Fitting the Pieces Together

Now that you have a deeper understanding of the different learning theories and learning styles, how has your view on how you learn changed?

When we first started this class we were asked about our views on our own learning, my view on my own personal learning has really not changed. I’m an art major and I know that I learn better as a visual and kinesthetic learner. I achieve more when I am actively learning and participating in my learning environment. I know that I do not recall information if it is only presented to me in lecture form. I have problems being lectured too and focusing on what I’m being told. I have a much better chance of remembering what I have learned when I can visually apply it to memory and physically use what I am learning.

What have you learned about the various learning theories and learning styles over the past weeks that can further explain your own personal learning preferences?

The past few weeks have truly opened my eyes to the many forms of learning that is out there. I knew before I began this course, that people learn differently. These last few weeks have truly shown me the many strategies and theories behind learning. As an Instructional Designer I have learned that our instruction and curriculums must include a variety of techniques in order to have a successful learning outcome. Addressing the needs of only one learning style totally defeats the reason we are here and that is to facilitate learning and to make learning fun and purposeful.

What role does technology play in your learning (i.e., as a way to search for information, to record information, to create, etc.)?

The many applications and options that are available to us as teachers and designers is mind blowing. I have truly learned a tremendous amount about this topic in the last few weeks’ I was totally amazed at the many sources of information and the many links/blogs that are out there. I am very excited to find the many options and sites that are available for connecting with other instructors and sharing information. Growing as an instructor is made easier when you can share and exchange information over the internet with others that live miles away and may structure their classes very differently to how you may do it. Technology has evolved greatly in making this exchange possible. The invention of the many website, such as facebook, blogs, wikis and webinars adds indefinitely to all the possibilities.

We also have all the new links and apps that are being created for the sole purpose of expanding our reach in educating our students. Apple has created the IPad which in itself is having a huge impact on how we are teaching our students. The ability to be creative and the opportunity to evolve our classrooms into an interactive fully involved environment is astounding.

Not only is technology advancing how we teach it is also opening doors on were we get our information and how much information we can find. The use of the internet has taken us away for the old encyclopedia and we now have access to hundreds of thousands of site where we can search for information. Our reach goes beyond the library. We can go to Europe and visit the Chelsea in Great Britain or the Musee Rodin in France. The opportunity to reach these countries from the comfort of our homes and learn from our research has advanced our learning and training capacity tremendously. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us.

Making Learning Connections: A reflection on how my new connections faclitate learning.

I began taking classes at Walden in February of this year. I have never used the internet so much to learn and discover as I have in the last 4 months. My networks and contacts have grown tremendously since starting classes here at Walden. I have learned to search outside of the traditional “Google” and look for blogs, wikis, webinars and podcast that address the issues and concerns that I am looking to learn about. I use my RSS as the beginning point for learning. Whatever new topic comes into my RSS and I find interesting I will do more research to better understand what has been presented to me.
I have joined the distribution of articles and journals on the education topic. I download white papers for research and reference. I have registered with Harvard and read the week business newspaper. I have signed up with Trade groups and receive their articles and journals.
I have registered with a variety of networks on the internet to help me become more educated and stay abreast of the trends. I found a site called SimpleK12 that is geared towards the education field and they provide tools and training for a multitude of topics on combining the internet and the tools accessible to educators with their classroom curriculums. I use ASTD to join webinars for learning. I am part of Linkedin and I join in the discussion post that others have started. I have posted my own questions and used the response I have received to help expand our education department at my office.
I am so excited about all the new information I have gained. I have used these tools to help me do research on topics and questions that we share in our discussions as well as using this information at my place of employment. Connectivisim talks about constant flow of information and that this information can be a bit overwhelming for our memory to maintain. This is so true. There is so much to learn from the internet that it can be too much at times to remember. I have created files for saving all this new information so that I can reference it again at a later date and possibly use in postings and in my classrooms.

Connectivism

ism's Are they interdependent on each other?

