EDCI POD9 DRAFT

Name: (Maxwell)

Age: 16

Gender: Male

Lives in: Oak Bay Area

Interests: video games, volunteering, tennis, debate, puzzles, and chess

Education and Interests 

Maxwell is a grade 11 student enrolled at Oak Bay high school, an institution that gives him access to multiple special needs classes. Although Maxwell suffers from color blindness, a condition diagnosed early on, he remains committed to his studies and continues to top his classes. Maxwell has been tested to establish the severity of the condition, with results indicating that he has a mild illness. Maxwell’s teachers are conscious of his color blindness and endeavor to cultivate an environment where he can learn and engage in routine classroom activities. Thus, Maxwell’s teachers avoid using colored chalks and maker pens when writing on a whiteboard, ensuring he does not strain during classes. Learning materials that address color blindness allow Maxwell to engage in multiple advanced classes that complement his intelligence. Maxwell struggles to engage in art classes, which undermines his ability to complete assignments on schedule and actively participate in discussion groups.

Role and Responsibilities 

Maxwell desires to become an information technology scientist, making it essential to focus his efforts on scoring high grades since this improves his chances of gaining admission to computer schools. In scaling his efforts to gain admission to top computer science universities in the country, Maxwell has started taking advanced placement classes that will prepare him for the demands of programming and information technology courses. Finishing high school with exemplary skills and grades will enable Maxwell to gain an MIT scholarship, ensuring he can pursue his lifelong career dream. In preparing for the intense coursework at University, Maxwell has taken up several activities like chess and tennis that enable him to socialize and develop collaborative skills. The hobbies Maxwell has cultivated will allow him to rewind and handle the stress associated with his tight class schedule and become an all-rounded individual. Maxwell has also become increasingly committed to sharpening his skills by volunteering at the local animal shelter, an environment that allows him to cultivate his social skills. Volunteering at the shelter enables Maxwell to build skills that will allow him to become better at performing his responsibilities and becoming a leader. Interacting with animals and visitors to the animal shelter enables Maxwell to unwind and relax, ensuring he can concentrate and focus on his responsibilities at school.

Technical Skills 

Maxwell joined a coding camp immediately after getting his first laptop at age 13 and has been slowly building his skills to ensure he becomes proficient. The programming skills gained by Maxwell have enabled him to become effective in building websites and cracking video games comprising of programming tasks. Utilizing his personal computer and resource skills, such as the computer laboratory, has enabled Maxwell to become better at researching and writing short projects in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Subject Domain and Knowledge

Maxwell’s intelligence enabled him to thrive in multiple subjects offered at Oak Bay High School since he has mental fortitude. For instance, Maxwell takes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classes, enabling him to develop skills that help him navigate college and his career with ease. Maxwell gained spatial intelligence, which allows him to break down complex subjects into systems and components he can effectively execute. Playing video games and chess has improved Maxwell’s visual-spatial intelligence, enabling him to envision projects and activities in 3-dimension. Engaging colleagues and visitors to the animal shelter and classmates have helped Maxwell improve his emotional intelligence. Maxwell leverages his emotional intelligence to empathize with colleagues and fellow students, enabling him to form meaningful relationships.

Motivation and Desires 

Maxwell desires to score high grades, join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and undertake a course in computer science. The skills gained through the class will enable Maxwell to become prepared to handle software programming tasks at University and later in his career. Maxwell expects that he will score exceptional grades in high school and later in his SAT scores since this, alongside his co-curricular activities, will determine whether he will get awarded a scholarship.

Obstacles 

Maxwell struggles with large classes and learning languages, an aspect that undermines his capacity to embrace new languages and become successful. Poor uptake of new languages will make it challenging for Maxwell to work and lead cross-cultural teams where he might be required to be multilingual. The freedom Maxwell has developed as he engages in multiple social activities has affected his time management skills and focus on studies. If not immediately managed, poor concentration and time management skills are likely to undermine Maxwell’s capacity to succeed.

Ideal Learning Context 

Maxwell’s ideal classroom is a small number of students where all stakeholders are likely to get personalized interventions. Maxwell also acknowledges the importance of accessing an isolated and conducive environment with minimal distractions since this allows him to concentrate better on the task at hand. Maxwell prefers classes where tutors are engaging and challenging since this pushes students to become creative and better at handling responsibilities.

Unique Assets 

Maxwell excels in several areas like spatial intelligence and critical thinking situations since this enables him to break down complex tasks into constituent parts, ensuring he formulates an effective strategy. Maxwell’s intrinsic motivation and commitment to the goals he develops allow him to succeed and eliminate distractions that can be counterproductive.

