What Had I Found Difficult to Understand?
I found it difficult to understand how to make sure short-term goals be aligned with long-term goals in terms of the framework of understanding by design (UBD). The framework is aimed at achieving specific long-term goals at the end of learning experiences. Just like what was taught in the video that assuming our goal was to let children love reading; however, this goal cannot be achieved by asking children to do so. I tried to learn the concept through thinking about some real-life examples that I experienced. The concept reminds me that in the first class of each course, most professors would like to discuss why you have to take this course or share a big goal about the course.
As a psychology student, I can choose from a wide range of study topics such as mental health, social psychology, and neuropsychology. At the undergraduate level, the long-term goal of each course in different topics could be something like getting to know what social psychology is, and I would consider each class in this course as a short-term plan which helps to achieve the long-term goal of this course. It might be hard to find a relationship between learning objectives for each unit and the long-term goal of the course but considering these objectives for each unit as a whole paves the way to achieve the big goal of the course.
My Best Learning Experience
Also, I want to share a story about my best learning experience. For me, the majority of courses are boring and rule-based; however, I happened to take one elective course with a professor who teaches Chinese in the university. I enjoyed the course because his class was heavily peer-based, and students had an opportunity to teach each other in a study group or discuss the same topic.
He believed that a way to measure whether students gain something from a class is to see the productivity of students in the class rather than how much professors produce in a class. If I was able to teach others, I was confident that I grasped the content of the class, which met the aim of understanding by design.
I appreciate your sharing of your best learning experience. It sounds like the Chinese course you took had a peer-based approach, which allowed students to teach each other and engage in discussions. This aligns with the aim of understanding by design, as your ability to teach others demonstrates your understanding of the class content.
As you said, most of the courses are boring and rule-based. In fact, many instructors design to increase students’ motivation. They let you discuss why you have to take this course, because they may want you to have a learning target that can activate your motivation for learning. Furthermore, you mention “If I was able to teach others, I was confident that I grasped the content of the class”, which also belongs to a model for maintaining learner’s motivation. This model has four categories, including attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. The professor uses his methods to make you more motivated to learn so that you can have the confidence to teach others.