Josh Petty

ETT 535
IUP, Step 2
2 November 2014

Learner Interview

*For the learner portion of this interview, I spoke with two different seventh grade students that could
be participating within this unit. Since I interviewed actual middle school students, I will not be including
their names within this assignment. I will include their age and gender.

Interview One

For my first interview, I spoke with a 12 year old girl about my potential lesson. She said that she likes to
do a lot on the internet, such as social media or email with friends. She said that she doesnt do much
online, as it relates to school, outside of school. She likes to use her time at school for that. When asked
about fitness testing, in general, the girl responded that it is one of her least favorite units within the
physical education curriculum. While she found it interesting that she could record the tests herself,
using her own devices, she admitted that she would still not like this unit.

Interview Two

For my second interview, I spoke with an 11 year old boy about my potential lesson. He said that he likes
to be online frequently because he likes to play games with his friends. Like with the girl above, the boy
doesnt like to use the internet at home for homework, unless its absolutely necessary. The boy said
that while hes not a huge fan of the fitness testing unit, he does enjoy competing with his friends to see
who can get the better result. While he would enjoy completing these tests on his own time, hed like to
know how his friends are doing, or how they did, to help motivate him to better their results.

Conclusions

The conclusions I found from these discussions is that students are not very motivated to complete work
online once they arrive home, which keeping in mind that I only spoke with two different students. They
would much rather use their online time to play games or interact socially with classmates and friends.

This backs up my personal feelings that motivation and accountability with students in school is down
and is declining more and more on an annual basis. Its no surprise that students dislike the fitness
testing unit. Im used to hearing groans when announcing that its that time of the year again. I liked
hearing the boy mention that even though he doesnt like the unit, his competitive side kicks in and
pushes him to do his best. I also liked hearing the girl mention that she was interested by the possibility
of completing tests under the new format, even if she still didnt want to perform the tests themselves.

Instructor Interview

For this interview, I interviewed Lindsay Guinand, who is currently the music teacher/band director at
Montmorency. I chose to interview her because she is one of the younger teachers on staff and likes to
incorporate technology into her lessons, where possible. With Montmorency recently becoming a
Google school, she is the go to person within the building, rather than the technology director (who is
retiring at the end of the school year), when it comes to Google questions. Even though she is not a
technology director, or physical education teacher, she is very tech savvy, which is why I thought that
shed be a good person to talk to about this portion of the assignment.
As far as distance education goes, she thinks that the class should be broken down 80/20. 80% of the
class should be completed outside of the class via distance education, but 20% should still be dedicated
to face to face time. This allows students the opportunity to ask questions face to face and also interact
socially with instructors and classmates. Even though questions could be asked via a message board
setting, students will benefit more from personally interacting with the instructor and classmates face to
face. She complete an online course in high school and said that her course did not meet in person once.
She likes being able to put a face and personality to the instructors name, which she said made her
want to work harder in class for that instructor over the duration of the course. The thing she did like
about distance education is that is that it allows for certain accommodations. Students can now work at
their own pace, in their own type of setting, which is beneficial to their overall learning experience.
She thought that the unit that I created was efficient and a good use of time. The directions were clear
and were spelled out well and that students were shown how to use a variety of different forms of
technology. She liked that the created lesson put the task completion on the shoulders of the student.
She said that could go one of two ways. Either the student will thrive under this situation because there
isnt the constant supervision and guidance, or they will completely fail because they are not used to
working in this type of setting. With the class still meeting a couple of times a week, questions can be
asked of the students, data can be analyzed, or the tasks can be made even more complex. For example,
she said that students could record themselves creating a new game or activity in their backyards.
As it related to suggestions, she made wanted me to be sure that I was very explicit about the
expectations about this unit. Also, be sure that the directions accommodate kinesthetic, visual, and
audio learners. If things are done online, or via a smartphone or tablet, make sure to include
screenshots to help accommodate the visual learners. Also, be sure to record and include audio
directions as well so that the audio learners are accommodated as well. That way, students have no
excuse for failure within this lesson.

I really like her suggestion to make sure the different learning styles are addressed. I was planning on
including a video demonstrating push-ups, sit-ups, and plank, which would include both visual and
audio, however I would also go back and include directions and screenshots about what we discussed in
class time. This allows me to cover all of my instructional bases.

Distance Education Settings/Rationale

This unit will be completed using the self-directed format, which means that they will have a set period
of time to complete and submit all activities within this unit. If this unit were performed in the
traditional, in school setting, it would be completed within a two week time period. Students will be
given the same amount of time to complete this unit.

Technology Hardware

Computer
Digital Camera
Handheld Devices (Smartphone, mp3 player)
Video Camera
Microphone

Technology Software

Internet Browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.)

Google Hangouts/Adobe Connect
Email
Stopwatch

Accommodation Options

There may be students within the student population that cannot afford the necessary devices to
complete this unit. In the event that this occurs, students can make arrangement with the instructor to
rent (a) device(s) from the school/instructor, and can record each of the necessary tests. That allows

each of the students to complete each of the tests, while also using a variety of different forms of
technology. In situations like this, all tests will be recorded at school. Rented devices will not be allowed
to leave school property.