiency level. Students will be divided into four groups for impromptu group presentations of about 10 minutes. The significance of this activity is to give students the opportunity to communicate with their peers about their thoughts and ideas for this lesson. From the presentation, the lecturer will observe and evaluate each student’s participation and their understanding of the topic chosen by the group about China. In addition, class questions and positivity will provide students with the opportunity to earn additional participation points.

A description and rationale for the learning design you chose：

Our learning design is mainly in the form of lectures, supplemented by quizzes for checking. Lecture and quizzes belong to cognitivism, which is the same as most current education methods. The teachers will personally explain simple Chinese words and phrases to the students, while the students take the initiative to accept new knowledge and combine Chinese with their own cognition to master it. There are also parts of watching videos and group presentations in class, which belong to constructivism. Students will have a different understanding of this part and interact with others, so as to more skillfully master the simple use of Chinese and understand Chinese culture.

description of your learning context: Our target teaching group is Higher education students. These people are not native speakers of English, and through this course, they will learn basic Chinese in English.

An overview of your plans to design for the inclusion of diverse learners ：

1. English language learner (ELL)： Considering that our students are whose native language is not English, we will use as simple English words and sentences as possible when making learning materials, in order to explain the meaning of learning points in the simplest way. In addition, we will look for some teaching videos on YouTube for students’ reference. A large part of the reason why we choose videos on YouTube is that there is subtitle translation function on YouTube. Although we suggest students to use Chinese original sound to practice listening, the premise is that they need to understand the meaning. The function of YouTube subtitle translation can ensure that students understand the meaning.

2. a person who does not have access to a computer at home, but has a mobile phone with a data plan：

For students who are not convenient to use computers, we will set up a way such as Teams discussion post, which is convenient for mobile phones to browse online discussion at any time for our students. In addition, we will use Quizlet mobile app for exercises, which is also convenient for mobile phone users to contact at any time.

I found a 30-minute introductory video about intersections.  It describes the history and definition of intersections in great detail.  Even though it’s a YouTube video, students are expected to respond because I should know what my learners can learn from the video and if they understand it correctly.  Since everyone has different backgrounds and experiences, they can understand different content after watching the video. Therefore, I hope they can post their thoughts and harvest on the forum (such as the forum on Bright Space) so that students can read and comment on each other to get more information.  The communication between students can promote their understanding of the content of the video. For example, different people may think from different angles and thus have a new idea. When he releases his new idea to his classmates, it means that the idea is obtained by more people.  If most people in the class have new ideas, students will be able to enrich each other’s ideas.  My suggestion is that they should exchange their ideas with each other on the forum so that they can develop their communication ability and the ability to extract information.  Through the forums, I was able to monitor their post whether each student was completing the task and how well they were doing.  I also comment on each student’s strengths and weaknesses in their posts.  This job may have some difficulties if there are many students.  But I think this job is a convenient way to manage students.  Tools like Bright Space help me know if a student has watched a video and commented on it.  I can tell from their posts whether they have a clear enough understanding of the video.  In addition, this approach facilitates the interaction between students and students and between students and tutors.  One disadvantage of the video is that it is a bit long, which can be a bit difficult for English language learners to understand.  Other impatient students are also likely not to watch it carefully.  Videos should be shorter and less academic so that students can quickly establish a connection between themselves and the content.  

I looked back at some of my learning experiences and found that the biggest challenge I faced in learning was after I started high school. The change of the teacher’s teaching style and the increase of the difficulty of learning content are no doubt difficult for me. I couldn’t adapt to a lot of understanding quickly and I found that my memory wasn’t as good as I thought. The measures I took were asking the teacher for help, summarizing the content in class and improving the learning style in junior high school. I began to learn to make plans so that I could allocate a proper amount of new knowledge to understand and review the learned units in time every day.

After reading Chapter 11, I thought that my strategy at that time was the dual embodiment of cognitivism and constructivism. I found success in the process of failure, and I rely on experience to correct mistakes. I don’t think these three learning theories can be discussed separately in most cases. Learning is a complex and subjective cognitive world process. The theoretical teaching process can help tutors to be more confident in guiding students.