Shank.R_EDU 697_Assignment 2

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Running Head: LEARNERS

Supporting the Learners

Rebecca L Shank

EDU 697: Capstone

Ashford University

Dr. Pressey

August 15, 2013

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LEARNERS

Abstract

This learner demonstrates the importance of supporting the needs of all learners. Learners in education need to be able to have goals that they can succeed and teachers should help meet these needs.

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LEARNERS

Supporting the Learners

The MATLT, Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology, at Ashford

University has given this student a different perspective on supporting the needs of all learners.

This author has seen many students who did not succeed due to the fact that their needs were not being met, but she saw a difference in a school that uses all types of technology to enhance each student’s need.

This author evaluates the design of supporting the needs of all learners while stressing the importance of certain theories and principles learned throughout the program. She selects the activity of Wiki’s to redesign so that it meets needs of all students. There are many challenges to overcome with the implementation of design, but this learner has found ways to implement changes to the activity.

Instructional design definitely needs to support all learners. Each individual learns in different ways. This writer has been a home school assistant for six months with special needs children who all learn in a various ways. One must be able to teach each child according to their niche of learning whether it be visual, hands-on, or auditory. These children were able to enhance their educational skills because this learner used the skills of redesign in her teaching of these children (Punches, E, 2013).

Learning is not something that is easy to do especially when one struggles on a daily basis to keep to a routine. The importance of instructional design is so that the principles of learning: redundancy, etc. are implemented so that it can help enhance certain theories such as the cognitive theory for students. The cognitive theory is based upon knowledge for students and

LEARNERS this theory was used to help this student obtain an activity she has always wanted to redesign to

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The activity for redesign is creating a Wiki space for a learning activity in this course.

This author wants to redesign this activity to create the Wiki space so that audio can be included for those who can not see well and also to enhance it with larger visuals.

The redesign incorporates the use of JING to be able to voice over so that people can hear the instructions. The activity also has more room to implement graphics and visuals such as arrows pointing to the word in the use of JING, and this would make it clearer for those who need the clarification. The use of JING also allows learners who do not wish to memorize a username or password for Wiki space to see the work of the other student without logging into a website.

The challenges of the redesign for this learner were as follows: getting Wiki space to load and fit into the JING screen, meeting the time limit specified in JING, and also having good visuals, but not a lot that would overpower the effect of the assignment. These challenges were overcome by having the patience to implement the redundancy principle so that nothing was repeated in the JING video that was already in the wiki space and enhancing the cognitive theory of using critical thinking skills to have a successful redesign of instruction.

Learning can be quite the task, yet it is fun to be able to enhance an activity after using the knowledge provided throughout the course at Ashford. It is also beautiful to see how different tools have a unique part in the learning process just as each student has a different way of learning to meet their niche. It has been quite the experience to use two different activities and combine them to meet the needs of all learners.

LEARNERS

References

Punches, E. (2013). Winter school: Homeschool. Retrieved on May 1, 2013.

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