There have been a variety of _ism’s created to explain and put on paper how the brain works. (constructivism, behaviorism, cognitivism, etc.) In the blog titled “_isms as filter not blinker” Bill Ker speaks about how not one _ism can fully explain how the brain processes and remembers information.  Kerr goes on the write “It seems to me that each _ism is offering something useful without any of them being complete or stand alone in their own right.” I agree with this comment. Were behaviorism can explain a behavior, cognitivism can describe this same behavior. So how can you explain behavior without the ability of describing it.  In his blog, “Out and About: Discussion on Educational Schools of Thought”,  Karl Kapp say “We need to take pieces from each school of thought and apply it effectively because… Cognitivisim doesn’t explain 100% how humans process information and neither does Constructivism or Behaviorism. What we need to is take the best from each philosophy and use it wisely to create solid educational experiences for our learners.”

So to better explain this to myself and to you I’m going to create a comparison chart that demonstrates how three _ism’s work.

Cognitivism is based on what a person knows. Behaviorism is concerned with behavior, and Constructivism focuses on creating meaning. Based on information from an article by Peggy Ertmer and Timothy Newby called “Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features from an Instructional Design Perspective” I came up with this chart. If you take a minute to compare the different facets of this chart you can see how one _ism depend on the other for support. If you take a look, for instance, at item #1 learning. Under Constructivism learners build personal interpretations based on experiences and Behavioralist observe these interactions to find what the results of these actions are. So here alone you can’t build on interpreting an action if you don’t have the experience occurring and how do you acquire the knowledge without building on the experience. I hope this makes some sense to you. Now take a look at the role of memory. For the Constructivist is built by the understanding of prior knowledge. Well how can you have prior knowledge if you don’t have a cognitive function which, when explained by Ertmer and Newby,  is where “Information is stored in an organized logical manner.” The _ism’s do not always work together but it is clear by my chart that they often are interdependent on one another in order to explain certain actions and behaviors.

COGNITIVE	BEHAVIORALIST	CONSTRUCTIVISM
1. How does learning occur:
Learning is concerned with what a person know and how they came to acquire that knowledge	Equate learning with the form and frequency of observable behavior.	Equates learning with creating meaning from experience.
	Learning is accomplished when power response is demonstrated following a specific stimulus	Humans create meaning as opposed to acquiring it.
	Concerned with consequences.	Learners do not transfer knowledge from the external world into their memories; rather they build personal interpretations of the world based on individual experiences and interactions.
2. Factors that Influence Learning:
Environment	Environment	Both learner and environmental factors are critical
Role of Practice		Every action is viewed as an interpretation of the current situation based on an entire history of previous interactions.
Mental Activity of the learner that leads up to a response	Arrangement of stimuli
Change  learner by encouraging the use of appropriate learning strategies		Concepts continually evolve with each new use.
3. Role of Memory:
Information is stored in an organized logical manner	Memory is not addressed.	Memory is always under construction as cumulative history of interactions.
	Forgetting is a result of lack of use.	Emphasis is not on retrieving intact knowledge but on providing learners with the means to create novel and situation-specific understandings by using prior knowledge.
4. Transfer of information:
When a learner understands how to apply knowledge in different contexts, then transfer has occurred	Similar situation or common elements	transfer can be facilitated by involvement in authentic task anchored in meaningful context
Not only must the knowledge itself be stored in memory but the uses of that knowledge as well
5. Types of Learning:
Knowledge is analyzed, decomposed and simplified into building blocks	Cues
Knowledge transfer is expedited if irrelevant information is eliminated.	Practice
Efficient processing of information.	Reinforcement
6. Instructional Design Applications:
learner control, metacognitive training,	Behavioral Objective	anchoring learning in meaningful contexts
self planning	Task analysis	actively using what is learned
monitoring	criterion and references assessments	Revisiting content at different times, in rearranged contexts.
revising techniques	learner analysis
cognitive task analysis procedures	sequencing instructional presentations	developing pattern-recognition skills, presenting alternative ways of representing problems,
outlining	mastery learning
summaries	use of reinforcement to impact learning(tangible rewards, informative feedback)
synthesizers		Presenting new problems and situations that differ from the conditions of the initial instruction.
advanced organizers
recall prerequisites skills	simple to complex sequencing of practice
use examples and analogies	use of prompts
7. How should instruction be structured:
should organize information is such a way that learners are able to connect new information with existing knowledge in some meaningful way.	structured around the presentation of stimuli and opportunities for practice to achieve proper response	the learner elaborates upon and interprets the given information
analogies		Designer task: 1) to instruct the student on how to construct meaning, as well as how to effectively monitor, evaluate  and update those constructions. And 2) to align and design experiences for the learner sot that authentic, relevant contexts can be experienced.
framing	Determined cues
outlining
mnemonics,	arranged practices
concept mapping	arranged the practice for success	Each experience would serve to build on and adapt that which has been previously experienced and constructed.

