Hello Sandra, Xinyi and Huatian!
I’ll be reviewing your Interactive Learning Resource on Leadership Skills – Communication. Thank you for providing a great resource! You have chosen a great topic as this is a very important skill to learn and practice in professional as well as personal life too. I’ll be reviewing each section from your learning resource so it’s easy to follow for you guys!
Overview of the Resource
I believe this section accurately defines what your topic means and how the resource is broken down. I really like how you have highlighted that the central key to Leadership is Communication and it’s a very difficult skill to attain. You have also cited some important resources which is a great addition to the introduction of the resource. I found a small spelling mistake in the second paragraph of this section where it says “that we designes is a web-based module” instead of “that we designed is a web-based module”. One other thing I noticed is the inconsistency in the spacing of lines of the first paragraph and second paragraph as they are text-heavy and seem congested.
Learning Theory
I agree with you guys on making the resource based on Cognitivism which is a great way for this topic to be presented and learned by its target audience. Citing resources here is also very convincing way for the choosing Cognitivism.
Learning Design
Your choice of learning design is also very interesting and convincing based on your explanation. Cooperative learning can be a very useful tool when used in the right circumstances for the right topics. I am thrilled to see that you have given 70% weightage of the assessment to formative assessment which is a good way to assess this specific topic.
Learning Context
I believe this section should outline the target audience and description of the mapping of this resources with its audience. However here you have outlined the objectives and some essential questions about the topic which makes sense but might not be fit in this section.
Learning Outcomes
I like the structure of your learning outcomes where you have a main learning outcome and sub learning outcomes. It’d be great if you had one more “main” learning outcome and its sub outcomes to provide more details to your learners. The activities you have connected with each sub-learning outcome are great, especially the one with “Differences between a manager and leader”. You could also add more learning strategies and outcomes matching with the topic “Communication” as well. It’d also be great if there were assessment plans in each of the sub-learning outcome activities. Another suggestion would be to add an overall activity for the “main” learning outcome as it’s a crucial learning outcome of the resource.
Topic and Activity
This section I believe describes the “Modules” in your resource. The modules make sense and their placement makes sense to me about how a learner should learn them in order. I would recommend adding a learning outcome to each of the modules. This would make it more clear for both the instructor and learner what outcomes they learn from each. Furthermore, an assessment plan for each of the modules would be great. That would make it more clear how the learners are assessed and what skills and competencies they are focusing on.
Side note: I’m a bit confused about the activities in the “Learning Outcomes” section and the activities in this section. I think you should remove those activities from the Learning Outcomes section and add it to this section in the appropriate Modules and then also map it to its learning outcome. That would make it much more clear for the learner to understand.
Assessment Plan
I really like how you have mentioned in one of the above sections that 70% of your assessement would be Formative. I think you could probably add more information about that here and mention the 70% number as well for better representation of where the assessing criteria lies. More information on the summative assessments and a short rationale of why a small part of assessment plan is summative could be very useful for the instructor to understand the material. I believe a similar rationale for why you guys think Formative Assessment helps the teacher and students as well.
Side Note 2: I believe there is a connection of your activities in formative assessments in this section with the above sections of Topic and Activity which you could connect to and mention so you have a strong link which might be easier to follow a bit.
Plan for Inclusion
This section is very clearly explained and structured so that the instructor and learners understand how the resource is going to cope up with inclusion. Your choice of contexts is great and complements your topic as well. The plan for single parents is very elaborate and seems right to me as flexibility is very important. One concern I had with it would be the way English Language Learners (ELL) are going to make up for the course. Google Translate does seem like a good option, but at times their translations lose some of the core principles of the meaning behind a sentence due to differences in various languages. You also mentioned that resources would be following a Cooperative Learning approach which involves activities in groups, and so I was wondering if there might be a plan on how ELL learners communicate with the rest of the group? Adding a plan on that might be a great help for instructors!
Technology
Outlined software’s are really great for this resource. Addition of more software where people can share their thoughts and experiences could also be a very helpful tool for everyone to participate and learn.
Finally
Overall, I enjoyed reading the resource and the references outlined. This is definitely a great resource for anyone looking to learn more and hone their skills in Leadership – Communication, especially those who want to start a new business or get into a new position leading or managing other people. For me personally, this resource would help a lot and I would definitely do the course if had the opportunity to grow my skills as a leader and communicate more effectively with others. Keep up the awesome work!
Attributions
Cover photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
