Feedbacks on my learning module

Let me just write the comments down while they are still fresh so that I could refer to them later.

I like Chun's question the most which is summarised as 'How do I justify - what is so unique about the learning module to be available online when students could actually print them out and do the activities on papers'. I like her way of thinking since she looks at the possible flaw(black hat thinking). My response to her was when the lesson is done in a digital environment, students will be able to get immediate feedback. Besides, learning could still be carried out outside the class.

Then Lim brought up the question on moderation. Will the moderator ask the students to do the activities in sequence? Could the students jump to the next activity without doing the previous one? Dr Tee added, how are we going to give feedback immediately when it involves around 40 students. True, 6 hats time 3 activities each is 18. 18 activities times 40 students, would the moderator be able to monitor and give prompt feedbacks to 720 posts.

When I use lesson function on Moodle, students would not be able to see each other's answers. The drawback is students won't be able see what others have posted and not able to do peer correction. After discussing with Iza and listening to input from Lim, I think we are going to change activites 1 and 2 to objective types of activity where the feedback would be immediate and students would know their score. We would leave activity 3 in a subjective format. Probably we will use wiki function so that students could do peer correction within the group before they submit their response to the moderator. Or we will design all the activities to be objective format and let the assessment part be in an essay format.

Many thinks that the page is too long for the students to scroll down. Probably a different platform could be used. When I showed them the website we prepared on freewebs and the prototype that Iza had worked on PPT, they like the one on freewebs better since the layout is website like and students will be more motivated to explore. We might want to change our target learners. Instead of using form 5 students as target learners, we are thinking of using our classmates in the DE class to be our clients since the Moodle feature is more suitable to adult learners.

I remember Dr Tee has asked us a question that forced me and Iza to give it a thought but I can't remember. He asked us to give a thought about it and come up with possible solution. I'll continue writing once I am able to recall what it was.

How people learn

I found this pdf file with a title: How people learn: Introduction to learning theory.

Below are the excerpts taken from the article.
How people learn was presented in three viewpoints: Philosophers, Psychologist and Educators.

Philosophers' viewpoint:

• Plato developed the belief that knowledge and truth can be discovered by self-reflection.
  
• Socrates also believed strongly that certain knowledge was only attainable through reason.
• Kant (1724–1804) refined and modernized Plato’s rationalist theory when he suggested that awareness of knowledge may begin with experience, but much knowledge exists prior to experience.

Psychologists' viewpoint:

1. Behaviourist
   

• Thorndike believed that learning was based on an association between sense impressions and an impulse to action. Thorndike favored students’ active learning and sought to structure the environment to ensure certain stimuli that would “produce” learning (Hilgard & Bower, 1975).
• B. F. Skinner behaviourist learning theory focuses on stimulus and response. He considered learning to be the production of desired behaviour and denied any influence of mental processes.

2. Cognitivist cum constructivist

• Jean Piaget recognized that students construct knowledge Based on their experiences.
• Vygotsky extended Piaget's theory and emphasized that learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interaction.

The article summed up that research has found that

*the brain plays a role in learning,
• the way the learning environment is constructed makes a difference,
• learning is based on the associations or connections we make,
• learning occurs in particular social and cultural environments, and finally,
• the different ways people think and feel about their own learning affects their development as learners.

I definitely agree that the five factors above play important roles in the process of learning. Teachers need to understand how learners learn best in order to be able to design meaningful instructions which suit best different types of learners. Having good brain without conducive environment for the learners to learn will disappoint learners and this condition will contribute to unhealthy attitude of the learners. Unhealthy attitude here refers to students behaviour of not wanting to learn, hating certain subjects or teachers or going to school to hang out with friends.

Students learn best when they are able to relate what they learn with past experiences and apply them in a real environment or in a true context of their life. That is why school environment plays a very important role towards students' achievements.

People used to say 'Schools everywhere are just the same. It is up to the students to learn. If the student has good brain, he could excel no matter where he learns'. As a teacher of 19 years and as a mother of 5 school going children, I disagree with the opinion above. The environment of the school, the dedicated teachers, the working culture of the school definitely play important roles in determining the students' success. I do not know if others agree, but to me as a mother I want the best for my children and I would give the best to my students as if they are my own. After all I believe what goes round comes round...

