My digital interests - as a teacher, student, and parent - can be depicted by the below diagram.
The following is a self-reflection, to state my current mindsets and my targeted digital strategies and can be considered as a supplementary to my learning map.
I. My digital strategy as a teacher:
My strategy – as a teacher – is not fixed, it needs to be modified constantly due to the rapidly changing circumstances.
Nevertheless, some fixed foundations should be kept.
From that, a teaching strategy must assist students in the process of learning, in terms of the following activities:
- Apprehending the structure of academic discourse
- Interpreting forms of representation
- Acting on descriptions of the world
- Using feedback
- Reflecting on the goal-action-feedback cycle
As previously mentioned in the learning map, Alammary et al. (2014) present three distinct design approaches for developing blended learning modules.
- Low-impact approach: adding online activities to an existing course.
- Medium-impact approach: designing an online activity to replace an existing activity.
- High-impact approach: developing a blended module from the outset or redesigning a face-to-face or web-enhanced module as a blended learning module.
A blend of cognitive and constructive approaches is my target as:
1) Learning is an active process of constructing rather than acquiring knowledge.
2) Instruction is a process of supporting that construction rather than communicating knowledge. (Duffy and Cunningham, 1996:171)
3) Instructional design, deriving originally from behavioural psychology but increasingly incorporating findings from cognitive psychology.
My action plan towards delivering an active mathematics content is:
1- Start implementing a flipped-classroom approach, by adding coarse materials and resources to the LMS every week.
2- Plan lessons using the Learning Designer tool to manage synchronous and asynchronous activities efficiently. (Fig. 1)
3- Instruct students to create Padlet boards to collect materials and start building up their digital library to learn evaluating information. (Fig. 1)
4- Support students creating their digital portfolio.
5- Invest more time researching and creating active collaborative activities to
6- Use more project-based assessments, rather than quizzes.
7- Introduce learning to learn approach to students by creating a ‘How to become an effective distance learner?’ checklist.
8- Introduce the seamless learning approach as an enrichment plan in the form of the resident expert program.
II. My digital strategy as a student:
Being an online learner is a new experience for me, full of motivations and challenges.
From the challenges that I faced is the learning space.
Sharing my learning space through the induction activities helped me redesign it based on the ideas shared by peers.
Starting with my “Folk Pedagogies” as my first step for my personal professional development.
My teaching experience - as a civil engineering graduate - was built by:
1- Observation and Reflection on my own teaching experience.
2- Relationship with experienced teachers, and professional feedback.
3- Active participation/involvement in professional networks.
"Watch any mother, even a baby-sitter with a child, and you will be struck at how much of what they do is guided by notions of what children’s cognitive abilities are like and how one may help them learn, even though they may not be able to verbalize their pedagogical principles" (Bruner, 2000, p.58).
My action plan throughout the BOE programme:
1- Studying various learning theories in a perspective of linking their approach for best practices.
2- Discover multiple educational platforms and link its activities with learning theories to help me applying technology with a pedagogical perspective. “Pedagogy before technology” (Drumm, L., 2019).
3- Critical study for the mathematical learning theory and mathematical problem-solving theory, to link both theories.
4- Apply the knowledge gained throughout my BOE journey into my teaching practice to enrich the knowledge gained with experience.
III. My digital strategy as a parent:
As a new parent for an 18-months old son, my digital action plan has a different perspective than as a teacher or a student.
For my tiny friend, my action plan is:
1- Use research strategies and reference management systems (e.g. Zotero) to collect digital artefacts to help me raising and supporting my little one.
2- Deep search on pedagogical approaches that guides my instructions.
3- Discover the learning by playing approach to help me engage my son into meaningful activities.
Kindly access the personal Padlet board for more relevant artefacts and pieces of literature.
References
Alammary, A., Sheard, J. & Carbone, A. (2014) 'Blended Learning in higher education: Three different design approaches.' Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 2014, 30(4), pp:440-454
Bruner, Dž. (2000). Kultura obrazovanja. Zagreb: Eduka.
Drumm, L. (2019). Folk pedagogies and pseudo-theories: how lecturers rationalise their digital teaching. Research in Learning Technology, 27.
Duffy, Thomas M. and Cunningham, Donald J. (1996) ‘Constructivism: implications for the design and delivery of instruction’, in David Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology, New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
Comments