Civil Society Health Organisation

This task was designed by Ö.Ç.İ. as part of CITE204 Instructional Design course (2020-2021 Fall semester) targeting English Language Class of Nursing Students. Contents of this page:

• Task

• The Learning Environment

• Principles of Authentic Learning

An Authentic Activity in an English Language Class of Nursing Students

This authentic activity was designed for a language class of nursing students at a university. It was built upon a scenario in which the instructor was the president of a Civil Society Health Organisation (CSHO) while the students were members of the organization. This organization (CSHO) was formed to provide direction on a specific area related to health issues in the society, and the members of the organization do volunteer work to solve short-term problems or issues in the community. Furthermore, to provide information to the community in relation to health issues, educational online seminars, events, practical workshops are also held.

The current objective (for this activity) is to deal with a specific issue which is COVID- 19. In this regard, the learners, in pairs or in groups, were asked to carry out research, to collect data on their specific focus area regarding COVID- 19, to find out places in the community to inform about COVID- 19, and make posters, videos or give presentations to the public. The learners had the chance to choose their specific focus area of COVID- 19 issue, the place where they could visit and give information about the issue, how they could present their product as posters, videos or presentations, and also group member(s). Furthermore, the teacher asked the learners to fulfil a number of activities (See Figure 1) in order to observe their learning process and scaffold them.

The description of the figure, the functionality of the items and the use of the characteristics of authentic activities are as follow:

The Figure:

The learning environment was created on Moodle, LMS. When the users logged in the site, they were able to reach the office of the organization. In the office, there were people that referred to some important links such as camera, teamwork and resources to use. The table in the office had links to a computer, a notebook, assessment and also the meeting. Moreover, there was a checklist on the right side of the wall and a sample poster on the left side of the wall. Finally, there are two corner links- one goes to the documents of ‘Responsibilities of a Member’ and the other goes to the audio message of the president.

Teamwork:

One of the most important parts of this authentic activity was the teamwork. Specifically, with this authentic activity, the teacher aimed to emphasize this issue and enhance the students team spirit by enabling them to work together, and also shared some links on the benefits of teamwork.

Camera:

By clicking on the camera, the users were able to reach various online sources such as tips on public speaking and giving effective presentations.

Resources to use:

By clicking on this link, the students were able to reach some external resources to get factual information to use their task, and also some websites and documents were shared for language support.

Computer:

With this link, the learners could reach some online tutorial videos on how to make posters using ‘Canva’.

Notebook:

In this link, the users could go to the page on Moodle where they can take notes to support their learning environment.

Checklist:

The students used the checklist to provide systematic work and clarify the duties of the members in the organization while carrying out their tasks.

Assessment:

As one of the main goals of this authentic activity was to ensure teamwork among the students, the ‘cooperative learning rubric’ was applied as an assessment tool, and the link was supplied to make the learners clear in their assessment procedures.

Meeting table:

By clicking the link, the students were able to reach the page on Moodle in which they can go to the discussion forum and communicate S-T, T-S and/ or S-S.

The responsibilities of a member:

In relation to teamwork, the members had to also know the responsibilities of a member in an organization; otherwise, it was hard to mention team work or collaboration. Therefore, by clicking on this link, the students could reach some important documents on their responsibilities in this organization/ activity.

President’s audio message:

An audio message was developed to inform the students on their task in an authentic way. In this message, the students were informed that first they had to form their teams, choose their specific focus area regarding Covid- 19 and also choose the places that they visited.

The Characteristics of Authentic Activities:

Design principle 1: Authentic activities have real-world relevance

Unlike traditional type of learning activities, in this activity, the students were asked to form their own group in an organization, choose their own specific focus area regarding Covid- 19 and choose the places they would like to visit to inform the community on Covid- 19. For this, also they had to provide a poster or a video in order to educate the target audience.

Design principle 2: Authentic activities are complex and ill-defined

In this learning environment, the students have ill-defined stages since the steps of the task were not given in a sequential way by the instructor. That’s why, the activity was complex, and mentally the learners had to spend great amount of time to finalize the activity in a long period of time.

