REFLECTION

WHAT’S STRIKING

I have found many things striking during my Learning Theories and Instruction course at Walden University. One thing is the different learning theories with what seems like bullet-proof reasoning until another theory comes along and shoots holes in it with equally as sound reasoning. The amount of quibbling that goes on between experts in the field on the rightness or wrongness of one theory or another is also striking. It seems at first a waste of time or egotistical/intellectual posturing. But when one steps back and looks at the wake of this pontification, gems of knowledge and cutting edge ideas can be seen (along with all the flotsam and jetsam that is kicked up in the process.) So this intellectual sparring has its place and its purpose in furthering the study of education and instructional design (it can also be quite entertaining.)

Another striking and surprising thing that I have learned through this course is one that may not have been so striking to other students in the class with more experience in education and teaching: the differences between pedagogy and andragogy. I knew logically that there had to be differences, but I had never stopped to wonder or investigate what those differences were. Just the realization that pedagogy is curriculum based and andragogy is need or interest based was a complete “aha” moment for me. In pedagogy the learner is dependent, has little experience to draw from, learns what they are told to learn, and learns to acquire subject matter. In contrast, in andragogy the learners are either moving toward or have achieved independence and self-direction, have stored experience which can and should be tapped and used, are motivated by what they need or want to know, and are performance centered in their learning. I have been unknowingly using tactics which support this on the rare occasions when I train employees at work. I usually start out by showing people how I use the technology that I am teaching them and by giving them a few examples of how this technology can make their jobs easier. I try to connect with the learners and collaborate with them. I facilitate rather than teach in many cases. To know why my methods have been successful is eye opening.

DEEPENED UNDERSTANDING

This course has also deepened my understanding of my own learning process. I can see the methods that I use to turn auditory information into visual or kinesthetic information. My clumsiness with auditory information may be my own fault from compensating for my lack of dexterity with it rather than a bona fide learning disability. This revelation aside, I will probably continue to use my compensating tactics. They have served me well for almost 50 years and I’m comfortable with them. I can also see how I fit the role of adult learner in most ways. I do however tend to learn things “just because.” I’m not sure how need or want based this is. To me it doesn’t really fit pedagogy or andragogy. I just learn things as they come along and store them. Sometimes I need them, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I want to learn them, but sometimes I don’t, but I learn them anyway. It’s almost “knowledge kleptomania”. I just pick it up because it’s there and I can grab it. I’m sure it’s driven by some intrinsic motivation I am currently unaware of. Now that this course has taught me more about intrinsic motivation, perhaps I’ll investigate the roots of this issue further.

LEARNING THEORIES, LEARNING STYLES, EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY & MOTIVATION

I have learned a great deal about learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation during this course. There is no right or wrong learning theory, just as there is no right or wrong tool in a toolbox. There are merely more appropriate learning theories (as there are tools) to use in certain situation as the need calls for them. Learning styles, I find, are more of a preference or proclivity than a concrete science. Similar to be being right handed where the right hand is the “go to” hand for most activities, but the left hand is still fully functional (just not as quick or easy to use in many cases). Educational technology is another tool in the instructional designer’s toolbox, but as tools are to a master carpenter, educational technology cannot take the place of knowledge and experience and a certain amount of art in education and the psychology of teaching. After all, a paint brush is only as good as the hand that wields it. These first three — learning theories, learning styles, and educational technology – are as I have stated, tools in the instructional designer’s toolbox. Motivation, however, is more of the gasoline that runs the learning engine. Without student motivation, the class will bog down, sputter, stall, and perhaps crash completely. Proper design and techniques can be used as tools to boost motivation, but motivation itself is that fuel that makes learning move forward and succeed. The strategies to boost motivation, however, can again be seen as a tool in the instructional designer’s toolbox. The connection between these four elements of instructional design is that they all need to be considered and used for effective design to be the final outcome.

