TILE Potluck Group Activity
The purpose of this activity is to explore the following questions:
The group activity will act as a catalyst for plenary discussion of how TILE tools can support these transformations of content, activities and delivery.
Identify an instance in your life when you had difficulty learning something.
Postulate the reasons why you had difficulty learning the concept/activity/skill.
List the strategies you used to finally learn the concept/activity/skill.
Discuss these with your group and synthesize the list of barriers and the strategies
for overcoming the barriers.
Your group is asked to develop learning paths for two different individuals who face learning challenges. You can plan these online activities for the example learners based on any actual or imagined individuals of your choosing. The following resources are provided:
1. Create descriptions for two "learners" with learning challenges. Here is an example description:
Example: Joe is a young adult who has a learning disability. Joe has difficulty with lengthy print passages, though his comprehension improves when he is able to listen to information being presented. He also has difficulty navigating complex text-based Web resources and utilities.
2. Describe how these two learners learn best. Here is an example description:
Example:
Joe prefers:
3. Both of these learners are taking a course on "Science as a Way of Knowing: Geography and the Fur Trade." The course examines the impact of the Fur Trade on Native people in Canada, and the ways in which this period of cultural change affected the use and creation of new technologies, as well as the adoption of old technologies across cultures. The focus is on encouraging scientific literacy and understanding of the natural world in a cultural context as it relates to human geography.
One of the expected learning objectives is:
By the end of this lesson, learners will be able to locate relevant information about the impact of the fur trade on Canada's Native people, using a variety of online resources.
In your Powerpoint presentation, propose a learning design for each of these learners that would allow each learner to achieve the best learning outcome?
The following is an example learning design:
Use the Powerpoint presentation that shows how you would personalize the learning environment to meet the learners' specific needs. A number of curriculum resources are provided for this exercise. Describe how you would modify and use these resources to create a learning design that is optimized for your learners. Choose and assemble curriculum content from the resources provided.
Personalization could include the path and pace of learning as well as customizing the display, control and structural presentation, learner scaffold and supplementary material. Show the learner's path through the content, indicating tools used and supports required. Include the supports you would need as an educator to prepare the optimized learning design. Add this to your powerpoint as well.
Be prepared to report back to the larger group in the afternoon.
If time allows, begin discussion of how authoring tools and utilities will help you most in providing content in flexible formats.