I like this.

Shipka’s goal-directed multimodal task-based framework is so amazing. I wanted to throw up just reading it because I couldn’t contain myself. I wish this was the method they used while I was in high school when it came to approaching different projects/assignments. I’ll admit, I do love a little guidance and I can respect an interesting prompt, but the limitations that come with prompts are far too restricting. For a lot of students, I feel that there is no room left to make their assignment their own when they receive a prompt that is along the lines of, “Pick one out of the three topics I’ve assigned … write a blah blah blah essay … five to six paragraphs,” and so on. I think I discussed this somewhere in my What I’ve Learned So Far essay, but when constantly faced with prompts and assignments that basically outline what they need to write, students get discouraged from attributing anything personal. They’re forced to adapt to one way of writing and when they receive bad marks on it, they become turned off and deem themselves as “bad writers”.

With Shipka’s multimodal approach, students can take assignments into their own hands and finally feel like they’re making something that is theirs. I can see where this could potentially be a bit overwhelming, though. If we were to try and implement this approach across classrooms, I feel like students may get flustered because they’ve never had such authority. However, I feel like implementation is just one small obstacle that could be overcome with time and it is very well worth it. The method would give students the right amount of authority over their work in order to become confident in it. Of course, as Shipka states, instructors would still have the responsibility of designing the tasks which is a given. The students on the other hand are given the freedom to choose their goals for the assignment and then are responsible for the process that it takes form them to achieve their goals. Not only is this beneficial to the student, but the instructor as well. They’d be able to see the process in which the student completed their project or assignment. Also, the way in which a student chooses to complete their assignment gives the instructor some sort of insight into how the student works.

I also really found Shipka’s idea of re-vision very interesting. This is a really good way to ensure that the students are actually learning through the process of them completing the assignment. However time consuming this may be regarding trial and error, the student is still gaining the knowledge of communicative flexibility which is the ultimate goal.