Why 6 thinking hats?

Why did Izawany and I decide to design and develop a learning module for form 5 students using the idea created by Edward de Bono in training students to chunk their thinking using 6 different thinking hats? We are aiming:

1. to help them adopt a higher thinking order (able to analyze, synthesize and evaluate)
   
2. to help them think critically, constructively and creatively
3. to help them to see things deductively and inductively
4. to help them become alert towards their surroundings ( aware of possibilities, setbacks, alternatives and consequences).
   

Being both English teachers we found that majority of the students have a hard time to develop ideas. I sincerely think that the reason why their thinking scope is very limited because they don't read enough. For example, when I asked my form five students (the best class) to debate on the issue of the cancellation of building the crooked bridge to replace the existing Johor bridge, I ended up giving them all the information via newspaper cuttings and articles from the internet. They were not able to debate on the issue not because of language barrier but because they do not read enough. When students lack reading, they do not have substance. How could we train them to think when they have no ideas on what to think.

Iza and I hope by introducing Six Thinking Hats to students, they are able to train their thinking
in six different perspectives. The aim is not only for the students to use the skills in developing ideas in speaking and writing at secondary level but also to make them realize that people do think differently and they would need to be able to adopt and adapt as they merge into the mainstream in the society.

We use moodle http://www.nurulhana.com/course/view.php?id=3 for our website. This is version 0.02. The first feedback I received was from Lim last week when I showed him the first version. Lim commented that the layout was not interesting. He suggested that I put animated hats instead to capture students' attention. Up to now I still could not find any free animated hats yet. What I did instead was insert a row of 6 colours hats at the top of the web page.
Another alternative would be to use Joomla but I am afraid I would need to have more time to learn how to develop the content using Joomla.

Once the school reopens on Monday, Iza will ask her students to try out the learning activity and answer the evaluation part at the end of the lesson. Once that is done meaning we have gone through the second cycle of the Design->Develop->Evaluate of ADDIE Model. Before that, I think I still need to redesign the activities and break them into levels 1, 2 and 3 for beginner, intermediate and advanced.

Reflection on Normie's and Maryam's presentation

I agree with Dr Tee that both presenters had done a good job in interpreting and presenting dry topics of chapter 11 and 12 which are 'Copyright and distance education' and ' Managing and leading a distance education organisation' respectively. The issue of copyright is relevant to our current environment as learners but the second topic is quite a distant and does not relate to learners unless we would want to open up our own distance education later on. I pity Maryam for having to go through the pain of presenting something which does not interest the listener. I could actually see some of the audiences talking among themselves. However, I admire Maryam's courage in trying to complete the presentation.

My suggestion in presenting a topic like this is to involve the audience. Probably two scenarios involving managing distance education organisation could be given to us. Then, in groups, we are to point out the PMI (Plus, minus, interesting) and compare between the 2 scenarios. Another alternative would be, prepare a checklist and evaluate distance education organisations and compare the strengths and weaknesses. Some time we have to be selective in what we are presenting. Lay out the big picture but highlight only the relevant points.

Some time, we come to the end of the road and we see walls, turn around, look for familiar faces and seek help or advice. A lot of ideas would be coming in when we talk it out with our friends and lecturers. I believe at masters level, we don't compete among our classmates but we help, cooperate and collaborate so that every body are able to learn from one another. Every one has his/her own strengths. It must be pretty amazing when these strengths work together for the benefit of ourselves and our learners.

LearningHaven.wikispaces

Throughout his week, my classmates and I are supposed to 'play around' with the newly set up learninghaven.wikispaces and then answer the following questions in our blog.

• What do you think of the new "how people learn" wiki?
• What helps you learn?
• What gets in the way of your learning?

I think the new LearningHaven wiki is very much structured. It gives a very clear path of where Dr Tee would want to lead us to. He wants us to understand the process of how people learn by asking us to watch how people learn at primary, secondary and tertiary levels so that we are able to design instructions based on how learners learn. It is quite fun to be able to watch the videos and analyze how lessons are conducted in other parts of the world although Dr Tee could have asked us to find the videos instead. The process of watching and listing how the students learn fit the first two stages of Bloom's taxonomy which are knowledge and understanding. The following activities A-D involve application, analysis and synthesis of Bloom's taxonomy whereby we are to match and categorise the processes according to a template prepared. The reflection part of activity D fits the evaluation stage of Bloom's taxonomy. Therefore the content of the new wiki is designed and developed according to the stages involved in Bloom's taxonomy which is from easy to difficult.

