Designing for Learners

September 30, 2009 kwhitcomb

The forum discussion with our group this week went pretty well. It started with me posting a thread that designated tasks to everyone. In the thread, I asked if everyone could just confirm that they would be willing to do those tasks. I stayed in constant communication with Steve almost the whole week. By the weekend, I was in constant communication with Abby. I actually ended up speaking with Abby and Steve outside of the discussion forum through phone calls or text messages. There were a few questions asked throughout the week, such as what we were supposed to title the assignment, or whether or not we each needed to turn in a copy. Overall, the conversation went pretty well, and we all got our work done in a very timely manner. I had asked that they send me their questions by Monday night so that I could compile the paper together, and they both sent me those on time. It was definitely a successful assignment.

There are many things we need to take into account regarding learners or our audience in designing instruction. One very important thing is just the age of the audience. For example, a college instructor should definitely plan on teaching seniors differently than freshmen. Freshmen are just coming out of high school and are not as used to the teaching style of college professors. Seniors are much more experienced in college, and are able to adapt new teaching styles much more easily than freshmen. I definitely feel that instructors of freshmen should come up with a transitional style of teaching, which would help freshmen transition well fom high school to college.

Another important thing to take into account is the skills of the students in that particular class. If a professor is teaching an art class, it may not be wise to assign a 10-page article analyzing statistics, due in 2 days. That is an extreme example, but my point is that the professor needs to examine the skills of the students in that class, and assign relevant course work, accordingly.

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