Month: January 2022

Hi everyone,

Curriculum

Last semester I created a piece of curriculum for an entry-level course within colleges or universities. My psychology course was primarily written for those aged between 18 and 60 years of age.

Presentation

The curriculum was primarily taught through the use of PowerPoint presentations where I used a voice-over to comment on the important sections of each slide. There were no significant educational pre-requisites to take the course beyond having a grade 12 diploma besides having basic artistic knowledge.

Subject

The specific subject area of this piece of curriculum focused on human psychology. My psychology course was designed to be taught in-person but on account of the current COVID-19 Pandemic, I allowed for the course to be taught in a blended or full online method since each unit was presented using PowerPoint slides.

Expectations

It was expected that between 15 and 30 students would attend my course in human psychology. The primary learning challenges presented to me revolved around whether some of my students lacked creative ability. It would be my interest to possibly re-shape the course to include poetic or written means of expression rather than singularly depending on drawing or art as an expression of learning.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

CAST. (2018). The UDL guidelines (version 2.2). http://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Hello everyone,

Since I lack administrator access to WordPress I am unable to add alternative text for each image I choose to use for my articles. If I so desired to add videos to my articles, I would ensure that each video contains an option for captions. In addition, I believe that I am able to manage the perceivability of my website since each of my articles clearly contrasts between the black text and the white background. It is also obvious that none of my articles require a CAPTCHA. As a consequence, I believe that TRU’s use of WordPress and my use of WordPress as a publishing platform offers significant advantages in terms of high perceivability (Hyatt, 2012).

WordPress also allows readers to navigate webpages through keyboard-only navigation. It is also possible to publish articles which contain custom links rather than depending on an out-of-context hyperlink. I can do a more proficient job of providing headings throughout my articles as a means of increasing site operability (Cullipher, 2017; Hyatt, 2012). For example…

Is my website understandable?

My site’s language identified in the code assists text-to-speech software with correct pronunciation and I do my best to ensure that all complex definitions and acronyms are well-explained. I do my best to include images which assist with reader comprehension. However, I have failed to include summaries for lengthy articles and posts thus far. As a consequence, I can certainly do a better job of ensuring that I include article summaries (Hyatt, 2012).

Is my website robust?

Across all platforms my website performs well. The only issue that I identified is that because my blog through TRU is hosted as only viewable through those enrolled in this course, people outside of the course cannot access my blog from their computers or their cellphones. This is not an issue of robustness but is instead an issue of security and privacy preference (Hyatt, 2012).

In the end, I believe that the most effective changes I can make to my future blog posts will involve including more photographs throughout my writing so as to spurn creative connections. It would also be in my interest to continue using headings, videos, and alternative text for photographs to as to ensure that viewers using text-to-speech software are able to better connect to the course content (Cullipher, 2017). Overall, I feel that TRU’s use of WordPress as a publishing platform is an effective one.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Cullipher, V. (2017, June 7). Accessibility checklist. Digital Accessibility Digest. https://www.microassist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Microassist-Accessibility-Checklist-ACC.pdf

Hyatt, G. W. (2012, January 3). The POUR principles: The starting point for creating accessible blogs. Blog Accessibility. http://blogaccessibility.com/the-pour-principles-the-starting-point-for-creating-accessible-blogs/

Hi everyone,

As I am not presently teaching a course, I am completing this portion of the activity in future preparation for teaching 🙂

Since I am primarily interested in teaching or writing psychological curriculum/course design my first piece of curriculum which I wrote last semester focused on the topic of the psychology of love. This piece of curriculum also focused on the implementation of active imagination within the completion of artistic pieces. My psychology curriculum was created for college students.

For my first piece of psychological curriculum, I would be interested in implementing student self-assessments focusing on their own reflections of love through the use of emotionally evoking video.

Psychology Learning Objective: Through the completion of your self-assessment, identify the elements of intimacy, passion, and commitment which you can acknowledge in your own life this week.

My first video which I would like to include is this short video emphasizing some of the various visual aspects of intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Psychology of Love from Miguel Garcia Studios on Vimeo.

This video matched the topic of the psychology of love as it displayed intimacy, passion, and commitment between two people. This short audio/visual resource would allow me to spurn emotions within my students and hopefully create moments of self-reflection for my students as they assess how they have encountered such an experience of love in their own lives. I would be able to use this resource as is as it is not intended to be my main teaching resource but is instead a short video intended to supplement learning activity.

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The second piece of curriculum I worked on also focused on the teaching of spiritual topics involving eastern religions and Christianity. This piece was also written for students within colleges.

For my second piece of curriculum which focused on spirituality, I would be interested in ensuring that my students are able to understand and practice self-reflection through the inclusion of supplementary videos.

Religious Studies Learning Objective: At the end of Unit 1 you should be able to reflect and identify some aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity which mean the most to you.

