Standard 5.1 - Theoretical Practice
"Candidates collaborate with their peers and subject matter experts to analyze learners, develop and design instruction, and evaluate its impact on learners." (AECT, 2012)
Description of Artifact
The artifact used to demonstrate my proficiency in AECT’s Standard 5.1 is the class discussion I facilitated during Dr. Missok Heo’s GDIT 703: Cognition and Instructional Design, course taken during the fall 2017 semester. The discussions were supported through the class discussion tool on the course Blackboard site.
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Each week, one student; the facilitator, would create a new thread on the discussion board with a thinking question based on the reading. This question had to “assure individual’s critical and higher-order thinking” (Heo, 2017). In addition to the thinking question, the facilitator posted a learning activity; using any learning technology of choice, to practice applying the concepts being discussed to a real-world situation. The other students; the non-facilitators, then responded to both the thinking question and learning activity in one to three paragraphs. The replies had to use citations from the reading. Then, the non-facilitators would reply to at least one other posting created by a peer. To wrap up the discussion, the facilitator created a presentation to briefly outline the main ideas from the reading and summarize the thoughts from the Blackboard discussion thread for the week’s face-to-face class.
Reflection and Rationale
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Each week we were expected to read two chapters from the textbook: The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, to prepare us for the class discussion (Ed. Mayer, 2014). Each chapter discussed one principle of multimedia learning and then presented a summary of the research that had been conducted related to the principle. As both a facilitator and a non-facilitator I was able to use the process of inquiry to first learn about each principle and then practice applying it through the learning activity. As the authors discussed the findings from the research, I was able to practice synthesizing conclusions on the usability of each principle based on the results. Therefore, I believe that these class discussions are a clear example to demonstrate my proficiency in AECT’s Standard 5.1 with states that candidate should “demonstrate foundational knowledge of the contribution of research to the past and current theory of educational communications and technology.”
Furthermore, I appreciated how Dr. Heo provided clear directions on what she expected in terms of the contributions from both the facilitators and the non-facilitators during the discussions. As I reflect on this practice, I realize that having these clear directions prevented frustration on our part as a student and provided clear guidelines on how the class discussions will be assessed.
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Artifact 18A - "Thinking question" class discussion transcript download from Blackboard.
Artifact 18B - "Learning activity" class discussion transcript download from Blackboard.