Design principle 3: Authentic activities provide the opportunity for students to examine the task from different perspectives, using a variety of resources

There were different perspectives: being a member of an organization, focusing on content, focusing on formation, focusing on audience and process. Through all these perspectives, the learners had the chance to improve their critical thinking skills, creativity, presentation skills, research skills, technological skills as well as language skills.

Design principle 4: Authentic activities provide the opportunity to collaborate

The focus of this activity was on team work and collaboration. The students worked in pairs or in groups in order to complete their activity.

Design principle 5: Authentic activities provide the opportunity to reflect

Reflection was provided in all aspects of this activity. During the task, the students reflected their learning resources and strategies. Plus, at the end of the activity, the students gave formal presentations on their learning process with positive and negative sides.

Design principle 6: Authentic activities lead beyond domain- and skill-specific outcomes

In this task, the students had real interaction and focused on various 21st century skills such as social skills, problem solving, creative and innovative thinking, ICT literacy, collaboration, communication and technology apart from language skills as reading, speaking, and listening skills.

Design principle 7: Authentic activities are seamlessly integrated with assessment

Since the main focus on this activity was collaboration and team work, the ‘cooperative learning rubric’ was used to assess students’ product/s, learning and participation at every stage of the task.

Design principle 8: Authentic activities yield polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else

The task required students to produce posters and/or videos to further inform the audience on the problem at hand. Preparing posters or videos and presenting them to the community provided real communication environments for the students between the target audience and also themselves which was totally different from book or teacher exercises.

Design principle 9: Authentic activities allow competing solutions and diversity of outcome

The activity was open-ended, and included independence for the students’ learning. Therefore,

even though students in different groups worked on the same issue, each group suggested a different solution to the problem, and also each group produced a different product regarding the problem at hand, so there were diverse products at the end of the activity.

Design principle 10: Authentic activities are conducive to both learning and communicating

The students learnt how to use target language in presentations/ posters or videos appropriately and accurately, gathered information about the issue (Covid-19) and also used/ presented the data in their posters/ videos/ presentations to the target audience, learnt how to prepare posters/ new technologies such as Canva, learnt how to give effective presentation with useful language, and most importantly the learners had chance to communicate with the teacher and their classmates in target language while they were applying the activity.

In this activity, the learners were engaged in real-life activities by aiming communicative purpose, and provided the knowledge in the context during production process contrary to inert knowledge.

Design principle 11: Authentic activities provide motivational factors

Motivation was achieved through:

• providing a challenge that is tied to a goal

As a challenge, the learners, in pairs or in groups. were asked to carry out research, to collect data on their specific focus area regarding COVID- 19, to find out places in the community to inform about COVID- 19, and make posters, videos or give presentations to the public.

• giving students real world tasks (rather than "read the text and answer the following questions") with authentic roles

An authentic role was given to the students as they were members of a Civil Society Health Organisation (CSHO). They conducted research to collect data on COVID- 19, informed the community about COVID- 19, and made posters, videos or gave presentations to the public. The students had to finalize all these tedious steps to complete the activity.

• giving students a challenge appropriate at the level of their expertise (ZPD)

The activities as doing research to make posters, videos or give presentations in order to inform the community about COVID- 19 were appropriate for the students’ levels.

• involving students to a problem solving process that is (socially) significant for them

Motivational sides of the activity were having a target audience, contribution to a socially significant problem (Covid-19 pandemic) and presenting to the community.

• providing ownership on the problem and the process to solve it

In this activity, the learners chose their specific focus area of COVID- 19 issue, the place to give information about the issue, the way of presenting their product as posters, videos or presentations, and also group member(s); therefore, it provided the students ownership over their products.

• providing freedom and control over the problem solving process

The learners did not brainstorm the ideas in the classroom as a whole class; rather, in their groups students determined how and where to collect data in relation to their choice of the area on COVID- 19.

• publishing student work

Publishing the students’ own posters to the community, giving presentations or presenting their own videos in public (such as on social media) to reach the target audience and formal presentations in the classroom motivated the students in terms of their learning.