Erica Preston - ID Strategies

Constructive learning supports reaching the objectives by providing information by an expert (instructor, PPT presentations), while encouraging the learner to build upon their existing knowledge of how the body uses food as fuel. The learner can pull from real life scenarios to practice the learned material.

o What type of questioning methods are you using and why are those appropriate for this content and audience? Open-ended questions regarding the learners’ existing knowledge, experiences, and opinions about healthy food choices will be asked prior to the start of each section. Follow-up questions (or polls) will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson after the content has been presented.

o Why did you organize the content this way? As adult learners, prior experiences have been established – especially when it comes to food, eating, cooking, grocery shopping, monitoring cholesterol, and so on. The ability to understand where the learner is coming from will aid in how the content is delivered, where to spend more time and emphasis, what is important to the learner, etc.

o What is the purpose of the collaborative aspects of your lesson? Learner-learner collaboration and learner-facilitator collaboration will be beneficial in information-sharing. One learner may share an interesting tip on eating healthy that supports the lesson, in which all can learn from. There is such a great potential for learning through collaboration, especially in synchronous distance education.

o Did you use any role-play or break-out groups and why did you use those for that particular topic? (Time permitting) I will use a break-out session and ask learners to “create a quick and healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner menu,” in which two or more learners will work together (one group will tackle breakfast, one will tackle lunch, and one will tackle dinner). Each group member can pull from their experiences with food, in addition with the material covered in this lesson, to come up with unique ingredients and meals to share with the other groups.

o What type of assessment strategies did you implement and why? Poll questions will assess retention of new material; Break-out sessions will assess real-life comprehension of the material; discussions will uncover any discrepancies in learning and will allow for clarification to be provided.

o Did you use any real-world scenarios or problem-based learning and what was the purpose of those strategies relative to the content and audience? Everyone must eat to survive, and [should be] trying to make healthy eating choices in their daily lives. The “create a quick and healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner menu” break-out session encourages learners to think about the content they have just learned, and use what they already know about food (what tastes good, etc.) to create a healthy meal they can try out.