Jing Kai (Learning Design Intern).
As the pandemic of COVID-19 permeates various aspects of our life, the phrase “Home-Based Learning” is a colloquially used phrase among those in the education sector. The current arrangement seeks to cater to those who are not on vacation period or school break. What about college students who are on summer break? Unlike their seniors, are college students rob of the opportunity to have a valuable networking internship experience?
Does “Home-Based Internship” lives up to the standards and benefits of a physical internship?
As a fellow psychology sophomore from college, the summer break was an opportunity for me to apply the psychological theories and concepts in an actual corporate working environment. I embarked on an internship stint as a Learning Designer at Ottodot. My experience at a startup has enabled me to channel my passion for education and curriculum design effectively and creatively through experimentation. Despite working in the education industry for over two years, ensuring effective learning outcomes over zoom presents a set of different challenges compared to a real-life lesson. My telecommuting internship experience can be summed up in 3 different words: Designing, Opportunity & Together.
1. Designing.
Designing Self
To me, designing is about balancing between finding your voice and catering to your readers’ needs.
Before the start of the internship, along with fellow interns, we were all encouraged to chart our personal learning growth and determine what learning objectives we all set out to achieve in this internship.
The opportunity to design what the internship entails to me personally gave me ample opportunities to practice how to project my ideas and express them through visual and textual content.
Designing Lesson
The experimentation process has enabled me to discover how my learning style is and how to communicate the learning objectives of a lesson effectively.
Designing effective learning activities to engage students is critical in helping students create their conceptual understanding of the learning objectives.
To help students consolidate their learning during their revision, my fellow teammate and I designed a bite-sized one-page mind map for students to refer.
2. Opportunity
Opportunity To Learn
The internship provides an opportunity to learn from fellow interns. Through learning sessions, we share our learning experiences and gain learning insights from others.
The time and the opportunity dedicated to fostering a learning environment does indicate the amount of pride Ottodot cares for the learning growth of every intern.
Through these learning sessions, I learned a great deal on design interface, UI/UX design, and gamification.
Opportunity To Explore
The learning experience at Ottodot has a two-tier definition of it. Not only does it involve me learning insights, but it also consists of ensuring students learn effectively as well. Providing effective teaching also motivates me to explore new teaching methodologies and techniques to engage students.
One interesting idea to engage students in learning about magnets surrounds curating a series of educational videos based on a narrative story using Powtoon.
The concept of organising lessons on Zoom also presents new opportunities to explore further education technology tools such as Quizizz.
3. Together
Together As One Learning Community
The last point on togetherness represents the collective team spirit between students and other fellow interns.
As learning designers, every Zoom class is also a learning opportunity for me to learn from students how to conduct and communicate the learning objectives more effectively.
This learning community would not have been possible, if not for the teamwork and cooperation from my fellow groupmate, Ping Xuan. Our duo teamwork has ignited insightful ideas, and close collaboration allows us to foster an encouraging learning environment for students.
Together As One Ottodot Family.
This internship would have never been an awesome and smooth one, if not for the fantastic people.
Despite the telecommuting nature of the internship, I am surrounded by a close-knit people-oriented community Ottodot team, each driven by their passion.
Through our collective teamwork spirit, we manage to innovate new ways to troubleshoot challenges and provide emotional support.
All in all, this “home-based internship” has been a wholesome and unique learning experience. Never have I ever worked over telecommuting and yet find an internship filled with a healthy mix of exciting learning opportunities and care. It has challenged me to demand a higher standard from my work and has instilled a sense of design aesthetic in what I pursue. I am grateful for the care and dedication of my fellow supervisors — Le Yi & Wong Lei:).
