After reading the Interaction part in the assignment, I noticed that quiz and some other forms of assessments are not that interactive as I used to think, since they lack of personalized features. When I look back to my group blueprint, I consider that the learning activities, especially the quiz part, should be altered and adjusted to be more interactive and unimpeded.
The original design is to use multiple choice to assess students’ comprehension about simple definitions and concepts of computer network when they form a shallow understanding at the beginning. The underlying barriers may be that students have different preferences about perceiving and producing, and the form of quiz has its own limitations.
By applying the Universal Design Learning framework, first, the representation of the learning material and assessment should be varied. Besides lectures at school, the proficiency of learning can be improved if the instructor recommends some relative videos, podcast, and articles, because the preferred perception ways are different from students to students. Taking videos as an example, multiple choice can be embedded in them, and once students choose the answer, they can proceed to watch the video.
Second, other forms except multiple choice should be implemented. Because choosing answers and get automatic feedback is more of behaviorist perspective of learning, deeper reflects happen while students relate new contents to their prior knowledge and apply them in real-world situations, which is more of cognitive and constructivist. For example, students can be encouraged to submit mindmaps showing clear relationships and definitions of each concept, and share their personal experiences of facing internet lagging and solutions.
Third, although the result of multiple choice can be clearly displayed, the decision-making process of students is invisible, sometimes students pick the correct answer due to pure fortune. Therefore, instructor may require learners to add their reason for choosing certain answers, and these reasons can be shared in public in anonymous form. In this way, how the learners demonstrate their learning in relation to the published learning outcomes can be assessable.
Moreover, from a user-generated perspective, more student-directed interaction should be added. Multiple choice and other forms of assessments are designed by the instructor, which may not fully covered students’ confusion, so letting them leave comments or questions about the quiz is necessary.
In summary, these adjustments may help students to overcome the unfamiliarity of new concepts and build up strong connections with their instructor, thus contributing to learning proficiency.
Comment
I commented on two of them this week because I was interested in what this week was about.
Ziming, I really like the content of your article, especially the idea of designing a universal design learning framework using formats other than multiple choice is a very good idea! We also need to consider the barriers that some people with disabilities face when learning and try to make their experience the same as that of most people.