Module 3: Principles of Learning Design and Active Learning

This week we learnt about the process of a backward design, Merrill’s Five Principles of Instruction, and the difference between active and passive learning. We were also introduced to H5P which allows for interactive content.

Bloom’s Taxonomy and A Life Story

Throughout this module, the topics of Bloom’s taxonomy and active verses passive learning really resonated with me. As a kid, I would say I was quite smart. I normally ranked quite high in terms of performance. A moment of learning I think back onto quite often is when I finally learned to apply my knowledge. This was back in grade 8 science class during the electricity unit. We had a lab report to do for a lab that involved lighting a light bulb with lemons and the last question of the write up was “how does this lab relate to the real world?” This question took me a few days to think about and it stumped a lot of my other classmates as well because truly how does lemons being able to light a lightbulb have anything to do with the world. I decided to take a leap of faith and talked about supply and demand. While I don’t 100% remember the relationship I made between the two concepts, I remember thinking to myself well if the lemon doesn’t have enough juice for the lightbulb, the lightbulb will always be in demand for more juice whereas if the lemon had more than enough juice, the lightbulb will only take as much as it needs. Thinking back on this, it is quite a naïve thought since depending on the demand, some people will take more than they need to make a profit. But, to a younger me, this was like finding gold. In fact, I was the only student that got a 100% on the lab report and I remember feeling so smart and capable. To relate this back to this week’s module, this lab report reminded me of Bloom’s taxonomy because I was able to analyze bigger themes of this lab outside of the science aspect and I was able to create connections to other non related topics.

Active and Passive Learning

Active and passive learning also really stuck to me since I have experienced it first hand with my classes. I notice when I am actively engaging with material during lecture, I remember the material better. One of my favourite professors, Professor Jhotisha Mugon, once told me she can tell what I can remember based off of my participation in her classes. She’s not wrong, I can tell too. During exams, I always think back to her classes. I find psychology quite engaging so, it’s not hard for me to engage. I love asking questions that relate to current events or to things I experience. During her exams, I know the answer to a question because I can envision when I connected that topic to. However, for classes I find really hard to relate to, I struggle a lot more with. Those classes normally for me are computer science classes. I have no connection to the material so, I tend to space out during lecture and nothing sticks in my brain. While, in this module we learnt more about ways to actively and passively teach, this topic resonated with me since, as learners, we actively and passively review and study too.

Balancing Active and Passive Learning

For this course, I have found the best balance by using AI to help me. While reading is a very passive study method, I found if I tell AI to make me a quiz based off of the material within the module, I found myself engaging more with the material. By quizzing myself, I am able to spot holes in my knowledge and understanding. I also quiz some friends within the course so we both actively engage with the material. While I still don’t have the balance for computer science classes, I found my best balance for psychology classes is to just attend. I find psychology classes so fun, in fact, they normally make my day if its about a topic I enjoy learning. For example, I am in a relationship psychology class and I just love going. I find it so interesting and it’s quite easy for me to engage with the material since I often find myself trying to apply my learning to couples I see on reality TV or even my own relationship. I think if you were to look at my transcript, it is quite easy to tell which classes were passively taken and which were actively taken. You would also be able to see the switch when I started to actively learn.

K-12 Classroom Reading and Life Application

In the reading with K-12 classrooms, I found myself resonnating with the author’s story. I think so many teachers still teach like the way the kid at the beginning of the blog was describing– reading off a Powerpoint and then testing students. Those kind of teachers are always the ones with a bad reputation and the general consensous is normally that they don’t care. While that may be true for some teachers, I believe not all teachers were taught to teach. The same way how many students were never taught to study. I don’t think the idea of teaching actively or even studying actively is intuitive. I think active learning isn’t used in the classroom because students are learning about autonomy. Some students just don’t want to be there, some want to test the idea of authority. It’s hard to get students to do what teachers want. This comes before the issues of underfunding and extremely full classrooms.

Professor Mugon, I believe, is also a teaching director for the psychology department. So, she often applies a lot of the techniques mentioned in the blog post to her classes. I have had her for first, second, and third year classes so, I have experienced alot of learning techniques. Her matieral is organized by category which allows for easier revision and is full of diagrams. She often brings in stuff for us whether that’d be for positive reinforcement or for a small break. For example, she gave those that attended a review session chocolate and she brought in taste strips when we were discussing taste and super tasters. There are tons of discussion time in her classes. Overall, I feel as if the majority of my psychology classes apply the techniques discussed in the blog.

For the lesson plan, I decided to make one based off of a topic discussed in my relationship psychology class.

Link to my comment:

Module 3: Principles of Learning Design and Active Learning: Becoming a Better Person