http://youtu.be/Ez2wHFXVRB0
http://youtu.be/Ez2wHFXVRB0
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/08/11/U-S-Wages-Down-23-Since-2008Wages Down 23% Since 2008
Describe your chosen intervention. What is it? How is it used? What do you know about how effective it is?
My chosen intervention is to direct students using Civilization to learn from the content. The game is used as a springboard to learning more about how to build a sustainable society. It is effective as I have used portions of the game in a K-12 setting.
Identify weak points or opportunities for growth. What areas of this design are not working as well as they could?
The areas of design that are not as strong as they could be lay in the area of practice or acting out the results of building a Civilization. Therefore, what I propose is to use the Reacting to the Past series about the threshold of democracy as it arose in Greece.
Present your mods. Clearly describe and/or show what changes you would make.
Students will present their counter-factual history based on how they fared in Civilization as compared to the textbook and what actually happened. Finally, they will react to the past using the book about the threshold of democracy in Greece.
Explain your thinking. Provide evidence for why you expect these changes will improve outcomes. What learning theories are you basing them on? What related interventions have proven outcomes?
As used separately in my classrooms, components of Civilization, and debates about the beginnings of democracy in Greece have worked well. These related interventions have proven the outcomes I desired. Students were more interested in learning first-hand by understanding the game content, and then elsewhere students enjoyed participating in debates about the beginning of democracy in Greece. I based my expected results on important learning theories.
Since I have students write and present their own individual, counter-factual history, as compared to the actual historical events, and then role-play the threshold of democracy these procedures encourage active learning as noted in the readings. The students have to talk, listen, write, read, and of course reflect on their experience. Bonwell and Eison summarize activities that they include in active learning: visual learning, writing in class, problem solving, computer-based instruction, cooperative learning, debates, drama, role playing, simulations, games, and peer teaching. What I am proposing incorporates these techniques.
This is an important area since the simulations are biased towards the sciences and there are few historical re-creations. The 1066 game is an exception as well as of course an early simulation, the Oregon Trail.
References
Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. 1991 ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports. Bonwell, Charles C.; Eison, James A.
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED336049
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/0-9/1066/game/index.html
INTRODUCTION
In this assignment you’ll apply what you know about approaches to learning and relevant learning theories. Instead of jumping right in and designing your own educational technology (which you will do soon), you’ll get to practice by first modifying an existing one. This will serve as a stepping stone to help you look critically at the design of a learning experience and come up with ways to improve it.
WHAT TO DO
1. Choose an existing learning intervention
For this week, we’re defining a “learning intervention” as an activity which engages learners with some particular content area. We’ve left this pretty broad because we want to give you a lot of latitude as you do the next part of the assignment. So it could be an educational game, but it could also be a textbook, science lab, set of flash cards, etc. Even a driver’s manual or a learn-to-juggle video. Anything goes!
2. Make a mod of the learning intervention
Identify weak points in the intervention as it exists, or opportunities to improve learning outcomes. These outcomes could be in the form of greater engagement or motivation, increased content knowledge, more authentic skill development, etc. Make modifications or additions to the intervention that would improve these outcomes. Just be sure that those mods are grounded in educational theory or other proven methods.
If your intervention is already technology-based, you might modify either the technology or the way it’s used. An example of this might be taking a digital representation of a chemical reaction and making it more active and playful, rather than just something to be watched.
If your intervention does not use technology, then your challenge is to think of ways in which adding a technology component would potentially improve outcomes. For instance if you started with a “ball and stick” model of chemistry, you might add uses of technology to pose problems, visualize concepts, facilitate peer interactions, etc.
DELIVERABLE FORMAT
This is another assignment where your actual turn-in may vary from student to student, depending on the intervention you’ve chosen and the format of your mods. Unless your intervention is very easy to actually modify, we imagine that most turn-ins will take the form of a written document, perhaps with illustrative images, describing the mods you have designed. If you would prefer to create a presentation, video, or other multimedia deliverable, that’s great too. Choose the format that you think best conveys what you want to communicate, and that you will have the most fun with.
These are the key areas to cover in your write-up:
Describe your chosen intervention. What is it? How is it used? What do you know about how effective it is?
Identify weak points or opportunities for growth. What areas of this design are not working as well as they could?
Present your mods.
Clearly describe and/or show what changes you would make.
Explain your thinking.
Provide evidence for why you expect these changes will improve outcomes. What learning theories are you basing them on? What related interventions have proven outcomes?
TURN-IN AND EVALUATION
When you’re ready to submit your assignment, go to the next unit in this ribbon, which is the peer assessment. Unfortunately the platform does not allow document uploads so unless your turn-in is text only, you will need to post your work online somewhere then paste the link(s) and any special instructions into the submission form. (Get suggestions of how to post shareable documents online.) Remember to make those documents publicly viewable, and please complete your work in English so that your peers can read it. You’ll be prompted to evaluate some of your classmates’ work, and in turn some of your classmates will also evaluate your work. The evaluation will be based on the criteria in the rubric, which can be found below. So you will want to look through the rubric ahead of time and keep those criteria in mind as you work on your project.
Incomplete
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Adequate
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Excellent
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Chosen Intervention
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Did not describe chosen intervention.
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Described chosen intervention.
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Clearly described chosen intervention along with identified weak points or opportunities for improvement.
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Your Mod
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Did not present student-designed mods.
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Described proposed mods.
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Thoroughly explained proposed mods and provided evidence of reasoning about why the mods would improve outcomes.
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Incomplete
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Adequate
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Excellent
| |
Chosen Intervention
|
Did not describe chosen intervention.
|
Described chosen intervention.
|
Clearly described chosen intervention along with identified weak points or opportunities for improvement.
|
Your Mod
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Did not present student-designed mods.
|
Described proposed mods.
|
Thoroughly explained proposed mods and provided evidence of reasoning about why the mods would improve outcomes.
|
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A tax on toilet paper; I kid you not. According to the sponsor, "the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act will be financed broadly by small fees on such things as . . . products disposed of in waste water." Congress wants to tax what you do in the privacy of your bathroom.