Module 3: Principles of Learning Design and Active Learning: Becoming a Better Person

Have you ever really thought about what it means to be a “good person”? It’s more than just being polite or doing a random nice thing now and then; it’s about showing kindness, empathy, and integrity in your everyday actions. For this post, I put together a lesson plan on “How to Be a Good Person.” The goal was to bring in some design principles we’ve been learning, like backward design, constructive alignment, and Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction, to create a lesson that’s not only meaningful but actually sticks.

Backward Design

Backward design is pretty straightforward, it’s all about starting with the end goal in mind. I began by focusing on what I wanted people to walk away with i.e. a real understanding of what makes a good person and how to put those traits into action. Working backward from that, I created learning outcomes and activities that lead toward this goal. It made planning more organized, and I avoided adding random activities that didn’t serve the main purpose.

Constructive Alignment

Constructive alignment was key in making sure every part of the lesson, whether it’s an activity or an assessment, connects directly to the goal. The interactive quiz reinforces an understanding of character traits by pairing each trait with a realistic scenario, and the reflection paragraph encourages learners to think about their own actions and how they can practice these traits. This way, every element in the lesson has a purpose, keeping it focused and meaningful.

Merrill’s First Principle

Merrill’s First Principles are all about real-world application, and they shaped my approach in several ways:

• Activation: We start by thinking about what “good character” means to us and recognizing traits we already possess.
• Demonstration: Using real-life examples to show traits like empathy or kindness in action makes the lesson feel more relatable.
• Application: The H5P quiz lets learners make decisions in various scenarios, helping them actively practice making positive choices.
• Integration: The reflection activity encourages learners to think about which traits they want to work on and how they can apply these in daily life.

H5P Interactive Quiz Reflection

To make this lesson on character development interactive, I created a decision-making quiz using H5P. In each question, learners are presented with a real-life scenario and asked to select the response that best demonstrates good character. For example:

Scenario:
You notice a classmate struggling with a heavy project bag on campus. What do you do?

Options:

1. Walk by
2. Offer to help
3. Tell them it’s good exercise

Feedback:

• Correct Answer: Offer to help
  • Hooray! Offering to help shows kindness.
• Incorrect Answers:
  • For “Walk by”: “Not quite! The correct answer is ‘Offer to help’, this action shows kindness.”
  • For “Tell them it’s good exercise”: “Oops! The correct answer is ‘Offer to help,’ which shows kindness.”

By giving learners immediate feedback, they see how positive traits like kindness, empathy, and respect can be applied in real situations, helping them actively connect with the lesson.

Reflection

Working on this lesson about character traits using the Principle of Learning Design and Active learning was eye-opening. It’s easy to think that teaching something like “being a good person” is straightforward, but I quickly realized that without a clear structure, it can easily feel vague… Now I know that active and passive learning play an important role, so in learning activities, I started with a breif intro and then designed an interactive H5P quiz to give learners a hands-on way to apply these ideas. Backward design showed me how focusing on the end goal from the start makes the lesson way more practical and achievable. Constructive alignment was another huge game-changer. Making sure each part, from the intro video to the examples and H5P quiz, lined up with the lesson’s goal gave the whole thing a clear purpose. Instead of just listing traits, learners get to see how they’d actually apply these qualities in real life, which I think makes a huge difference. It’s like, rather than just hearing about kindness, they’re actively thinking through it.

Seeing how these principles apply so directly, I feel like I’ve gotten a way deeper understanding of how powerful a well-designed lesson can be.