WII-FM (What’s In It For Me)

I believe this course has given me sound fundamentals to build the remainder of my education in instructional design upon. Without knowing the underpinnings of good instructional design, no amount of knowledge in technology or technique can be successful. To build a sturdy bridge, you must start with firm footings. This course with its solid basics in learning theory and instruction will give a firm footing to the rest of the courses I take here at Walden University

Fitting the Pieces Together

Looking back on my first discussion posting in week 1 of my Learning Theories and Instruction class, I see that I have changed some of my perspective on the different learning theories and learning styles and how I learn. I am not a credentialed teacher, and I have had no formal education in developing learning materials. So my knowledge before this class was mostly from human resource related classes in employee training and development that I took during the pursuit of my bachelor degree.

At first, when I was learning the different learning theories, I was impatient. It seemed that each theory was taught and then all the reasons that theory was not completely correct were then mentioned. I got to the point where I just wanted the book to tell me the “right” learning theory so I could absorb it and go on my merry way. About half way through the course, I realized that no one theory is right in every circumstance. The learning theories are like tools in a tool belt to take out and use when the situation calls for it. Just as you don’t pull out a hammer to take out a screw, you probably aren’t going to use a basic form of behaviorist learning to teach adult learners a complex subject which requires problem solving.

During week one, I believed that I was

• a visual learner first,
• a kinesthetic learner second,
• and an auditory learner a DISTANT third

I know there are different camps of thinking on whether learning styles exist or whether there are just learning preferences, and I am still on the fence with this. Even after reading the article “Learning Styles Concepts and Evidence” by Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork as published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest (December 2008) which firmly discourages the belief in learning styles, and the rebuttal article “Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students” by David Glenn in The Chronicle of Higher Education (December 2009) which argues that the four authors of the previous article didn’t do their research – I’m still not certain I believe in learning styles or just learning preferences. I do still know, however, that I learn better visually and kinesthetically, and that I pretty much can’t rely on auditory learning as a source of learning for myself. Whether that is a style or preference, it is reality for me.

I’m not even sure that the whole style or preference debate is all that critical since there is just about no way an instructor can teach all one way or the other. I do believe that certain subjects can lend themselves to one style or another, but that still doesn’t preclude using every means possible to get the information into the student’s heads. The more ways the information is presented, the better chance of it sticking somewhere in the gray matter for later retrieval. For instance, learning to cook leans more toward kinesthetic learning, but some visual and auditory is going to be thrown in the mix or people will be setting themselves on fire and making some nasty dishes.

I also realize that my learning has a lot to do with connectivism and androgogy. I was amazed during a mind mapping assignment how many nodes are on my learning network. I am very much connected to the outside world and to people when it comes to learning and researching information. I am also highly self-motivated and task-oriented when it comes to learning, which I find is an aspect of being an adult learner. My learning is much more need to know or interest to know based rather than curriculum based. I prefer online learning because it works around my busy life of

      work,

          spouse,

               children,

                    grandchildren,

                         hobbies, 

                              friends

                                          (oh and I can’t forget my needy cat, Simon).

I like learning whenever, wherever, and at my own pace. My physical disabilities that keep me from sitting in those little torture devices they call “tablet chairs” in the classroom and that keep me from seeing small or far-away type also like online learning. I like learning that is motivational, experiential, problem-solving, and of immediate value to me (or at least will be of value in the foreseeable future – if not right now). So where I thought cognitivism defined me, now I think I’m more multi-faceted than that – just as the “right” way of teaching is.

There is no one learning theory that is a cure-all for teaching. There is a palette of theories to chose from – dabbing a little here, a little there, shading and texturing the content so that students absorb the picture as whole instead of coming away with snapshots of information that don’t permeate into their lives or memory.

Technology also plays a huge part in my education, but that really wasn’t a surprise to me. Technology is imbedded into my whole life. I work in IT. The people I work with tease me that I think in spreadsheet form. They bought me a coffee cup that says “I (heart) pivot tables” (they also bought me one that says “No Coffee, No Workee” but that’s more geared toward how I look when I come in every morning before the coffee is done).

