EDU 643

Good & Bad Design Examples

For my item that I am reviewing with a GOOD design, I have chosen the "ZenCT Tablet/Phone universal 2 in 1 tripod adapter."

Ways it can be improved:

• The ridge where the device rests is a tiny bit small. If a device is being used that has a flip over cover, the cover would likely need to be removed as where the device rests on the adapter isn't wide enough to hold it with the cover on the device.

• A small lip that would prevent items from slipping out would be helpful, though most of the time items aren't at risk of slipping out if you push the item all the way in.

For my item that I am reviewing with a BAD design, I have chosen the "MÖJLIGHET Headset/tablet stand" from IKEA.

How These Designs Relate To My Lesson Design

For the well designed object, it is specifically designed well because it is simple and straight forward, and does what it's intended to do and it does it well. When I create my lessons, I also try to make them simple, accessible, easy to understand, and in a way that helps my students learn the topic effectively, so they can be successful in their activities. If too much information is thrown at students and lessons are too complicated or too much happens all at once, students easily get lost, disengaged, confused, etc. and have difficulty focussing in on what is important for their learning.

In terms of the poorly designed object, the main problem is that it's too simple. It's simply lacking in enough of what it needs to be effective for its designed purpose. Since it's supposed to be something that stands upright and holds things, and can barely do either of those effectively, it defeats the purpose of using it. And in terms of how that relates to my lesson planning is that I do subscribe to the KISS method (keep it simple, silly) when it comes to my lesson designs, however, TOO simple can leave students with too many unanswered questions and providing too little details and information for students can be detrimental to the learning design.

Reflection

As I reflect on the entire design process, I have found it to be a valuable experience, and one that should be considered for all units. There were a number of aha moments and aspects of this process that I found more valuable than others. I particularly appreciated:

• testing the design

As I was lucky enough to test this design with about 45 students (and had a high degree of success with these students), this has allowed me to validate my prescribed learning method, although I do admit, it wasn't without hiccups. As I mentioned in a previous reflection, there were some tech issues that I did not anticipate, which was a USB compatibility issue for many students in my class. I had to make an adjustment on the fly to allow for the lesson to continue, and found an easy solution for next time.

Additionally, something else that happened differently in my lesson was that I ended up giving my students "Play time" or time for students to explore their own ideas (outside of what I would be teaching that day) and I hadn't written that into the original plan. Coming from a music education background, I always appreciated giving my students time to play on their own and explore their own interests (similar to Google 20% or Genius Hour) and I naturally included this into my activity immediately following my students being set up with the cameras. Not only did this feel like the right thing to do in the moment, it logistically made sense as there were some students who were struggling to get set up with the tech, whom I had to directly assist, while other students had figured it all out quite quickly. So the play time acted like a buffer to allow for students who had their tech sorted out more quickly to do something that was useful with their time, instead of just sitting around doing nothing.

Another thing that I didn't list in the plan, which was something I did, was constant circulating and check-ins with students. In an online learning situation, this would mean breakout rooms and small groups.

• isolating the learning objectives

The aspect of isolating and thinking in detail about the learning objectives was something that spoke to me and I appreciated greatly, as I feel this is something I try to do regularly. I liked the concept of planning backwards and starting with an end-goal in mind. Then breaking this down into steps and easily manageable lessons. I personally am fairly strategic and logical in my day-to-day life, and I approach things quite systematically in almost everything I do. This process felt very natural to me and was a good exercise, as I feel I already do some of this to a certain extent.

In terms of how my design has progressed, as I've mentioned in the past, the lesson that I chose happened to be something I had practiced before, so it was already quite refined, however, learning this process will undoubtedly continue to benefit me as I develop new content for my learners. I can especially see myself using the Flow Charts I made in Week 4 in the future, not only the ones I made but also making new ones for other lessons that may have complex steps involved.

There have been a couple big areas of reflection in how I design lessons. One of which has been the idea of priming students at the beginning with what the lesson objectives are. The idea of sort of "warning" students of what to watch out for was an interesting concept. And one that I will likely include in my practice. One of the reasons I have never done this is that I've always felt that it doesn't make sense to share this with students without the prior context and learning, however, I do appreciate the fact that if students are primed to "watch out" for specific things in lessons, they may be more able to retain or engage with that material when it comes up. Though, my personal feeling is that it's important to not bog students down with learning objectives that are contextually difficult to understand, and I feel how this is done and presented to students may require careful planning, depending on the content. That being said, I will give it a go and experiment with this in different ways.

The second major area of reflection throughout this class has been the concept of UDL for how students can share their understanding, and what that means to me and my context. As I've stated in my previous reflections, this is something I'm familiar with and have experience with planning in a variety of other classes, however, in my context, this remains a challenge for me to consider. I'm confident in the method that I deliver content to students accommodates various learning styles, I feel I do a very effective job of differentiating learning, and I definitely understand the concept applying UDL to allowing students to choose the form of expression and demonstration of understanding and what it means in many other contexts. Such as completing written assessments, giving verbal answers directly to the teacher for assessment, creating video essays, creating a pamphlet or poster, etc. etc. However, in terms of offering various means of expression from students in my context, this seems like an area where I can continue to grow and consider what it means for a film class, where the main point of the class is to make films. Although I won't go into it as I have in previous reflections, I do agree this is an important area for me to consider as I grow as an educator.