Introduction
MDDE 603 Foundations of Instructional Design: Systems Analysis and Learning Theories, with Dr Kennedy and Dr Sochowski, is an AU MEd core subject that provided me with the opportunity to delve into learning theories, current trends in education, and personal and professional introspection as to how these theories apply in my professional career as an educator. The artefact selected as part of this course, Personal Theory of Practice, is based on a short paper that allowed me to reflect upon and synthesize the theories covered, discuss and analyze their affordances and limitations, and if and how they apply in my own teaching and learning context. More specifically, the paper should include the following components: 1. My view of learning encapsulated in three learning principles; 2. A short description of each principle, including which specific learning theory or theories support each principle.
Why This Artefact
My choice of this artefact stems from my desire to open my educational context door and share and discuss my personal theory of practice in my teaching/learning setting and how MDDE 603 course helped me inform it. Additionally, a pleasant coincidence was that at the very same semester I had also taken MDDE 631 course, which explores inclusive educational practices, case studies, and the implementation of UDL principles. Therefore, this artefact is an opportunity to verify that theory is applicable in practice, which seems to be the hottest issue discussed by practitioners. To this end, the diversity of my students’ demographics in my multidimensional classes is described and the implementation of a student-centered, inclusive, and interactive instructional design to achieve the intended learning outcomes is analyzed, based on examples. While working on this assignment, I delved into theory and inform my practices based on an international, up-to-date, and close to the demands of a digitally connected world demands, in order to maximize opportunities for quality education for all my students. I was surprised to realize that behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism could all be present in my teaching/learning practices, complementarily applied, and encapsulated in three main principles, namely
a) to design a personalized and differentiated instruction that meets my learners’ needs;
b) to activate their own experiences, help them make meaningful connotations, and reach satisfaction;
c) to ensure rich learning environments that encourage critical dialogue, understanding, and skill development.
Above all, this artefact allows me to reflect on the process of composing my personal Theory of Practice, realized through a series of purposeful activities offered in the course.
The Process
More specifically, the series of course activities were so well-designed that they played a crucial role in my step by step shaping of my Personal Theory of Learning. As such, I had to:
Activity 1: Consider and share my personal view of the Teaching/Learning process.
Activity 2: Complete Pratt's Teaching Perspective Inventory (TPI) and reflect on the results.
Activity 3: Examine Learning Theories and how they apply in course design.
Activity 4: Design my teaching/learning principles and how they inform my teaching and shape my Theory of Practice.
Having to share my personal view of the teaching/learning process in the forum discussion proved to be the first and quite a demanding step of this process as it required introspection, reflection on my practices, and the overall ability to post it concisely yet explicitly.
The second step, completing Pratt’s TPI and sharing my results along with reflections in the forum discussion, built on my first step, was an “a-ha moment” of this process as I realized that my beliefs and intentions as a practitioner were not far from my actions as a teacher! As displayed in the following image, my practices were quite diverse with respect to learners' needs in specific educational contexts. This became explicit in the results…
Upon completion of TPI and receiving the results, I posted my reflection; though the Nurturing, followed by the Developmental perspective of my practices were dominant, all five perspectives were present at a close rate. I could clearly reflect on that and think of my actions as an educator. Having been teaching teenagers for over 20 years in public schools that involve enrolment of students from various socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and with different skills and attitudes, the following visual, an excerpt of my reflection post, justifies why all perspectives are so close to each other (3.1).
Dr Kennedy's response and comment on my reflection post was very enlightening. She resonated with my mentioning the interdependence and the complexity of the teaching/learning processes and encouraged me to keep reflecting on that throughout the course as to identify the factors that have to be taken into consideration when employing certain practices. In light of this, proceeding with the activities, Schunk's (2012) Learning Theories, the main course textbook along with all course materials, helped me delve into theory supported and at the same time analyzed with meaningful examples (5.4). Thanks to this process, it was much easier to reflect on my practices, inform them, and shape my Personal Theory of Practice, as analyzed on a theoretical and practical framework in the following section.
Reflection on Shaping My Theory of Practice
Two main concepts dominated in my artefact, that is, teaching and learning. While working on my assignment, I realized that I had never before thought of the definitions of these concepts, prevalent in my practices. I could only think of teaching and learning as processes. Schunk's discussion (2012) in my textbook helped me define them, which was a basic component for building my theory of practice. As such, teaching is any deliberate arrangement of events to facilitate a learner’s achievement of certain goals, behaviors, and performance. Learning occurs enactively (by doing) and vicariously (by observing, reading, and listening). It involves the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that can contribute meaningfully towards the individual’s personal growth as well as the development of his/her environment and community.
