Unit 2: Innovations in Learning Design and Educational Technologies

Overview

With the integration of technology into the classroom, tools and strategies are always changing. A renewed focus on student-centered, personalized learning has brought opportunities for innovation and ideas to create different, more immersive learning experiences. AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) tools, game-based learning, gamification, project-based learning, and 20% project along with other technologies provide opportunities to make learning more effective and experiential. In this activity, you will be exploring future learning tools and strategies that could greatly benefit classrooms today and in the future.

Performance outcomes

• Candidates will explore different future learning strategies and tools and apply them to a classroom learning experience.

What will you do?

1. Explore and research different future learning tools and strategies such as AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) tools, game-based learning, gamification, project-based learning, and 20 % projects.  Through your research, choose an idea or process that you find interesting. 

2. Present a short description of your chosen strategy or tool in the Discussion Forum explaining what it is, why you find it interesting, and how it could benefit student learning. 

3. Work with a teacher at your school, and find an example of how your chosen strategy or tool could be used in a specific lesson or unit. Make a video showcasing how this tool or strategy would look in a lesson.  

4. Create a visual display (using Google Drawings or a similar tool) to encourage teachers to bring this strategy or tool into their classroom.

Report Requirements:

• Discussion post on a choice of future learning tool or strategy

• A video example of how the tool or strategy would look in a classroom

• A visual display promoting the use of the tool or strategy using Google Drawings

Overview

Makerspace and the maker movement is very quickly moving into schools and school libraries around the world. The opportunity for students to tinker, iterate, and design provides new opportunities for learning and discovery both inside and out of the classroom.  John Spencer writes in a blog “Why Every Classroom Should Be a Makerspace”, “Our world wants go-getters. It wants designers, creators, and dreamers. It wants builders and tinkerers. It wants innovators who will ask, ‘Why Not?’”. The goal for this activity is to break out of the traditional curriculum mindset within a classroom and to bring a makerspace idea, opportunity into the mix. To clarify, makerspace is NOT pre-printed cut outs that students cut and paste into a notebook. 

Performance outcomes

• Candidates will research and learn about makerspace and how it can be integrated into the curriculum.

• Candidates will design and implement a maker experience into a classroom learning experience.

What will you do?

1. Review the Activity Resources to learn about integrating makerspace into a classroom learning environment. Think about your school or district, and about a teacher (or your own classroom) where you could bring some making into the learning.

2. Working with another teacher, or using your own classroom, design a lesson in your curriculum that includes a makerspace element. Brainstorm responses to “How I will use makerspace” in the discussion forum to share with your cohort. 

3. Design a lesson that integrates makerspace into the learning. This can be done in your own classroom or partnered up with a teacher in your school or district. Once the lesson is designed, implement it with students. 

4. Document the lesson by taking video and pictures of the learning. Create a final video (No more than 8 minutes) that includes the following:

   • Introduction to the lesson, explaining standards and objectives 

   • Differentiation strategies for the class

   • Makerspace Integration - explain the problem and how the makerspace helps the students learn the solution and attain the objective

   • Video or photo highlights of the lesson.

   • Student/Teacher feedback on Makerspace in the Classroom

Report requirements

• Brainstorm of Makerspace in Learning on the Discussion Forum