Persona characteristic	Barrier or challenges	Face-to-face environments	Distributed environments	Open environments
Color blindness (less severe symptoms)	Slightly visually impaired, can distinguish mainstream colors such as black and white.	Face-to-face teaching environments require educators to use contrasting colors whenever possible, with little impact.	Synchronization: requires the instructor to use as few colors as possible when teaching. Asynchronous: The teaching materials need to contain as few colors, pictures, and video screens as possible for the pedagogue to use. Text, as well as tables with obvious frames, are acceptable to him.	In open learning, he needs the educator’s educational video screen to be as bright as possible. He will not receive the information well if the video screens and pictures appearing in the teaching resources have too many colors. Ability to adapt to the text.
language learning difficulties,	Has difficulty learning a language other than his native language and cannot accept a new language.	face-to-face environment, he was able to adapt quickly to teaching his native language. However instruction in other languages can cause him to have difficulty digesting information.	In a distributed environment, synchronous teaching can also lead to difficulties in directly understanding the knowledge and digesting the information. Difficult to communicate with teachers and classmates. In asynchronous teaching, he can use subtitles or translation software to help him understand the content.	In an open learning environment, he can also use subtitles and translation software to help him understand the content.
Busy schedule	He had to participate in many social activities in order to be able to join MIT and later in his career. This would result in less time for his studies.	A face-to-face teaching environment would lead to more crowding of his time, requiring the elimination of some social activities or a reduction in the number of classes.	Synchronous teaching will make his time more crowded and he will need to organize his time more wisely, possibly reducing the number of social activities or classes. Asynchronous teaching allows him to access learning materials at any time and place, and he can choose his own free time slots to complete his studies and assignments.	The open learning environment allows for more freedom in his schedule, and he is free to choose his study time without changing any other schedule.
Not comfortable with being in a class with too many students	When he is in a class with too many classmates or completes group work, he will be affected, resulting in less focus on his studies.	The face-to-face teaching environment forced him to attend classes as well as work with many of his classmates. He needs to spend more time after class to review.	The synchronous teaching environment forced him to attend classes as well as work with many of his classmates, and he was able to work on his study focus and teamwork skills. In asynchronous teaching, he can freely choose his study time and does not have to study with his classmates, which can ensure his normal study efficiency.	The open learning environment, where he also does not need to study with his classmates, will not affect his concentration or efficiency.
Proficiency technical skills	Prefer to use various online software to complete assignments instead of handwriting.	The face-to-face teaching environment inevitably involves a lot of handwritten assignments and exams, and he needs to get used to the format.	The distributed educational environment allows him to use any technology tools that are allowed in the classroom, and he can easily use them, which will help him in his learning.	In an open education environment, he can use any technology tool he wants to use to help him learn better.

 

Pitch

After a long period of development, the methods of learning are becoming more and more diverse, and how to find the most suitable method for an individual among many methods has become the key to improve the efficiency of learning. Under the highly competitive and academic pressure of today’s society, many students face different challenges and difficulties in the learning process. As in this course, we are studying how to help our study participants to improve their learning efficiency and reduce the pressure of competition. It is helpful to have a unique, efficient and personalized learning program. Our persona Maxwell is a 16-year-old, unlike the norm, suffers from color blindness. He attends Oak Bay High School, a high school that offers several special needs programs for people with special needs like him.

 

Based on Maxwell situation, Synchronous education can help him in some ways, but we think he is suitable for distributed asynchronous environment learning because we think that based on his situation, as a special group of people, synchronous environment learning can better enable him to learn more efficiently. For example, when he feels that the teacher’s video material is too colorful, he can communicate with the teacher in a timely manner. In a distributed environment, the teacher can pay better attention to his status and make timely adjustments.

This ability to address the difficulties in learning styles of all special populations like Maxwell achieves equality. Distributed learning is also a very good way to address learning discrimination. This way of learning allows Maxwell to feel more involved, Maxwell’s difficulties are focused on and addressed by the teacher, and the teacher develops a personalized learning method based on Maxwell’s needs, which makes Maxwell willing to invest more interest in learning.

 

But the asynchronous teaching method suits him better, because for Maxwell, who is a poor language learner, he is not efficient at receiving content in languages other than his native language. Therefore, in asynchronous education, Maxwell is able to use tools like captioning and translation software to enhance his learning efficiency.

This way of learning ensures Maxwell’s confidence to the greatest extent possible, and he does not need to worry about feeling unfamiliar and helpless in a new language environment. With the help of the translation software, Maxwell was able to improve his learning efficiency and ensure that he understood what was being taught and what the teacher was asking. This language assistance is very helpful for learners with language difficulties and those who are new to a new language environment. On the other hand, he had to give up his time off to attend classes and extracurricular activities that would help him get into MIT in order to achieve his dream of getting into MIT. In asynchronous education, he can arrange his time more flexibly.

 

In asynchronous education, many instructors combine a number of applications to form an online course in a learning environment. These media provide an opportunity to provide a native environment for learning using tools that individuals use regularly in their daily lives (Johns, 2015). Also, Maxwell is proficient in using computer tools, therefore he can better use the tools to reach the teacher’s requirements. In addition, he prefers an independent learning environment than a group class or office, so asynchronous education can put him in an independent environment and can better improve his learning efficiency. Asynchronous learning is very helpful for learners with good self-control, but such a learning method leads to Maxwell’s lack of social opportunities and the ability to work in teams, which is very important in modern society.

Although the open environment and distributed environment are equally suitable for him in terms of his various situations, he still needs some attention from his teachers as a special group of people, and on the other hand, he is too young now, and open education may make his learning base not stable enough, which will affect his future development. We finally chose the distributed environment asynchronous education.

Reference

Johns, Hopkins University Press. Teaching Online : A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874.