Kyle+Final+Reflection

Kyle Final Reflection

December 13, 2015

RE: Final Reflection on the class of EDCI 786 Mobil Learning

Dear Dr. McGregor:

I am writing to inform you my learning progress on the course of mobile learning: I would like to share with you not only what I learned from this wonderful course instructed by you, but also some of the reflections I have in mind after actively engaging the materials, activities, and group discussions provided in this course.

First of all, I found it a very fruitful and pleasant experience participating in this class focused on mobile learning. I’ve learned how to use various across-all-platform (i.e., computer, tablet, mobile device, online tools, etc.) software and application programs to assist my teaching/training as well as professional business. The primary area of specialization of my graduate study in Curriculum and Instruction is also focusing on how to integrate ever-evolving technology into professional teaching or training environment in order to make curriculum development and instruction more effective, efficient, and productive. My teaching/training strategy varies depending on the subject and content of the instruction. Although my teaching/training strategy might be flexible, I am proud of as a result of doing my products as my goal is always to create an engaging and interesting learning environment featuring task-based and cooperative approaches.

I found students learn most not only when they engage the tasks with passion and interests, but also when they work together in team and communicate with each other to share their thoughts and help each other in order to complete the task. Therefore, I am most excited about using technology in teaching, because I believe using technology could help achieve that goal. Hence, from now on, whenever I use technology for educational purpose, I will definitely remind myself to design curriculum featuring tasks and activities that learners could actively hands-on and involve in the task or project. I consider myself lucky to be able to teach in the twenty-first century, for both instructors and learners could use various technology, software, applications, and mobile devices to explore the new opportunities of teaching and learning. However, within the context of using technology for instructional purpose, my concern is that how to integrate technology into teaching and make it work for instruction so as to enable learning in a more effective and efficient manner.

In general instruction setting, I set priority on the strategies of developing learner’s Higher Order Thinking Skill (HOTS), i.e., applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. To achieve that goal, I always design a curriculum utilizing selected software programs or applications which could effectively stimulate learners’ skills in communication, collaboration, critical-thinking, and creation. On the other hand, if the given instruction environment is more traditional lecture-style, I would then design a curriculum integrating as many interactive elements (e.g., visual, aural, hands-on task, etc.) as possible, using the knowledge I acquired in your class so as to accommodate different learning styles and all aspects of Multi-Intelligence (MI, i.e., linguistic, logical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, visual/spatial, naturalistic, and kinesthetic aspects) that learners might possess.

To sum up, I really enjoy my experience of learning in this wonderful course of Mobile Learning. I found myself so immersed in the rewarding experience of using various software and application programs for creative production so as to build up interesting and interactive task projects that I am definitely willing to learn more about the knowledge of integrating ever-evolving technology and applications into education, and I am sure I will have new findings each time, thus the opportunities to make a difference each time.

Sincerely,

Cong-Kai (Kyle) Jin