How would you apply the 3D-CG Assessment to UNO?

X plane –  Duration

  • playing once, getting over the hump, monthly repetition, occasional play when chosen
  • becoming fluent with procedural knowledge
  • raising awareness of phonemes, colors, numbers and language usage for game play
  • linking procedural knowledge and language usage
  • overcoming social challenges to negotiate a joyful game play experience from start to finish

Y plane – Engagement

  • sorting cards by color and number
  • playing without action cards
  • playing without teacher
  • adding action cards with/without teacher /
  • increase levels of task actualization with each round of play
  • adding strategies and rules to overcome social challenges
  • choosing UNO as a desirable game to play with others

Z plane – Real Word Application

  • spatial reasoning – getting and giving cards
  • fine motor skills – holding, organizing and playing cards 
  • patience – waiting for others to take turns 
  • self express – articulating thoughts to navigate game play
  • self asses – adapting knowledge and skills to the game play
  • self regulation – using and creating rules to maintain joyful engagement
  • self reflections – Use experience to formulate different action plans
  • demonstrate maturity – ability to navigate social interaction 

The 19 “classic” tenets

  • Provide choices.
  • Add emotional content.
  • Add “solvable mysteries”.
  • Add potential “Aha moments”
  •  Add empowerment activities.
  • Add activities that are semi-controlled by the learner.
  • Focus on real-time issues and mistakes; ensure regular teaching content updates.
  • Add emphasis on social learning.
  • Ensure vertical coherence and horizontal coherence in the coursebook design.
  • Make the goals clear.
  • Add a strong sense of closure per unit of study.
  • Add generative lexical concepts.
  • Add “word maps” and “lexical item grouping” activities.
  • Allow confidence to grow with “small group work” before “big group work”.
  • Challenge students’ intellect in the L2.
  • Revisit content for meaningful and compounding growth—make sure it is not “just a review”.
  • Question: Is the learning well-arced?
  • Question: Will the learning tasks activate the teacher-student relationship?
  • Question: Does the learning task have a real-world application?

The 20 “new” tenets

  • Provide more “thinking” activities in the L2 than basic “linguistic” activities.
  •  Provide a wide range of cyclically connected activities.
  •  Manufacture a strong need for lexis—then provide them like presents.
  •  Provide lectures (top-down teaching) only when students will strongly welcome them.
  •  Provide novelty; challenge students in novel ways that students will appreciate.
  •  Design the syllabus to be able to sustain cyclical compounding learning tasks.
  •  Do not allow critical breaks to happen to students.
  •  Provide a “Performance-based learning climax” in each chapter of study.
  •  Do not simply throw in “pair work for discussion” after each learning activity.
  •  Ensure students’ realization that “Personal growth with the L2” is the ultimate goal.
  •  Disclose the pedagogical strategies to the students so that they are more self- aware of their learning and their learning process.
  •  Regularity and unwavering cyclical designs lead to quicker automaticity in L2 skill building and L2 usage.
  •  Be aware of “rapport with students” and how rapport affects student motivation, evaluation, and learning potential (halo effect).
  •  Teach with “L2 Maturity” in mind, with a good understanding of students’ L1 competence.
  •  Assess and track L2 Maturation rates per student.
  •  Provide “focus group” tasks in and/or outside of the classroom.
  •  Timing within cycles can be just as important as the content of cycles.
  •  High support contexts nurture deeper thinking in students, but they are difficult to design.
  • Allow for critical self-review of past work.
  • Establish explicit “learning from peer” tasks.