Pod 8 member:

Xin Xie V00951489

Jiaqi Wang V00865212

Kaining Zhang V00950591

Xiaohan Chu V00971315

Documented lesson plan for our multimedia project:

Lesson Plan:  

This course will introduce Mind-mapping to students. The aim of the course is to introduce such a useful and effective tool to help students with their study and lives. Our course uses multimedia to give students detailed instructions, for example, videos.

There are mainly three parts of our course:
• -The concept of Mind-mapping

• -The functions of Mind-mapping

• -How to draw a Mind-map

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Describe the definitions of Mind-mapping

• Discuss the benefits of Mind-mapping
• Be able to apply Mind-mapping in daily study and life
• Be able to draw a Mind-map

Multimedia Content:

We create a slide to provide a complete course, including course introduction, learning outcomes, and the three parts of learning content. We also include an original video to give step-by-step instructions about how to draw a mind-map.

PPT:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1va_7PrwbXIPb0wLHu5x6hO8tUthwWrum/view?usp=sharing

Presenting video:

Demo video:

Multimedia Principle and learning theories:

The following five principles are used in our learning content.

Coherence principle：Coherence principle requires learning content to be essential. Unnecessary and irrelevant details should be excluded, preventing extraneous overload and relieving learning pressure. Therefore, the explanation on our slides keeps simple and concise. We try to use single words or verbal phrases instead of long sentences. Besides, we don’t employ delicate slide template so that no irrelevant pictures would distract the audience.

Signaling principle: Signaling principle requires important information to be emphasized. When paragraphs are needed to provide a context in our slides, keywords are in the font of Bold and key sentences are underlined.

Redundancy Principle: Redundancy principle states that two forms of multimedia is better than three of them because three forms would provide too much information for the audience to process and understand. In our slides, the text is combined with related pictures and the pictures are aimed to illustrate the text more vividly and directly. In our video, audience can watch the animation while listening to the narration, and only some brief phrases are provided to explain the steps. In this way the audience would not be imposed too much burden.

Spatial Contiguity Principle: Spatial contiguity principle requires relevant information which come in different forms should be aligned rather than be separated. Therefore, in our slides, related pictures and text are put beside each other in the same slide.

Temporal Contiguity Principle：Temporal contiguity principle requires the narration to appear at the same time when animation is played. We use this principle to design the animation of our video. The Voiceover is simultaneous with the steps presented.

There are two theories we adopted in designing our learning content.

Dual-coding theory: dual-coding theory means that we have two channels to receive information, one is through our eyes and the other is through our ears. We can combine the narration and animation/text at the same time. Such combination is recommended because it makes memorizing much easier. When we recall the information, both image and sound can be triggered. We use the theory in our video, the audience can watch the animation while listening the Voiceover, so that they can learn more effectively.

Constructivist Theories：Constructivist theory provides us a fundamental guideline when we design our course. Since our learning objective is to provide students a useful learning tool and encourage them to apply in their daily lives, we don’t want to treat them as blank slate and let them receive information passively. Thus we adopt the student-centered approach. For example, in our slides we first ask students to think about the learning tools they have used for study and recall any information they have learned about mind-map, so that we can build the following new knowledge upon their previous knowledge. Besides, after we introduce the concept of mind-mapping and move on to the next part—its functions and applications, we ask students to think first independently and then provide the answer. After finished the learning, we also encouraged students to discuss with their classmates to see which way to draw a mind-map is more effective. From these steps, we think the students can have a deeper impression through interaction and independent thinking.

Evaluation:

We provide evaluation both during and after the learning course. During the course we provide formative evaluation. For example, we require students to write a paragraph about what they have learned and the doubts they have during the process after learning the concept and functions of mind-map in our slides. They can send the paragraph to the instructor’s email so that they can get informative feedback. We also provide summative assessment at the end of the course, that is students should draw a mind map by themselves, which serve as the final exam to test whether they could use learning content to apply in real-life situations.

With regard to other topics, the assessment manner is decided by the type of the topics. If the learning objective emphasis on the learning process and students should fully understand each part of the content, formative evaluation is more effective. If the learning objective is to apply the learning content, it’s better to provide summative assessment.

Pitfalls or areas that did not go to plan:

I think the main pitfall of our learning course is the lack of group activities. Since our group adopt the constructivist theory, it will work better if we provide opportunities for students to explore and discover by themselves.

Skills a learner will attain:

1. Skill to draw mind-map by hand
2. Skill to use mind-map for note taking and information organization

References

2. Topic – How We Learn: Key Learning Theories. (2021, May 17). EDCI 337: Interactive and Multimedia Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2021/05/15/2-topic-how-we-learn-key-learning-theories/

4. Topic – Multimedia Design for Learning. (2021, May 30). EDCI 337: Interactive and Multimedia Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2021/05/29/topic-4-multimedia-design-for-learning/

Renard, L. (2017, April 14). The differences between formative and summative assessment – Infographic. BookWidgets Blog. https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2017/04/the-differences-between-formative-and-summative-assessment-infographic