References:

Bill Kerr: http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50–71.

Karl Kapp: http://www.kaplaneduneering.com/kappnotes/index.php/2007/01/out-and-about-discussion-on-educational/

Evaluating and Identifying Online Resources

Today I visited 4 sites on the following topics; the brain and learning, information processing theory, and problem-solving methods during the learning process. They were buzzle.com (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/information-processing-theory.html) , Educational Psychology (http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/infoproc.html ), blog on Problem-solving methods during the learning process (http://learningtheoriesand instruction.blogspopt.com/2010/01/problem-solving-methods-during-learning.html ) , and problem-solving Skills in Education and Life (http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/methods.htm. ).

I will start with the buzzle.com. this site was a good starting point for gathering some basic information in regards to the  “Information Processing Theory.” Buzzle provided very easy to understand definitions of the process and how the theory model works.

My second visit was to the "Information Processing Approach to Cognitive" site under Educational Psychology.  The one topic I enjoyed on this site was the chart provided a classroom approach to information processing. It was a very informative chart on how to attract different areas of thinking and memory. The chart was a nice starting point not only for new teachers but for experienced teachers. It targeted different approaches to teaching and how to meet the needs of the learner.

The next site I visited was a blog on Problem-solving methods during the learning process.  This blog provided a new aspect for me in the learning process. The author refers to what is called problem based learning (PBL) and gives a link that establishes a better explanation of what PBL is. The premise behind PBL is learning through solving problems. I Iike this concept because you are forcing the student to truly evaluate and think about what they are learning and not just providing a series of facts for memorization. This blog emphasized learning based on real=life associations and I feel this is a very important aspect in today’s society. If we can educate our student by association the probability of the learning sticking and entering their LTM increases. The link that is provided http://ww.personal.psu.edu/hoh5021/kbl/index.htm is a very good site to visit. It provides a good follow-up to our readings this week on the Information Process Theory. The site also goes into an explanation of the elaboration theory, motivation teaching for understanding and learning communities.

The final site I visited was "Problem-Solving Skills in Education and Life". This webpage was a great source for information and extra reading contents on PBL. The site gives a brief explanation for thinking skills, multiple intelligence, learning styles and problem solving. Although the explanations provided were not as elaborated as I would have liked the links included in the presentation helped reinforce and add to the presenter’s points. A variety and abundance of links that were provided to helps the reader with understanding and incorporating some of the information learned  into their own lesson design.

My First Blog

Wow what a task it was this week to surf through the many blogs on the Internet and find a few that can work for me. There are so many to choose from that I found very interesting. It did begin to feel a little overwhelming. But I was able to narrow my first selection down to the following three choices;1.  eLearning Blender (http://joedeegan.blogspot.com/ ), 2. T&D Blog (http://tdblog.blogspot.com/ ) and 3. eLearning Planet (http://elearningplanet.com/category/instructional-design/ )

My first choice was elearning Blender. I chose the elearning Blender blog because of the wealth of forums. I was excited to see the many topics discussed within this blog. It appeared to be a very active blog with a full exchange of information. This blog covers elearning, instructional design, moodles, articulate studio, adobe captivate and many more topics. Its focus seems to be geared to applications and software.

My second choice was T&D. I chose T&D blog because it is a blog that is associated with ASTD. Because it is associated with ASTD I felt confident in the information they provide. I enjoyed being able to read blogs that are not just design oriented but also include the training and development aspect of Instructional Design.

My final selection was elearning Planet. I chose this particular blog because of the emphasis it has on SME’s. As an instructional Designer I am going to be interacting with SME’s very frequently. I feel it is important that I learn as much about them and the part they play in design and this seems like a good place to start.

There is such a variety of blogs to choose from on the Internet. I made myself a list of the ones that I came across that I would like to pursue further.  This initial list may end up changing.