Posts by Joel Gendler
Games in Education to Assess Career Readiness
Using games in education may be the best way to assess career readiness. That may seem ironic, given that games are inherently based in fantasy. The video below shows the blended approach we used with EconLab, a game-like simulation. While the EconLab is instructional, the bulk of the learning takes place within the Economics and Personal Finance…
Read MoreRead MoreKey Trends in Math Education for Upcoming Adoptions
At Victory, we have a history of collaborating with clients to find key market differentiators. What key trends in math education should guide publishers gearing up for the 2020 math adoptions in Alabama, Tennessee, and Utah? More important, how can the work for these states set the stage for a huge year in 2021, when…
Read MoreRead MoreA Three Dimensional Learning Task
In many recent projects, we have taken on the challenge of developing three-dimensional learning tasks and lessons. We often start with a close reading of the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards). The instructional designers then meet with subject matter experts to design a task with learning outcomes that measure specific performance expectations. In the example below,…
Read MoreRead MoreGuided Deep Learning and the Future of Assessment
Victory’s spinoff metacog has been busy adding new features and functionalities. When companies look to incorporate metacog into their digital products, they want to know two things: How does metacog work? What can metacog help me do now that I couldn’t do before? The answers to both questions lie in our unique approach to guided deep learning application: machine learning steered by an…
Read MoreRead MoreEdTech Round Up (May 2017)
By now, we know that educational technology is here to stay. Not only has “classroom” education expanded to include digital classrooms and smart technology, but pedagogical theories have found ways to embrace EdTech too. So EdTech isn’t just a trend, it’s a movement that touches just about every corner of teaching and learning. As these links from…
Read MoreRead MoreBuilding Curricula for Makerspaces
What’s the difference between makerspaces and other trends in EdTech? Well, in fact, makerspaces don’t just represent one trend but rather all of them. That’s because these hybrid computer labs/art studios/machine shops can encompass any educational device or technology a maker might want to put into them. The sky’s the limit, and more schools and…
Read MoreRead MoreTop 10 Victory Blogs in 2016
What are your colleagues exploring? From instructional design to visual literacy to interactive lessons, here’s one way to find out: the top ten Victory blogs from 2016. This year we had 6,187 unique visitors to our blog, and more than 2,100 of you kept coming back. Our top blog had 432 unique page-views, and it kept people…
Read MoreRead More5 Keys to Visual Literacy
When we develop digital solutions at Victory, we want the end user to experience visuals as intuitively as possible. Because space is always at a premium, visuals and text are equally important. The visuals need to immediately convey information and tell an extended story. When used well, they not only save space on the page (a…
Read MoreRead MoreA Revolutionary Interactive Lesson
In our last blog on performance tasks, we revealed our instructional design approach to creating a social studies performance task, The Boston Massacre. In this blog, we’ll explain why we expanded the performance task to become an interactive lesson, with embedded performance tasks. So, this is really an evolution, not a revolution. Here is a sneak preview…
Read MoreRead MoreInstructional Design 101
Before we plunge into instructional design, let’s step back. What does it mean to design? Here’s the definition, according to Merriam-Webster: Design 1. to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan: devise, contrive 2. a: to conceive and plan out in the mind b: to have as a purpose: intend c: to devise for a…
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