Based on this premise and given my students’ diverse demographics and consequent issues that arise, I felt that in order to achieve the intended learning outcomes I had to define the specific deliberate arrangement of events that would facilitate the learning process. Reflecting on the process, as described before, I realized that it helped my learning, therefore, it could much inform my practices as a teacher. Though based on a social-constructivist pedagogy, it leveraged aspects of behaviorism and cognitivism that successfully complemented each other rather than being in contradiction. In addition to that, a debate on the importance of behaviorism and constructivism as part of a collaborative assignment that preceded this particular one, helped me exchange views with my peers, describe cases of students' needs and build new knowledge on the premise “One Size Does Not Fit All” (4.3, 4.5). This process led me to further reflection on my practices and think of how flexible I am in my approaches and practices, because I realized that it depends (2.1).
While teaching, I actually caught myself evaluating my teaching and students' learning. I kept asking myself if my design is flexible enough, effective, and engaging. Based on my students' performance, I realized that I might have to further reduce cognitive load whenever possible. Of course, teaching classes of 25 students applying differentiated instruction is not as simple as it may sound. It is also worth noticing that in Greek public schools there is no assistant teacher in class as to encourage ideal practices. Therefore, in order to discuss my own theory with my main concern being to prioritize the principle of equity and values such as respect for diversity, rights, and needs of all children without any exception, it should be applicable and effective (1.1, 1.2).
Attending MDDE 631 course at the same time proved to be a blessing. I considered of additionally studying the Universal Design for Learning (CAST, 2011) as to encompass diversity (1.4). It was apparent that it allowed my developing an instructional design which is learner-centered, inclusive, and interactive. My priority has always been in establishing a learning community with strong bonds that rely on mutual respect and trust among students, and students and me, as their instructor. Being a visual type myself, I decided on designing my own concept map of all components that could clearly display my practices and how to improve them, as to consist a reminder on my desk whenever designing my lessons' activities (2.7).
This visual is a concept map I created, based on the Universal Design for Learning principles that I shared in the Inclusive Educators' Toolbox, which clearly displays how multiple means for representation, engagement, action and expression help learners be resourceful and knowledgeable, purposeful and motivated, and strategic and goal-oriented.
In light of the above, my personal theory of practice is informed by all learning theories, each one complementing the other, based on three major principles:
1st Principle: Personalized and differentiated instruction to meet learners’ needs
2nd Principle: Learners are not blank slates. They carry their own experiences, can make meaningful connotations, and reach satisfaction.
3rd Principle: Rich learning environments encourage critical dialogue and understanding
While describing the above principles, aligning them with each learning theory, I could clearly see their affordances and limitations, always bearing in mind Dr Kennedy's suggestion. In practice, I found that they had already been constituents of the daily routine in my educational context, but there was room for improvement! Redesigning some of my activities based on these principles and practicing them in my context, I could evaluate their applicability and effectiveness (1.8). If I were to share a schema on how they found fertile soil to flourish, the following image clearly displays their realization, based on theory and examples:
As such, enriching my classroom practices and learners' experiences seemed to bear favorable outcomes in quite a short time of implementation. For instance, further chunking of material as to facilitate learners that cannot keep up with the rest of the class, seemed to work perferctly well for students that could not respond to the majority's pace, either because of limited attention span or restricted content-related prior knowledge (1.5). That did not mean that I decided on lowering the quality, but providing opportunities for success and reaching each one's potentials, thus reflecting on Skinner's operant conditioning theory as to maximize learners' achievement. I additionally started emplying more computer-assisted instruction, sharing with them online quizzes with unlimited efforts option, as to enhance learning opportunities through trial and error (2.5, 3.5).
In addition, I started using helpful advance organizers as to activate prior knowledge and allow my students to make meaningful connotations and build on it. To add to this, making more frequent use of multimedia has much facilitated this process, allowing for multiple means of representation, thus retaining my learners' attention and engagement and allowing for success and satisfaction that align with Keller's (2008) ARCS model, namely, attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (2.3, 3.3). At the same time, my "quick" students help the weaker ones while still working. This peer tutoring process facilitates my teaching, enhances participation opportunities, and boosts the peer tutors' self-confidence, responsibilty, skill-building, and emotional presence. They proceed to working in groups, on problem-based projects, encouraging students' active involvement and participation in the learning process, allowing for skills and talents to flourish and establishing their own relationships and interpersonal bonds.
