Week 3 Overview, Feb 13, 2007

Classnotes
Tuesday, February 13, 2007

This week we will reflect on the three dominant learning theories.

What is the difference between learning and instruction?

David C. – Learning from instruction.
Rowland. Learning and instruction come from different perspectives.
K. Foreman – Sometimes learning objectives and instructional objectives are used interchangeably. Educational psychology observes how the learner learns. Whereas instruction is how a teacher teaches, presents materials, organizes information, delivers instruction.

Page 25 of Newby article – The nature of instruction. The goal of instruction is to help students learn and meet predetermined goals. Nowadays, there is a lot more informal learning happening.

Reflection – What did you learn today?
I learned that you cannot put a background image behind text in a word document like you can in Photoshop. Feedback – Some suggested to save the document as html. Wouldn’t be surprised if latest Word application comes out with this capability. This new knowledge was acquired by “self-discovery”. Regs showed how to insert an image into a table, then placed it behind the text.
Aaron – learned to use Helvetica font instead of Times New Romans to make a document look “cleaner”.

The point is … we learn by using all three combinations of theories!

With constructivist theory, prior experience can often help in the learning experience, but sometimes it can work against you!
Learning theories can be applied according to subject matter. As instructional designer, knowing the different learning theories help them present the subject matter in the most effective way.

What strategies were used when writing our last assignment, the matrix? Myron scanned, got rid of redundant points and came up with most important bullet points. Expert readers know how to quickly scan a document and pick out the most important concepts. Dr. Foreman could have used any number of assignments to get us to understand and compare the three learning theories.

Important learning strategy;
SQ3R - Scan, Question Read, Review and Rehearse.
These 3 strategies help a learner understand information and makes their mind much more active.

Quote of the evening #1, “Behaviorism appeals to our bird brain.” – Myron

Dr. Foreman distributed a table for comparing and contrasting theories. In a group, we reviewed our matrix, and then came up with a real life instructional/learning objective. Decide which learning theory would work best.

Class broke up into triads to brainstorm and discuss the learning theories. Main questions asked: Was knowledge received? Was knowledge acquired? Was knowledge generated, constructed?

Quote of the evening #2, “The brain is the hardware, the mind is the software.” – Regs


Presentations – (share out)

Group 1: Behaviorist Perspective: Cooking Noodles with 5th graders. Task oriented. Steps laid out. Feedback Scenario, tasting allows learner to know if task was performed successfully. Timer is a material. Helpful if teacher showed a video of the process, provide recipe plus materials, then opportunity to actually cook noodles.

Group 2 – Constructivism. Based on experience. Real-life examples include discussions. Learning activities – field trips are great, provide experience. Learning media – team work and group work. Best example is what we are doing in this class with lots of discussion and sharing of views.

Group 3 – How to teach how to browse the web. Chose constructivist method. Facilitator would ask many questions based on previous experience. Activities would include problems to solve, for example how to find a restaurant, provide a specific website, or how to find directions using mapquest. Discovery learning would take place, allowing them to make mistakes. Use different web browsers – google. Yahoo, etc/.

Group 4 – Objective: teaching students how to design a web page. Chose constructivism. Week one was lecture, identifying 6 basic parts of a web page, create a web page, analyze, synthesize, then critique.

Group 5 – Real-life example was to teach how to use a camera using the informational processing perspective. First there would be a lecture, then teach exposure, teach how to use camera, students go out on the field and practice shooting in different lighting.

Next week we will zero-in on behaviorism.