http://digitalworldlearning.blogspot.com/
http://sharon-mcdaniel.blogspot.com
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
8845 MOD 2 BLOG POST
Beating-a-Dead-Horse-isms
Last I looked around, the year was 2010. Unless we’ve been suddenly warped backwards in time, debates that argue the merits of one teaching/learning style over another are passé; and at this advanced stage in the 3rd Millennium, amount to nothing more than to beating a dead horse.
This former view is not a discount of the pioneering efforts of Thorndike, Dewey, and Kilpatrick, nor the latter day refinements of Piaget, Skinner, Vygotsky, and Gardner: These have certainly all earned a proper place in education; rather, the point is that, similar to the conclusions of Kerr and Kapp, these arguments have become moot. The global diversity of learners, or as per Gardner, their multiple intelligences, in combination with the 3rd Millennial girth and depth of content, has made it imperative that educators stop wasting time on the trivia of the described discourse, and instead focus on what teaching/learning situations a particular learning theory might best be suited for, and/or when combinations of these might apply.
The references articulated present as a century-old journey. Therein, society has indeed alternately sanctioned behaviorism (in the 60’s and 70’s), cognitivism thereafter, and now again, in the second half of the past decade, a leaning back towards back-to-basics values, a resurgence of behaviorism, if you will. In this regard a microcosmic view within the so-called Math Wars in mathematics education is representative. (O’Brien, 2007)
Typical of the popularity of cognitive learning as noted, the mathematics community had embraced the concept largely due to the persistent recommendations of such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) that had successfully leveraged their reform curricula; that is, curricula based on cognitive learning. In a manner of speaking, cognitive learning was winning the math war against behaviorist teaching and learning.
Research in this past decade (ending with 2009), however, had begun to erode some of cognitive learning’s luster. As a result, President George Bush commissioned the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (NMAP), an eclectic compilation of educators, researchers, et al, to deliberate and make recommendations that would effect a plan for improving existing stagnant student mathematics performance levels. In 2008, while not totally relegating cognitive learning to a subordinate status, NMAP reported a need for students having the ability for “automatic (i.e., quick and effortless) recall of facts;” an emphasis that relates directly to behaviorist concepts of reinforcement. (USDE, 2008, p. xiii)
And so as we come around to the common sense fact for the need of inclusive approaches in the classroom, I offer a final distinction. Arguing which approach is better across the board is not the same as arguing how best to use each, or when to combine them. These are clearly horses of different colors. Arguing the former would be just another horse-ism.
O’Brien, T.C. (May 2007). The old and the new. Phi Delta Kappan. Retrieved from proquest.umi.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org
U.S. Department of Education (2008). Success: The final report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. Retrieved from www.scribd.com
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
8845 - Mod 1: Topic 1
The Learning Switch
Learning is a physical activity, and a function of the brain. While the brain is not considered a muscle, it is regularly used as an analog to indicate that, like a muscle, exercising it improves its function. This analogy presents as an approach for understanding how we best learn, by investigating how we are motivated to learn.
Similar to how one summons the motivation to do physical exercise, learning too, requires willingness and commitment to act. When we commit to physical exercise, there is, in a sense, a motivation switch that triggers a signal to action: A signal that is engendered by the need to exercise.
Need as motivation in learning is readily illustrated in examples of the learned survival strategies of predator and prey, as well as, those of the earliest human forms. It is this real need to learn that, in our learners, many times is transitory at best. Importantly, this need to learn is distinguished as an internal dynamic, not as a teacher’s external perception that there is a need for a student to learn.
In this regard, it is the teacher’s role to create the internal motivation to want to learn. This is best achieved by actively involving the student in his/her own learning; that is, to allow students to construct their own learning. This style best expresses the tenets of the constructivist approach to teaching and learning. In this model, the teacher challenges students to take charge of their own learning and, at once, to devise their own strategies for learning. This process is similar, as previously suggested, to the construction of survival learning.
Students know that they need to learn. In constructivist learning, the motivation switch is turned on when the student realizes that he/she doesn’t have to struggle with teaching styles: Easier learning is enabled by a quick transition to a personal individualized and internal best way to learn.
These former notwithstanding, the process of learning, constructivist or otherwise, is complex, and as such, not easily explained. In this respect, academicians rely heavily on theory. A case in point is my own preceding articulation. In a similar way, one can explain the purpose of learning theory in educational technology. (Driscoll, 2005, p. 2)
Quite simply, learning paradigms don’t change during the design of particular educational technologies, or of the instructional designs that would incorporate these; instead, the opposite is true. Moreover, educational technologies are seen as mechanisms that deliver instruction, and the actual technology of instruction (instructional design) as more important. In other words, the implication of learning theory on educational technology is explained by its impact on instructional design. (Anderson, 2008, p. 15)
In still another manner of speaking, learning is not activated by a computer on/off switch. It is turned on by using technology in an instructional design that instills an active need and desire to learn. The switch is a function of technology of instruction more than one of educational technology.
Anderson, T. (Ed.). (2008). The theory and practice of online learning. (2nd ed.). Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Learning is a physical activity, and a function of the brain. While the brain is not considered a muscle, it is regularly used as an analog to indicate that, like a muscle, exercising it improves its function. This analogy presents as an approach for understanding how we best learn, by investigating how we are motivated to learn.
Similar to how one summons the motivation to do physical exercise, learning too, requires willingness and commitment to act. When we commit to physical exercise, there is, in a sense, a motivation switch that triggers a signal to action: A signal that is engendered by the need to exercise.
Need as motivation in learning is readily illustrated in examples of the learned survival strategies of predator and prey, as well as, those of the earliest human forms. It is this real need to learn that, in our learners, many times is transitory at best. Importantly, this need to learn is distinguished as an internal dynamic, not as a teacher’s external perception that there is a need for a student to learn.
In this regard, it is the teacher’s role to create the internal motivation to want to learn. This is best achieved by actively involving the student in his/her own learning; that is, to allow students to construct their own learning. This style best expresses the tenets of the constructivist approach to teaching and learning. In this model, the teacher challenges students to take charge of their own learning and, at once, to devise their own strategies for learning. This process is similar, as previously suggested, to the construction of survival learning.
Students know that they need to learn. In constructivist learning, the motivation switch is turned on when the student realizes that he/she doesn’t have to struggle with teaching styles: Easier learning is enabled by a quick transition to a personal individualized and internal best way to learn.
These former notwithstanding, the process of learning, constructivist or otherwise, is complex, and as such, not easily explained. In this respect, academicians rely heavily on theory. A case in point is my own preceding articulation. In a similar way, one can explain the purpose of learning theory in educational technology. (Driscoll, 2005, p. 2)
Quite simply, learning paradigms don’t change during the design of particular educational technologies, or of the instructional designs that would incorporate these; instead, the opposite is true. Moreover, educational technologies are seen as mechanisms that deliver instruction, and the actual technology of instruction (instructional design) as more important. In other words, the implication of learning theory on educational technology is explained by its impact on instructional design. (Anderson, 2008, p. 15)
In still another manner of speaking, learning is not activated by a computer on/off switch. It is turned on by using technology in an instructional design that instills an active need and desire to learn. The switch is a function of technology of instruction more than one of educational technology.
Anderson, T. (Ed.). (2008). The theory and practice of online learning. (2nd ed.). Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
