Athena's Blog

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April 2, 2024 / 0 Comments

Blog Post 4: French 12 –online vs. classroom setting

I do not have any experiences teaching online. However, in high school before the COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to quickly transition to online learning, I was in an online French 12 course. I personally perceive my experience in this course differently compared to course at the end of high school and university that were online. This is primarily because courses that were online in 2020-2021 had to be online, but I (kind of) chose to take French 12 online in high school as it didn’t fit in my school time-table.

I took the French program through EBUS Academy and it was great. It was clearly outlined in ~12 units, and I knew exactly what I needed to do. This program however, was impacted by the pandemic and I was provided with the option to continue and increase my grades or just take the grade I currently had (which I chose to do). The benefits of learning French online was that I could work at my own pace and complete assignment when I had time to do so. The teacher would check in periodically, but as long as I completed it by the end of the school year, I was on my own. I really enjoyed the flexibility of it.

However, there were various downsides of taking a language course online. One major concern was that although I was reading and learning the language, there was not much opportunity to speak and interact with peers, which really hindered by ability to speak and understand French. To this day i can’t really speak French, but I am very good at reading and writing French. Another barrier was being unable to take a French course in university because although I could understand to a degree, much of what I had learned speaking and comprehension wise from grade 11 French was lost in grade 12 and therefore when I went to take French in semester 2 of my first year, it was a struggle and I quickly dropped the course.

Therefore, despite the flexibility of leaning French online, if French 12 fit into my schedule in high school, I definitely would have chosen that over taking it online. When in person, there is the opportunity to connect with classmates and practice actually using the language, which is less available online, unless you know someone willing to help you practice. However, online I was provided with flexibility and independence of how I learned and scheduled the course which is unavailable in face-to-face settings. Aspects that are found both virtual and in classroom settings would be reading and listening comprehension, these were similar with slight differences, online learning allowed the opportunity to watch a French TV show for listening comprehension whereas in classroom this would be more challenging due to time restraints.

March 29, 2024 / 0 Comments

Blog Post 3: Theories (behaviourism & Cognitivism)

Behaviourism is a commonly used learning theory and has been around since the 1920s. Behaviourist psychology aims to model the study of human behaviour and intertwines views with physical sciences. Therefore, behaviour, is considered something that humans can directly observe (Bates, 2019). Behaviourism is a common learning theory that is used when working with neurodivergent people, specifically those who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Applied behaviour analysis is a commonly practiced therapeutic treatment for individuals who have ASD. The overarching goal of ABA therapy is to “Improve the human condition through behaviour change” (BACB, 2023).

I understand there are a lot of negative connotations behind using ABA therapy treatment. However, I have seen first hand how much it can improve individuals quality of life. At the end of the day, it is important to remember that ABA treatment is not for everyone and it is important to respect everyone for the choices they make for themselves or their loved ones.

At work, I use behaviourism learning theories to teach clients every-day life skills, from practicing how to put on socks and shoes, to going to the grocery store to buy items and then make recipes. I also remember behaviourism used as a natural reward and punishment when I was in school. For example, in elementary school, as a class if we were quiet and everyone cleaned up and was ready to go, we would get to play on the playground, for ~10 mins before dismissal. However, if someone was not ready to go, our natural punishment was no extra playground time. Which taught us to respect our classroom and importance of keeping clean.

Despite me using behaviourism a lot in my line of work, teaching in a classroom, as a teacher, one learning theory I would be most interested in using cognitivism. I think I am drawn to using cognitivism learning theory because I like how flexible it is and how the focus is on creating new knowledge (Bates, 2019). In school, I really enjoyed doing science experiments, in my Chemistry 11 class. I think these are a great example of cognitivism as there was a pre-determined outcome as, if we did anything wrong, we would have to problem solve, and if needed start over. This enforces Bates (2019) idea of explaining how the cognitive learning theory views the human mind as a computer.

Overall, I think as a psychology major and future teacher learning about the brain and why we do things is super interesting to me and that is the basis of cognitivism. Bates (2019) provides an excellent example of what cognitivists and cognitivism “make sense of new information, how we access, interpret, integrate, process, organize and manage knowledge” (Chapter 2.4). Despite the differences these two learning theories have, both are very useful, and help students excel and learn new things in different ways.

References

Bates, T. (2019). Chapter 2: The nature of knowledge and the implications for teaching. In Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing and learning. AU Press. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/chapter-2-the-nature-of-knowledge-and-the-implications-for-teaching/

Behaviour Analyst Certification Board [BACB]. (2023, June 22). Bacb – about behavior analysis. Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.bacb.com/about-behavior-analysis/

March 23, 2024 / 0 Comments

Blog Post 2: Learning Experiences

I have had a lot of really good learning experiences, as a student and a teacher. For me, what makes a learning experience positive is accessibility, joint engagement, and collaboration.

Since I am still completing my undergraduate degree, I have more experience as a student during learning experiences. I really, enjoy when teachers provide a structured, but flexible way of being evaluated. Therefore, instead of just being evaluated using exams, also having the opportunity to show my knowledge via papers, or presentations. Unfortunately, this flexibility of assessment is less commonly found in university courses. However, in the second year of my psychology degree, I took a class (PSYC 231) that offered a large variety of ways to be evaluated. We had the opportunity to take 4 exams (of which 3 counted towards our final grade), write a paper, and do a group project.

I have also had the opportunity to create my own learning design activity in an Earth and Ocean Science course (EOS120) last semester, where I worked with a partner to create a mock lesson plan, teaching students about the layers of the Earth

In my current job, I work as a behaviour interventionist in a one-on-one setting. This means the learning experiences I create, may look slightly different to others, found in a larger group setting. I typically work on teaching life skills to students. A learning design the student and I collaborated on together, was for an activity where we worked on following a recipe. Attached to this blog post is a very simple example of what the required tasks were with this recipe-following activity.

Overall, the student and I were able to collaborate, and work together to create an engaging and accessible activity that fit their needs and abilities!

February 6, 2024 / 0 Comments

Blog Post 1: Introduction

Hi everyone, my name is Athena. I am in my fourth and final year of my undergraduate degree studying Psychology. After I graduate I plan to apply to post degree professional programs to become an elementary school teacher. 

I am interested in learning design as i do one day want to be a teacher, however, learning design is also a tool I can hopefully learn to better use in my current job. I am fairly new to learning design and don’t really have much experience with it. I have experience with lesson/ activity planning from previous Uvic courses however, the concept of learning design is new and I am excited to learn more about it and how to effectively use it when creating lessons.

Learning design can be very challenging as there are so many ways to go about it. When I think about learning design and how I want to best present it I value accessibility, collaboration, and engagement. Ensuring a learning design is accessible to various people is so important, as everyone should be able to participate and gain valuable knowledge form a lesson. Collaboration between peers is important because when people take all of their individual knowledge and apply it in group settings, it can be of great value and create something magnificent, that might not have been obtained without the collective groups knowledge. Lastly engagement between an educator and their learners is also important. I found it most motivating as a student when my teacher is also interested and engaged in the lesson (through facilitating discussions, asking questions etc.). 

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