PROMPT: How can you adjust your planned learning activities to meet the needs of your learners if an unexpected event occurs? (for example, a pandemic arises and many of your employees must now work from home – how will you ensure that they can still do their jobs? What training will they need, and how will you deliver it, knowing they must remain at home?) This is a common discussion thread right now as many schools and universities have made the switch to teaching online.

In the case of unexpected events occurring, such as a pandemic, education and work needs to be accessible for all. This is one of the reasons why my group has made our entire planned interactive learning resources and activities to be online with direct instruction. This would mean that we would each have to have access to good internet, a device of some sort, and ability to work online, answer emails, etc. This means that we provide videos, readings, lectures and assignments for the learner to complete with written instructions. However, we also understand that not everyone thrives with online learning, especially when it is self-paced. One possible suggestion for this could be for us to run class similar to how EDCI 335 is run, where we have one-two days a week of optional class which basically act as office hours, in case students have questions. Another solution for online learning could be to offer 3 different options of each assignment. For example, option 1 could be to watch a video and do a quiz on the video, option 2 could be to read an article and write a 500-800 word essay summarizing and simplifying its contents to demonstrate understanding, or option 3 could be to read the instructors’ posts and respond to a given blog prompt using the information retained from that section/topic.

I believe this method of giving options to learners is ideal because everyone learns differently. By giving options, such as hands-on learning, thinking on one’s own life and answering blog prompts, test-taking, or academic writing, we can help ensure the success of ALL of our learners. Learning is very difficult and I believe that as instructors we must think of ways to ensure learning is both accessible and helpful to all our students who have different needs and require different things when it comes to learning.