· Blog Post 3: Describe where simulations or games might be appropriate to use to enhance learning in your lesson.
Simulations would work very well to enhance the learning within this lesson. Adjusting the practice questions so that they are simulations rather than just questions, answers, and feedback would help the students transfer their knowledge into work applicable situations. The lesson is currently set up so that after each segmented lesson students would have an opportunity to test their knowledge by answering specific questions about what they just learned. Changing the questions to simulations or including simulations after the questions would promote student engagement and require the learners to combine all of their skills to complete the work-specific task at hand. An example of this would be creating a simulated classroom full of different types of learners. The role of the teacher would be played by the person completing the simulation. The goal of the simulation would be to identify as many different student self-regulation difficulties as possible. The next level would require the teacher to choose the most effective and appropriate tool to help the student regulate their own learning. Finally, the last step may ask the participant to assess the effectiveness of their efforts in the previous level and to adjust their tactics according to the student responses. The types of students used for the simulation could be based on data collected by occupational therapists in their area. Therefore, participants would have to identify their general location before beginning the simulation.
Even though the benefits of using educational games to teach and practice skills are quite popular and can be effective, I would not choose to use a game in this lesson. Since the topic of learning modifications can be a sensitive one and should be treated with complete professionalism, a simulation would provide the necessary practice and critical thinking skills without running the risk of having the lesson’s tone be misconstrued.