Now that I have answered the first question, I'll move on to the second question. What helps me learn? A teacher's vivid explanation and instructions made it easier for me to learn. Listening to lectures alone will help me to retain maybe 40% of what is being taught, but involving in activities will engage me more in the learning process. I may be able to retain the lesson up to 90% or more. Being a hyperthyrotoxicosis patient for quite some time, I could not sit still and listen to lectures or mundane meetings for more than at most 20 minutes. I will either fall asleep or end up doing something else.

Move on to the third question, what gets in the way of my learning? Hmm... well I would say if I don't have a basic knowledge of what I am about to learn, I will feel lost especially when I was not able to connect my existing knowledge to the new acquired knowledge. I'll give an example, when I first entered Instructional Design and Development class last two semesters, I have zero knowledge on the subject since my first degree was in ESL/Pedagogy. When I walked out of the first three classes I fell like yelling and crying outloud. I did not know where to hook my worry and concern and where to start. Knowing that the reputation and expectation of the lecturer is high give me an ever greater pressure. What helped me most then were my teammates. Working collaboratively in completing assignments and projects help me to learn and grasp what is required of me. Besides, after three weeks, I began to see connections and relate the new acquired knowledge with the existing knowledge I have. Furthermore, the lecturer did give a little scaffolding when she prepared templates for learner analysis and guided questions to guide us in doing our project.

I've answerd all the three question, now let me write about my personal view of our new wiki.
I appreciate Dr Tee's effort in preparing all the materials and it is a lot easier for us to see what are required for us to do. Probably, realizing that we do not have much time left to complete the first wiki on our own besides not getting the outline and the content right, Dr Tee has gone to the extent of guiding the whole class every step of the way. Of course we would be delighted to have our weight lifted. Of course, we think and see things differently, that is why none of us could think and see the way Dr Tee sees how the wiki should be like :) It is as if Dr Tee is holding a torch light and has prepared for us the ladder. Now our job is to climb up the ladder one by one while Dr Tee holds the light and torch our way up.

Reflection and Reflective Practice

This week I indulged myself in deep thinking until I experienced cognitive overload. To unpack and chunk the thinking take sometimes. To do reflection, I would need to reflect and recollect the knowledge, the experience and the learning which transpired through out the process.

To understand how people learn, I need to understand how I learn. But of course how I learn may not be the same as other people learn. Therefore, I need to analyze the common ground, the common practice which could be generalized. To find the common ground, I have to do some research. See what others have written and found. What I have done so far, I park the relevant ideas and resources in wiki, hoping that others will take up from there and develop the content.

I would like to share what I found during my research:
Kolb (1984) outlined a descriptive model for adult learning process:

1. concrete experience
2. Reflective observation
3. absract conceptualisation
4. active experimentation.
   

Concrete experience is the learning process we experience in class during lesson. Reflective observation is when we analyze what we have learned and document them in our blog. Abstract conceptualisation is when we are able to understand the main ideas involved in the learning process. Active experimentation is when we are involved in completing the tasks, assignments and projects.




Right..so much sharing what is going on in my head, I will now write my response to Szarm's and Kuldip's presentation last week. The presentation was solely based on textbook. They did a good job in interpreting the content of chapter 10 and their presentation was able to consolidate my thinking and match the content with what I have read. I like the discussion on preventing cheating we had during the session. It is indeed difficult to prevent cheating in online examination unless the examination is done in a proctored environment.

I remember how Prof RM designed her examination questions for final exam for ID class last year. One of the question asked us to reflect on the problems we had in completing our final assignment and how we overcome them. Meaning, if you are just a passenger in doing your group assignment, you would not be able to answer the question. Therefore, in designing assessment question in distance education environment, the same approach could be applied. If you have gone through the whole process of learning without cheating, you would be able to reflect and answer the questions.