Assignment 3. Constructivism and E-Learning

Option A. A Lesson Plan for Students. Prepare a detailed and constructivist lesson for teaching a curriculum topic to students. The lesson should be approximately for 60 to 80 minutes. Part A of the assignment should include about a 1200 word statement on the lesson that clearly reflects salient concepts from Module A, B, and C and draws upon the books and readings from every module in the course.  Revisit your ideas on knowledge from the discussion fora, summary notes on the book chapters and course readings, and your earlier Assignment 1. as a way to get started. Include a review of primary journal articles from the field that enrich your understanding of constructivist e-learning and that were not utilized in the course. Part B. should include the lesson plan itself and student assessment for the lesson objectives. Clearly identify in the lesson, using “#tags” or keywords in the margins, aspects of the lesson plan that are synonymous with course concepts. The student assessment should also reflect a constructivist approach to assessment and feedback and plan for diversity in terms of learning. Submit your assignment to your instructor to their LMS e-mail by the Calendar due date and also provide a copy to the “Legacy of Learning” sharing forum in the course if you wish to share your plans with course members.

Option B. A Professional Development Workshop. Prepare a professional development workshop on constructivism or other related course topic. The workshop is intended for a peer group or other colleagues and is about 60 minutes in length. Part A of the assignment should convey the content of the workshop and clearly reflect salient concepts from Module A, B, and C. Revisit your ideas on knowledge from the discussion forum, summary notes on the book chapters and course readings, and your earlier Assignment 1. as a way to get started. Include a review of primary journal articles from the field that enrich your understanding of constructivist e-learning and that were not utilized in the course. In addition, the literature on effective professional development in your field of interest should be referenced. Aim for about 1200 words. Part B. should include the plan for the workshop, a description of participants, several e-learning activities to consider for diverse learners, and an assessment of the workshop. The workshop assessment should include parameters on how to conduct effective professional development. Submit this final assignment to your instructor to their LMS e-mail by the Calendar due date and also provide a copy to the “Legacy of Learning” sharing forum in the course if you wish.

Assessment: The final assignment will be assessed based on the following six conceptual criteria: thoroughness, use of at least 4 course concepts in total from Modules A-C, number of citations made to course material (eg. books, papers, course discussions, research cafes) and related primary research beyond the course, copious level of detail in Parts A and B with illustrative examples, and, through the use of tag identifiers and text, display of an ability to apply course concepts to the construction of the plans. The final assignment will also be assessed on spelling, grammar, appropriate punctuation, formatting of citations, and the appropriate use of tables, charts, or other visual media to augment and display plans. Although missing some parts (did not receive, a sample assignment is appended here: Sample Final ETEC 530 Assignment. Construct your own subheadings as they are relevant to your thought processes and note that the assignment was before our use of tags (highlighter and tables were used in earlier iterations of the assignment).

The use of #tags are a way to indicate to readers the connections made between what is written in Part A. and realized later in Part B.  An example of a tag is #scaffold.  In a hypothetical writing scenario, Part A could have included a section about constructivism that elaborates on scaffolding. This elaboration would include the symbol and keyword (#scaffold) along with illustrative examples. In Part B., where there is evidence of scaffolding in a lesson, the #scaffold is employed. This tag shows the intentional nature of the activities and creates a bridge for readers from Part A to Part B.