Students will invest more in their learning when they know what is to be done with the knowledge or information. It reminds me of a chat I had with a couple of boys in my class who have not been too motivated with their current French assignment (create a small play with a story I told them, and add an ending - I left it out). After a long chat at recess yesterday, explaining what they would get out of the assignment, they seemed to be more interested. Then today I showed an example another group had done 3 years before (recorded on video), they could not wait to get started. Last week someone had asked to leave their group because of their lack of motivation, and now they are certainly on a roll!Two things that struck me from this article was when the author mentioned that “clients didn’t know what they didn’t know”, and that besides having the knowledge, one needs to know how to apply it.
The change in the list describing the tasks one needed to learn, basically clarifying certain terms, demonstrated how the language we use to set a context really matters. If students don’t know what the instructions mean from the beginning, how can they begin? They will be like students trying to complete an assignment without really knowing what they are exactly doing.
This reminds me a bit of a current assignment my students are doing in Social Studies. They were told that they would have to teach part of a unit, in any way the wanted, as long as they had visual aids, like charts or statistics or photos, using PowerPoint, Prezi, Bristol board, etc. I think that part was quite clear for them, however, the topics they had to choose from were basically a list of sub-titles from their text book. They had to read the section in the text book and then do research online to prepare a lesson, with a couple of comprehension questions for the class afterwards.
What this article made me realize, that I should have used language that clarified what each section meant. Instead of writing something like, “The Human Development Index, pages 140-142” as a subtitle, I could have written something like, “The Human Development Index: describing the latest way of measuring the quality of life in a country, pages 140-142”.
As I was reading it, I could not help but think how I could start an assignment the way the introduction to our weekly tasks are, with a description of what we will be able to do by the end of the unit. Then, in this article, Mulder did it. This could have been used with my Social Studies unit, with Math, with every subject I teach.
Nice little article.
References
Mulder, C. (2014). Creating Context in Product eLearning Design. Retrieved May 9th, 2015 from world wide web http://elearningindustry.com/creating-context-product-elearning-design
The change in the list describing the tasks one needed to learn, basically clarifying certain terms, demonstrated how the language we use to set a context really matters. If students don’t know what the instructions mean from the beginning, how can they begin? They will be like students trying to complete an assignment without really knowing what they are exactly doing.
This reminds me a bit of a current assignment my students are doing in Social Studies. They were told that they would have to teach part of a unit, in any way the wanted, as long as they had visual aids, like charts or statistics or photos, using PowerPoint, Prezi, Bristol board, etc. I think that part was quite clear for them, however, the topics they had to choose from were basically a list of sub-titles from their text book. They had to read the section in the text book and then do research online to prepare a lesson, with a couple of comprehension questions for the class afterwards.
What this article made me realize, that I should have used language that clarified what each section meant. Instead of writing something like, “The Human Development Index, pages 140-142” as a subtitle, I could have written something like, “The Human Development Index: describing the latest way of measuring the quality of life in a country, pages 140-142”.
As I was reading it, I could not help but think how I could start an assignment the way the introduction to our weekly tasks are, with a description of what we will be able to do by the end of the unit. Then, in this article, Mulder did it. This could have been used with my Social Studies unit, with Math, with every subject I teach.
Nice little article.
References
Mulder, C. (2014). Creating Context in Product eLearning Design. Retrieved May 9th, 2015 from world wide web http://elearningindustry.com/creating-context-product-elearning-design