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Big Design/Redesign Project EDET 709 Spring 2012 Michelle New

Client: This is intended for 4th grade math teachers to use during or entirely for their unit on geometry.

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Learning Objectives: This is a major unit from a 4th grade math classroom. The objectives in this geometry unit are for the students to learn and understand shapes, polygons, and 3 dimensional objects. They need to know how to not only identify each figure by its characteristics but also be able to name them. This unit is taking the students one step further from what they learned in 3rd grade, which was just basic characteristics and names of shapes.

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Goals: The goals of this presentation are for the students to understand geometric

shapes as well as polygons and 3D figures. They not only should be able to name them when given characteristics, they should also be able to give the characteristics when a shape is presented to them. Learner Problems: Sometimes students have difficulty remembering the names of certain polygons as well as forgetting how to name 3D figures. Timeline: This unit could be taught in a variety of different timelines. It really is up to each teacher and what their preference is. Learning Process: Present students with graphics of each shape. Discuss characteristics and names of each shape. Practice naming shapes Present students with graphics for each type of polygon. Discuss characteristics and names of a select amount o polygons. Practice naming and drawing polygons. Present students with graphics of 3D figures. Discuss process to naming 3D figures. Practice drawing and naming 3D figures.

For this big design project, when choosing a presentation to edit, I made sure to look for one that could use several changes and one that would be fairly simple to change. The most obvious change that needed to be made was the background color and the color combination throughout the presentation. Dark backgrounds are always hard to read on and make it very hard for those with visual disabilities to read. I changed the color scheme to a light background with darker colors. These are easier to see as well as read clearly. These changes were apart of the graphic design change made to the presentation. While most of the presentation, dull in design, was cohesive, I did make sure that in my redesign that there was fluency throughout. All title slides are the same size and font type as well as the body text being the same size and font type. Alignment is something that most people dont

think about, including myself. By after reading about it in one of our articles, I decided it was important. I used the principle of alignment when I added the images of the polygons slides. There were several images on each slide and I wanted them to not look crowded or cluttered. I used the pattern that was suggested in the handout. The design of the original presentation was very sloppy and scattered. I wanted it to be very neat and organized and simple to follow. The original had slides that had way to much information as well as disorganized information that was hard to follow. To accomplish the less is more or keeping it simple feel, I broke several slides up into multiple slides with much less information on each. The Goldilocks Principle states that content should be presented in a way that is not too difficult for the student to understand and that it should be presented just right. Too much information at once can really overwhelm students and confuse them. I did away with having text in several different places on the slide. I kept all text aligned the same way and all together in one spot. One thing I also noticed in the original was that key words or phrases were not underlined or bolded. I underlined or bolded several key words or key parts to a definition. I used them to emphasize the importance of what was being said. Despite there being too much information on the slides in the original, the information was not very well written. I felt that the information needed to be presented and explained in a much clearer and straight forward way. This idea cones from one of the 25 Principles to Guide Pedagogy and the Design of Learning, explanation effects. This principle states that the teacher should deliver the material with good explanation and with a way that allows the student to self-explain. I added more detail and concise details while shortening the amount of text on each slide. The information is now presented in a straight forward, simple way. I also added in a slide at the end of each topic that allowed the student to explain in his/her own words what they think each topic means. This allows for the self-explanatory part of the principle. Another issue I found was that it was hard to distinguish between the topics and there was no real connection between the slides

that were for the same topic. In the redesign, I made sure that each topic was separated in a way that was recognizable by making each topic a different color. The font type and size did not change, however, just the color. The color specific to that topic was seen throughout all slides that were meant to be included in that topic. This strategy and design comes from the segmentation principle that states that the information should be presented in discrete units. This also helps in the effort to not overwhelm the learner. These ideas of keeping things simple and having less information on a slide and making sure that the information is organized all are a part of the manageable cognitive load principle. This principle means exactly what it implies: when presenting material to students, it should be free of clutter with text information and should have a good graphic design. As you can see, these same principles and implications keep coming up: keep things simple, less information on a page, good graphic design, not cluttered, etc. This just shows how important those are in making sure that the presentation is created in a way that will be most effective for the learner. While the original presentation did have several graphics, I wanted to add better or different graphics. Several graphics in the original did not relate and I deleted those and added pictures to each slide that related to the content on the page. These graphics help the learners who learn best by seeing. With this unit, I felt that there needed to be several pictures or graphics of the geometric figures that were being discussed. Just simply describing their qualities was not sufficient. Adding graphics thatillustrate stages of a process are part of the process step of Instructional Methods & Media. The question and answer section as well as the matching section apply to this step. The additions made to the original presentation on the graphics as well as the descriptions for each image fall under the worked out examples principle. The original presentation had some worked out examples but not nearly enough for the topic. Geometry is a topic that needs several examples and graphics and that is what I did in the redesign.

Other learners learn best by doing rather than seeing. This includes things such as the students doing problems rather than seeing them be done or doing hands on activities that deal with the content or even virtual activities. These types of activities allow the students to interact with what they are learning. The original presentation did have some pieces that relate to this principle but I felt that there needed to be more. I added a collection of links after ever topic to interactive games or activities on that specific topic. I also added more resources at the end for other activities that can be done with geometry. A new technology that has made its way into the classroom is the iPad. There are several applications that can be used for education and I found a great geometry app that would go along with this lesson. I included a link to it at the end of the slide show. Drill and practice is a very important aspect that needs to be included in each lesson. While there was some already included in the original and were efficient, I decided to use the interactive activities as added drill and practice for the students. The use of the ipad app could also be a great way to drill and practice.These activities added also allow for discovery learning. They can be used before, during or even after the lesson has been presented. These interactive activities allow the students to discovery on their own; they are having to guess and check and problem solve and use critical thinking skills when completing these activities. Not only do they allow for discovery learning, they also allow for self-regulated learning. These activities could be used before any information is presented to not only find out prior knowledge, but to also allow the students to learn on their own terms and to regulate their learning. The activities included and added in the presentation could be used to find out students prior knowledge on the subject, but for a more direct approach at finding out prior knowledge, I inserted a slide that has the students list anything and everything they know about geometry. This not only gets the students thinking about the subject, it also gives the teacher and idea of where he/she needs to go with the lesson. The opposite of prior knowledge is reflection on what you learned. Opportunities for reflection were not seen in the original presentation and I think it is an important

part to include in each lesson, especially with struggling students or younger students. Reflection gives the teacher an idea if the content is really making sense to them and they are understanding it correctly or if they are still completely lost or even if they are misinterpreting the information. I included reflection after each topic to make sure that there was no confusion before a new topic began. If you catch the misconceptions and problems early, it is easier to fix them.