Lauryn Davis

The Early Majority: Rodger's Diffusion of Innovation Theory suggests that people are divided into five categories in which they go about understanding new technology within learning design. "The five categories of adopters are innovators, early adopters, early majorities, late majorities, and laggards" (ASU, 2024).   Image of the Bell Curve for Rodger's Diffusion of Innovation Theory (ASU, 2024) Upon reflecting and learning about the different categories of adopters, I consider myself part of the early majority of adopters. Today, I want to share my perspective as a learning designer and how I make decisions that align with where I stand on Rodger's Diffusion of Innovation Theory bell curve. I will then reflect on the possible changes to the curves impacting me as I learn more about learning design and the steps I need to continue learning more as an upcoming learning designer. What is the Early Majority?   First, let's reflect on what it means to be par...

Building an E-Learning Module Being able to build an effective e-learning module has been one of the many goals I have had throughout my learning design and technology graduate program. I recently took one of my last classes in my course sequence LDT 504, where I got the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of Articulate Storyline to build my own e-learning module. Today I want to highlight the good and the difficult tasks that I have found in building an e-learning module, and then I want to highlight some future changes that I can see with e-learning going forward. The Overview: For context, I was assigned a task where I was to select a scenario-based design case to help me with building my e-learning module. I chose to work on the Mia Grace Environmental Foundation. Please review a little about my role below: After virtually meeting with Carol, essentially my goal was to create a learning module to help the parents of students work with their students in order to help their stude...

Digitally mediated learning is the idea that learning can happen using digital tools in order for students to learn. Some examples include the use of online courses, virtual classrooms such as Zoom, or even using various educational apps to help students learn. Digitally mediated learning includes things such as technology, flexibility, interactions, collaboration, and a personalized learning experience catered to the learner. Examples of digitally mediated learning: Virtual classrooms: online learning environments where teachers and students can interact and engage in discussions to promote learning. This is very similar to an in-person classroom experience just done online. Online  courses  are delivered either in a hybrid model or fully online using a platform such as Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle. Simulations:  interactive experiences that allow students to learn about real skills and help problem-solve. For example, students are using virtual reality to mimic ...

Inclusive design is one of the many ways that learning designers can build and create learning experiences for all students. Without accessible and inclusive design practices, students with learning disabilities or even just students who need information presented differently to them so that they can learn best may suffer and may not reach their fullest potential when it comes to how much they will learn. Accessibility is one topic that, based on my experience with learning design before, I knew was important. Still, as someone studying learning design, I felt as though I had no clue how I could implement accessible practices in my design. This semester in my LDT 508 class, I have had the opportunity to be involved in empathy challenges that put me in the shoes of someone with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, color blindness, hearing loss, and upper body dexterity. This semester I have also had the opportunity to learn new ways to implement more accessible practices in my de...

Learning theories are some of the very best ways that learning designers can help students stay engaged. However, depending on the exact learning theory that you decide to use, this can impact the way you go about setting up lessons for students. Today I am reflecting on the different learning theories that I was able to determine by going through each of my design projects and going over the learning theory and what worked well and what didn't for each project. Module 1: Gamification For my first assignment, I got to explore gamification. "Gamification is the incorporation of elements of game design in a classroom setting" (Erikson, 2020). Gamification is a fun way to use games to motivate students by using games, storytelling, freedom to fail and choose, rapid feedback, and progression to keep students engaged.    I incorporated elements of storytelling to take the employees at SparkyWave Solutions on a journey to Camp SparkyWave. Employees selected a learning path a...

During my LDT 502 course, my team and I spent several weeks creating our first course. My team and I worked together to be able to design a course that helped school faculty learn how to use DaVinci Resolve 18 so that the faculty could increase their online presence with their students.  The design process took several weeks to fully complete, and we definitely experienced our fair share of roadblocks. However, I am ultimately happy with the end result of the course. Today I want to reflect on my experience designing the course and discuss the good and bad aspects of the project. The Challenge:   University School faculty were having trouble getting their online students to stay engaged and really grasp the course concepts in their classes online. The challenge was that we needed to train the school staff to use a program called DaVinci Resolve, which would help them be able to post videos into their Canvas courses so that they could increase their online presence and make ...

Reflecting on my time in LDT 506, I have seen many opportunities where I have been able to improve as a learning designer. I feel as though my time examining different evaluation practices has been meaningful, and I feel like I now have a new perspective on how to conduct proper evaluations, which I hope to be able to use in my future career. Overall, I am happy with the knowledge that I have gained through this course and can't wait to apply my knowledge of evaluations more often in the future. Most recently, I have taken a self-assessment about where I personally stand as an evaluator. The self-assessment made me think about where I am currently at with being able to conduct proper and meaningful evaluations. It was found that after some reflection, I would be at an advanced or expert level in most areas of the evaluation process. On my self-assessment, I gave myself mostly scores between 4-6, with most scores being 5 or 6, which would indicate me to be at an advanced or expert l...