What did you learn about the design of online courses this week that will affect how you think about this form of instruction in the future?
One key question crossed my mind as I reviewed the various lesson plans: Does this lesson plan meet the needs of learners with varying learning styles? As a visual learner, I thought that some of the lessons, like those provided by K12, were incredibly difficult to navigate. When I have a lot to read on a screen, I tend to lose focus. And the lesson that I looked at in particular, Walden Pond, was very text-heavy. I would have lost focus or I would have just skipped ahead to the questions and attempted to answer them without reading.
I like the Connections Academy material because I felt like it was addressing multiple learning styles (auditory, visual, and depending on the lesson, spatial, kinetic, etc.) If I were planning a module, I think I would aim to address several the learning styles, when appropriate. I think I would also try to connect the learning to what the learners might already know by providing a pre-reading assignment, a short video clip, or just some questions to help them think about how the topic relates to them and/or why it matters before launching into the lesson plan.
And of course, I think about the theories that support multimedia learning.
One key question crossed my mind as I reviewed the various lesson plans: Does this lesson plan meet the needs of learners with varying learning styles? As a visual learner, I thought that some of the lessons, like those provided by K12, were incredibly difficult to navigate. When I have a lot to read on a screen, I tend to lose focus. And the lesson that I looked at in particular, Walden Pond, was very text-heavy. I would have lost focus or I would have just skipped ahead to the questions and attempted to answer them without reading.
I like the Connections Academy material because I felt like it was addressing multiple learning styles (auditory, visual, and depending on the lesson, spatial, kinetic, etc.) If I were planning a module, I think I would aim to address several the learning styles, when appropriate. I think I would also try to connect the learning to what the learners might already know by providing a pre-reading assignment, a short video clip, or just some questions to help them think about how the topic relates to them and/or why it matters before launching into the lesson plan.
And of course, I think about the theories that support multimedia learning.
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