• International Development Grant
• Senior Student Presenter Grant
• Innovative Student Research Grant
• Innovative Student Research Grant in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Sidney W. & Janet R. Bijou Grant
• Public Awareness Grant
• Microcredentials Grant

University of North Carolina Wilmington (2024)

Applied Learning Sciences: Categorizing Types of Learning to Facilitate the Design of Instruction

Catherine Williams

Teachers and other skill builders often receive instruction on how to identify education goals, but less instruction on how to create lessons and assessments to accomplish those goals. This may lead teachers to use strategies for instruction that do not reliably produce the learning outcomes they desire, resulting in stressful trial and error filling the limited time they have for lesson planning. The first step to supporting teachers to use effective instruction for their students is teaching these skill builders to deconstruct and categorize their education goals in a way that will directly tell them how to measure and teach them. The micro-credential developed as a result of this support from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis will provide self-paced, mastery-based instruction for skill builders with diverse incoming knowledge at a minimal price. It will include instruction and fluency-based assessments for each of the six skills needed to turn objectives into behavioral learning categories. The resulting micro-credential program will be offered online in a self-paced format. It will be integrated into Psychology and Education courses at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and professional development for in-service teachers in New Hanover County. It will also be shared with anyone interested in pursuing a micro-credential about how to decipher learning objectives into specific types of learning. This micro-credential will be developed by an interdisciplinary team from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and is led by Dr. Catherine Williams (Psychology) in collaboration with Dr. James Stocker (Special Education) and Ms. Mackenzie Fowler (Applied Behavior Analysis master’s student). Beyond the scope of the proposed micro-credential, we hope the interdisciplinary connections and processes established through the development of this micro-credential will facilitate additional resources for teachers. These sources include guides to design assessments and lessons for each category of learning. This micro-credential will empower teachers and other skill builders to pave an instructional path toward student success!

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