In module 4, we explored the principles of learning design and active learning through creating a lesson plan and an interactive learning activity. In this blog post I will discuss my experience creating these materials, as well as the principles I mindfully incorporated throughout.

Creating a lesson plan

To guide the creation of my lesson plan (imaged below), I applied instructional design by incorporating constructive alignment and backwards design. First, I ensured that my assessments and activities aligned with my learning objective by recognizing a clear and consistent theme, namely labeling and operationalizing brain lobes. Second, I carried the theme by working backwards from the big takeaway to the learning activities.

Another consideration I kept at the forefront of my lesson planning was Merrill’s Principles of Instruction I did this by engaging students’ learning with real-world problems, specifically by offering scenarios that would demand the use of one or more brain lobes.

Creating an interactive learning activity with H5P

I toyed around with active learning by creating my own interactive learning activity using the WordPress plug-in, H5P. I had a lot of fun with this exercise because it allowed me to bring a learning activity to life. I can imagine that in an actual classroom, this would greatly support and facilitate students’ learning, especially the versions of the plug-in that incorporated words and images, because this works on two different cognitive faculties, referred to as Paivo’s Dual Coding Theory. Based on this assumption, the activity I created uses a picture of the brain and the names of the lobes (displayed below).

Did you enjoy the acitivty? Let me know by leaving a comment below!