Overview
In Educational Psychology 480: Learning with Technology, you will examine how technology can be used in grade school and post-secondary instruction. Specifically, you will learn about how students can use technology to engage in meaningful learning. The main goal of the course is for you to develop your understanding of educational technology through the completion of a course project. This project will be based on an authentic educational context and learning problem of your choice. You will aim to solve this learning problem by designing three lessons that make appropriate use of technologies for learning. You will also be required to report on one of these lesson designs.
This course is most suitable for students in a baccalaureate program in Education (B.Ed.). However, psychology students who have completed coursework in educational psychology may also benefit from this course.
Outline
EDPY 480 comprises the following five units:
- Unit 1: Meaningful Learning, Authentic Learning, and Transfer
- Unit 2: Learning in Different Subject Areas
- Unit 3: Learning with Technology
- Unit 4: Lesson Development
- Unit 5: Lesson Design Rationale
Objectives
There are six overall learning objectives for this course:
- Develop an understanding of meaningful learning, authentic learning, and transfer.
- Define a learning problem that you wish to address in your project.
- Discuss how modern technologies influence learning and instruction.
- Explore some technologies that can be used in instruction, especially those that students can use to learn with.
- Develop rationales for instructional designs and selection of appropriate technologies.
- Design lessons to address a learning problem of your choice using different technologies.
These objectives may appear in more than one unit. Each course objective is broken down into more specific sub-objectives, which clarify the larger objective.
Evaluation
To receive creditfor EDPY 480, you must complete all of the assignments and achieve an overall grade of D (50 percent). The weighting of the assignments is as follows:
| Activity | Weight |
| Assignment 1: Discussion Forum Post: Reflection & Summary | 5% |
| Assignment 2: Concept Map & Learning Problem | 5% |
| Assignment 3: Project Proposal | 5% |
| Assignment 4: Lesson 1 [Project] | 20% |
| Assignment 5: Lesson 2 [Project] | 20% |
| Assignment 6: Lesson 3 [Project] | 20% |
| Assignment 7: Lesson 4 [Project] | 25% |
| Total | 100% |
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Mayer, R. E. (2011). Applying the Science of Learning. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon (Pearson).
Other Resources
Most of the learning resources, including readings, audio recordings, video recordings, and project resources are provided online