My Takeaways
Shaping my personal Theory of Practice based on my activities taken in this course and reinforced by the UDL principles I was studying for the concurrent course, I realized that it is an ever-evolving process, much influenced by the needs of my learners. Having participated in a plethora of seminars for PD and the co-authoring of a book on Personal Philosophy of Classroom Discipline in 2015 as a follow up on how I, as an educator, have the power to make a learner's life joyous or miserable (Lazou, 2015), has been part of this process that along with this assignment lead me to believe that I have much more to learn, but on even stronger foundations.
This Artefact has helped me inform my teaching and learning strategies, be aware of my practices as an educator and purposefully apply them as to enhance and maximize opportunities for student-centered, inclusive, and differentiated, personalized learning for my context, enriching their learning experience. Additionally, it proved to be the necessary step to respond to the requirements of MDDE 604 and MDDE 622 courses to develop online modules and thus evolve as an instructional designer, and receive positive feedback for my proposals for projects with partners beyond country's borders (1.10).
Additionally, this artefact was a driving force that led me to create numerous new lesson plans, based on my informed principles, including a variety of the abovementioned activities that leverage online learning opportunities. Some of these lesson plans and activities have been shared in open educational repositories. So far, I have had the pleasure to receive meaningful feedback from my students and so have my students from me on their performance that keeps improving. Last but not least, I am happy to share that I have become very prolific and my blog for my students has started including more and more pages (2.5, 3.1)! Though not all of my students seem willing to spend time for extra activities, I am glad that I have encouraged a large number of them to make good use of the online educational products--at least it has attracted my students who are not very fond of textbook study (3.2, 1.11)! At the moment, I am voluntarily working on some digital educational scenarios on secondary education textbooks that will hopefully be included in the main repository, Aesop.
Above all, among all the valuable learning moments of this course and especially my journey to complete this assignment, as part of my own introspection of my so far practices and reflection on my interaction with the course content, I feel that I have made a big step as to boost my learners' autonomy, self-regulation, and motivation to learn, resonating with Pratt's (2002) contention that "[t]he goal is to change the way learners think, rather than increase their store of knowledge" (p. 4).
References
CAST (2011). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.0. Wakefield, MA: Author
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Meaningful Learning and Schema Theory. In Psychology of learning for instruction, 3rd ed. Boston: Pearson Education.
Keller, J. (2008). An integrative theory of motivation, volition, and performance. Technology, Instruction, Cognition & Learning, 6(2), 79 - 104.
Lazou, C. (2015). Does a teacher possess the power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous? (pp.58-66). In Gkantidou, E., ELT Teachers’ Personal Philosophy Statements on Classroom Discipline. ISBN 20150427085032 http://uploads.worldlibrary.net/uploads/pdf/20150427085032elt_teachers__personal_philosophy_statements_on_classroom_discipline.pdf
Pratt, D. D. (2002). Good teaching: one size fits all? (pdf) In J. Gordon (Ed.), An update on teaching theory. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6th ed.). Upper Saddle Hill, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
My Main Course Textbook
Competencies Acquired
1. Problem Solving, Analysis, and Decision Making
- 1.1 Recognize problems
- 1.2 Define the aspects of the problem
- 1.4 Find and access information
- 1.5 Critically evaluate the relevance of information for a given situation
- 1.8 Justify these solutions
- 1.10 Recognize the wider implications of specific knowledge
- 1.11 Adapt solutions to suit varied situations
2. Instructional Design and Development
- 2.1 Critically analyze and discuss the implications of personal perspectives and epistemological orientations for the teaching-learning process
- 2.3 Describe and appropriately apply a range of learning and motivational theories to instructional design situations in distance education
- 2.5 Develop instructional products or learning objects in distance education
- 2.7 Apply instructional design principles and models in distance education, in your workplace, or in other instructional contexts
3. Communication Technologies and Networking
- 3.1 Use a variety of communication and document-sharing tools to create, reflect, and communicate with others
- 3.2 Analyze and evaluate the various applications and implications of these technologies
- 3.3 Justify the applications of these technologies in real-life contexts on the basis of theory and research
- 3.5 Apply these technologies in distance education and in real-life instructional contexts
4. Communication and Interpersonal Skills
- 4.3 Justify and defend your ideas orally and in writing in meetings, forums, seminars, exams and other contexts
- 4.5 Participate and contribute effectively in collaborative group activities
5. Research
- 5.4 Critically review literature both broadly and in-depth