Since I am primarily interested in adding audio/visual materials, here is a video on Buddhist perceptions of love which would be good to implement:

HOB What is Buddhism? – Boundless Love from Longchen Foundation on Vimeo.

Here is a video on Hindu perceptions of “God” which would also be good to implement:

Concept of God in Hinduism from HinduStudents on Vimeo.

Here is a video on Christian perceptions of “God” which would be good to include:

The Gospel from BibleProject on Vimeo.

These three videos match college level difficulty and I view them all as high quality resources since they clearly display various amounts of verbal narration and important images of authority. I would like to use these resources as they are since they are short, to the point, and provide varying degrees of information which should effectively challenge the thinking and feeling of my students.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Garcia, M. [Miguel Garcia Studios]. (2017). Psychology of Love [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/213246380

Himalayan Academy. [Hindu Students]. (2011). Concept of God in Hinduism [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/18852858

Mackie, T., and Collins, J. [Bible Project]. (2020). The Gospel [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/372510201

Shikpo, R. [Longchen Foundation]. (2018). HOB What is Buddhism? – Boundless Love [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/254723006

Hi everyone,

In short, I believe that there will be a greater need for open education resources within my own teaching as I have personally experienced the great costs incurred from purchasing textbooks throughout my undergraduate career (Moist, 2017).

What I would be primarily interested in adapting would be a psychology textbook which focuses on the fundamentals of depth psychology. Since I have many of my own psychological interests, I would be interested in adapting a piece of psychological curriculum which is associated towards my own interests in Jungian psychology (Moist, 2017).

While I have been exposed to many different open education textbooks which covered the fundaments of psychology, I would be interested in further adapting them towards a depth psychology leaning. The fact that open educational resources can also be updated all the time is a tremendous advantage for an educator since the content never has the opportunity to go out of date (Blink Tower, 2012).

As a consequence, I would like to contribute to open education resources through the creation of my own audio/visual presentations which discuss theoretical concepts of psychology rather than having to depend on exclusively ‘word-based’ documents and resources. I am growing towards a greater appreciation of audio/visual learning resources and this appreciation has spurned a new creative interest in me towards the creation of learning resources which are interesting and relevant to both my own and my students interests.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Blink Tower. (2012). Why open education matters [Video file]. Vimeo. https://barabus.tru.ca/eddl5131/whyeducationmatters.html

Moist, S. (2017). Faculty OER toolkit. BCcampus. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/facultyoertoolkit/

Hi everyone,

Creating opportunities for educators to share the personal experiences of their Indigenous students will assist them in gaining tremendous cultural perspective. It is in noting our differences which allows us to better elucidate where we require a greater emphasis of understanding and perspective taking for cultures which differ from our own (Antoine et al, 2018, Diverse Sources of Indigenous Knowledge, para. 4).

The inclusion of indigenous ways of knowing and cultures within a classroom setting needs to avoid cultural appropriation through the building of connections to Indigenous communities and elders. Adhering to the honor systems of Indigenous cultures is of utmost importance throughout this process (Appropriate Use of Indigenous Knowledge, para. 7). It is my belief that the more that a piece of curriculum contains Indigenous ways of knowing such as the concept of “all my relations”, the more that Indigenous students will feel connected to their course content since it will begin to share the cultural capital of their own home communities.

My course design will also be best served through the introduction of First Nations concepts and languages. For example, Antoine et al (2018) states that curriculum developers should implement the conceptual themes of Indigenous languages into curriculum. (Incorporating Local Land, Knowledge, and Language, para. 5). One of the most profound calls to actions on the part of Thompson Rivers University is for all Canadian universities to create college and university programs in Aboriginal languages (Thompson Rivers University, 2012, p. 12). Consequently, the incorporation of Indigenous content requires inviting Indigenous leaders, elders, and writers into the creation process where new forms of Indigenous Curriculum are made.

Without listening to the knowledge holders of Indigenous culture, the integrity and honor of their ways of knowing will be lost and dishonored. It is in the process of honoring and sharing one another’s knowledge where old biases are lost and new relationships are born. It is this process of viewing all people groups as my relations which allows me to better listen and respect my own culture as well as those who are different from me.

The creation of a piece of Indigenous curriculum therefore requires that I source Indigenous knowledge from the narratives, stories, and oral histories of Cree people groups that I belong to in Northern Alberta rather than seeking to create my own curriculum without honoring where those stories and pieces of knowledge came from.

Best,

Carson 😊

References

Antoine, Mason, Mason, Palahicky, and Rodriguez de France (2018). Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers. https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationcurriculumdevelopers/

Thompson Rivers University (2012). Response to the Recommendation to Universities by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. https://www.tru.ca/__shared/assets/TRU_TRC_Response_201543978.pdf