Our group interactive learning resource is designed to encourage and promote various teaching methods to future French teachers. The method with which we are working is experiential learning. Queen’s University (2022) has stated that experiential education is a philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection on increasing knowledge, developing skills, clarifying values, and developing people’s capacity to contribute to their communities.
The Association for Experiential Education has established that through the experiential learning process, learners are actively engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning (Queen’s University, pg. 1, 2022). During our webinar, we will also make sure that closed captioning is on for attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as for those who have cognitive, learning, or other disabilities. We want to ensure that the needs of everyone attending the webinar will be met to the best of our abilities.
Our goal for our interactive learning resource is to guide future teachers to learn and develop different teaching methods that can benefit the classroom environment. We’ve structured our webinar to be easily accessible as it would be held over Zoom during the evening, therefore, allowing the opportunity for those who are working through the day to participate during the evening. It would also be recorded so those unable to make it would have the chance to experience the webinar on their own time. We have also designed our learning resource to be interactive and engaging as we’re incorporating a series of experiential learning in the webinar. We plan to share teaching methods that have been proven successful in classrooms, especially the incorporation of music. We want to make sure that everyone that attends the webinar feels as though they are in a safe and comfortable space where they can be open to participating in learning French through singing. The singing activity would be adjusted to suit everyone’s needs. When the time comes, we encourage our audience to turn on their cameras to participate in the singing portion. We would also add that everyone would have their microphones off to avoid overlapping voices while the song is playing. That way, the audience can feel a sense of comfort and control singing at their own pace. Learning works differently for everyone; we have provided other methods of teaching, such as doing a short lecture, reading, group discussions, testing their knowledge through Kahoot, and of course, through music incorporation.
References:
University, Q. (2022). What is experiential learning? Experiential Learning Hub. Retrieved October 22, 2022, from https://www.queensu.ca/experientiallearninghub/about/what-experiential-learning
A lot of exciting ideas on how you would incorporate the Universal Design principles into your interactive learning resource. I wonder what specific principles/checkpoints you are thinking about as per CAST? Another idea that came to mind is about the singing activity with cameras on but sound off. It may look and feel really awkward – seeing people opening their month in silence or when singing alone—the same feeling with both cameras on and sound on. Once, I had such an experience; it was not pleasant, to say the least :). ZOOM may not be the best medium for that. Focusing on instructional strategies to teach French through songs rather than singing may help.
Those are some really good points! It’s something I will take into consideration as to how I can better go forward to incorporate instructional strategies to teach French.