Reflection on Learning Theory
Learning theories were the first topic I studied in the completion of this Micro Master. Being my background in Psychology, reading again about Behaviorism, Constructivism and Cognitivism was a happy reminder about those days in College.
However, thinking about the purpose of my mini course, I found that the Andragogy and Connectivism theories are the most appropriate ones.
Starting with the Andragogy theory, this approach is known for being self-directed and problem-solving oriented. The target audience of the mini-course are adult educators that need a solution to address the learning gap of the young students in their classroom. The knowledge gained in the mini-course will give the adult educators the key to solve that problem, so their motivation will be directly connected with their job.
Focusing on learning strategies to implement the small group instruction in their classrooms means that the educators will need to adapt those skills learned in the mini-course to their own reality. The expected outcomes will be as different as different classrooms and students are in a school, adding the individual teaching styles of the adult educators.
This mini-course pretends to be as practical as it can be, avoiding one of the many mandatory training sessions that educators “suffer” each school year. Each module includes practical assignments with the creation of materials that they can apply directly in their classroom. In addition, the post discussions allow them to share their expertise and value their years of experience with their peers.
I decided to combine the Andragogy principles with the Connectivism since my mini-course will be mostly online and the connection with different educators and even school districts will enrich the experience, sharing experiences globally.
The modules will be completed following a school pace, embedded in a school district calendar. The educators will participate in the post discussions with educators from their own school, but also from other schools. In addition, social media will be encouraged so the teachers can share their own experiences outside of their school district. Some of the assignments will include the peer review evaluation to allow the educators to learn about their peers’ work to get ideas for their own classroom and support if there is any challenge.
The mini course is hosted in Canvas, a popular LMS that offers the opportunity to complete the modules in different devices. The educators can complete the modules at any time and different multimedia resources are included such as Youtube videos, online articles, audio interviews, etc.
In education, we often lack the ability to know what is happening outside of the classroom, so offering different ways to share and know about other strategies and challenges that are happening will promote a sense of community hearing different perspectives.
Reflection on Instructional Design Models
I started the design of the mini-course having ADDIE in mind as the most popular ID Model. The first phase in ADDIE is the Analysis, so I considered the audience of the mini-course: adult educators working in Elementary schools. Then, I collect the data to find the root causes of the learning gaps of our students in Literacy after the pandemic. In addition, I read about the current research about this topic. Finally, I decided to focus on the Small Group Instruction as the best approach to solve the problem.
I think all Instructional Designers have the ADDIE model in our mind as a clear roadmap when we are creating a course. It is a good reminder, mostly for beginners, to include all the phases in any project.
However, even starting with the Analysis phase in ADDIE, I quickly opted to follow the Understanding by Design approach because of its backwards design. In the UbD model, I had to be very specific about what outcome I wanted after the completion of the mini-course. What do the educators need to learn in order to be successful applying the small group instruction? This was the first question that I needed to answer.
Then, the learning objectives came quickly and I designed the assessments (assignments and discussion posts), activities and modules around those. Being this a very practical course, it was very important that the learning objectives were aligned with the content and activities to solve a real problem that was happening in the classrooms.Finally, I used Authoring tools such as Articulate Storyline to create activities, following the principles of the Rapid Instructional Design as a way to create effective materials with interactive features.