Summary of “Applying Appropriate Pedagogical Strategies to Implement CB Instruction in the Classroom

Video Transcription

In this unit, the learning objectives included analyzing CBE, including iNACOL's five components of CBE, the essential learning questions and the elements of Understanding by Design, analyzing the five principles of constructivist teaching, and the definitions of personalization, individualization, and differentiation, creating a differentiated lesson, including the five principles of instruction, and using technology to enhance the identified standards, competencies, and outcomes, and reflecting on how technology can expand the possibilities of CBE in your classroom.

The first learning objective was analyzing competency-based education. We connected to the five essential questions back to competency-based education. We were able to look at CBE through the lens of the five essential questions to really make sure that we are implementing CBE in an effective way.

We also reflected on our use of technology in the implementation of competency-based education, and we connected CBE to the design principles of Understanding by Design.

Throughout these tutorials, you were encouraged to reflect on your current use of competency-based education's principles in your own classroom. You learned tips and techniques that you could implement with your students right away, and you were able to use those five essential questions to reflect on that process.

The next learning objective in the unit was analyzing the use of constructivist teaching principles. We began these tutorials with just the fundamentals of constructivism. We learned that constructivist teaching is based on the idea that students construct their own understanding of new concepts and ideas based on their previous learning and their previous experiences. So as teachers, we need to help students with that construction of their new knowledge.

We had come out of the previous learning objective with a great understanding of the principles of competency-based education. And so with that foundation in place, we already had a great format for implementing some of these principles of constructivism. Then we talked about personalization, individualization, and differentiation techniques, again, all within the context of competency-based education. And we explored the idea of deeper learning, how to provide opportunities for students to really get a deeper understanding of the material that we're presenting to them.

So now, with our understanding of the basics of competency-based education and these techniques for personalization, individualization, and differentiation, we were ready for the third learning objective in this unit, creating a differentiated lesson.

In these tutorials, you saw Understanding by Design in action. I showed you a sample unit and pointed out the various elements of this unit. We emphasized the connections between Understanding by Design and competency-based education, and we also talked about the use of technology in this process.

Then you were encouraged to undertake this design process yourself in choosing an upcoming topic that you were going to cover with your students, and use the three stages of UbD to design this competency-based unit or lesson.

So after the design of this lesson or unit that had used the principles of CBE and the stages of Understanding by Design, you were encouraged to reflect not only on your implementation of technology using the ISTE standards and Pappas's Taxonomy for reflection, but also just on your general use of Understanding by Design as your instructional design framework.

I hope you found this to be a really valuable experience, because as great as it is to learn about the theories, it creates a whole other level of meaning when you are able to implement these ideas into your own classroom immediately.

To recap, the learning objectives in this unit included analyzing CBE, analyzing the five principles of constructivist teaching and the ideas of personalization, individualization, and differentiation, creating your own differentiated lesson or unit, and then reflecting on your use of technology to support competency-based instruction in your own classroom.

So here's a final chance in this unit for you to stop and reflect. Remember, you can always refer back to those five essential learning questions to guide your reflection process.

To dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, be sure to check out the Additional Resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted toward helping you discover more ways to apply this course material.

Thanks for joining me for this unit. Have a great day.