• I go nowhere without my cellular device that brings me my emails, my text messages, the Internet, my ebooks, my onlines newspapers – and oh yes, it’s a phone too!
• My to-do list is in Microsoft OneNote.
• My entire class notebook is virtual and is in OneNote.
• My iPod connects to my car stereo and I listen to newspapers and iTunesU courses and seminars as well as books.
• I carry my Kindle with me and read whenever I have a spare minute.
• I get about five times more educational resource content from the Internet than I do from the library and I work 50 feet from a library.
• Even when I use the library, it is most often the virtual online library even though I’m in the library once or twice a day for meetings at work.

So the fact that technology is such a part of my way of learning was not a surprise so much as an awe-inspiring realization of its magnitude.

This class has changed my viewpoints on who I am as a learner. It has broadened my horizons in my thoughts on teaching. It has opened my eyes and provided self-realization. It has motivated me and confirmed my notion that instructional design and instructional technology are very relevant to my career and my life and that I am on the right path.

I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that I’m not educationally wandering…

CONNECTIVISM

Mind Map of Connections

Do connections facilitate learning for me? I did a little soul-searching and re-searching to find out.

HAS MY INFORMATION CONNECTIONS NETWORK CHANGED THE WAY I LEARN

My personal learning network has changed a great deal in the last decade, and that has spurred a change in the way I learn. I used to find a book on what I wanted to learn and read it. Then I’d experiment with what I was reading (hands on approach/kenetic) until I absorbed what I wanted to learn. I have taken in-person classes also where information was given to me, but I always followed up with reading or experimenting with what I’d learned so I could absorb it.

DIGITAL TOYS TOOLS

Today I rely heavily on electronic tools to gain knowledge. This has made most of my learning paperless. I carry all my course work around on a flash drive. The only paper I need is my textbook but I have had classes with ebooks which were wonderful. My network of available knowledge has expanded a great deal to encompass a world of knowledge instead of my limited geographical range of knowledge. This has given me more diversity and perspective in what I’m learning and it has opened my eyes to the different ways people think and see things. This has enriched my learning experience.

Not only has this broadened my horizons, but it has also made me more skeptical about what I read. This skepticism is a good and bad thing. It’s bad because I can no longer blindly go to a textbook or encyclopedia and just read something and believe it is true. I have to take the time to mull it over and do further research to confirm what is being said (because let’s face it – there is a lot of mis-information out there). The negative is that it takes more time to learn something. The positive is that I have to think more about what I’m putting in my brain. It goes through a more stringent “filtering” process. So I believe that was gets through is more refined and clear.

GAINING KNOWLEDGE AND EATING

In a way, the way I learn has changed in much the same way as the way I eat. When I was younger, I would just eat what was given to me or what was available. If it tasted good, or I was hungry, I ate it. Now that I’m “older and wiser,” I think more about what I eat:
     • is it good for me,
     • is it made of good things,
     • is it too rich,
     • how many impurities does it have in it,
     • am I allergic to it,
     • is it nutritious?

When I was younger, I was taught things in a classroom and by reading, and I absorbed it as true without askance. If I needed to learn it or if I wanted to learn it, I accepted it. Now that I’m older and I know just how much I don’t know, I am exposed to information and I think more about whether I accept it or agree with it as the truth:

     • is it good for me,
     • what are the author’s credentials, sources of information, or background
     • is it too “prettily worded” or ambiguous,
     • how much of the author’s ulterior motives or non-fact-based beliefs does it contain,
     • does it offend me or go against my basic morals or beliefs,
     • does the information do me any good/can I spare or does it warrant the “storage space” it requires in my brain?

This filtering process is aided and hindered by the amount of information I am now able to access through technology and my expanded people/organizations network. The digital hardware tools I rely the most on are my computers (desktop and laptops), PDA and Blackberry (where I load ebooks and magazines from eReader.com), Kindle, and Sony eReader. The software I rely on most is the Microsoft Office suite, Internet Explorer, iTunes, and Google-Google-Google.

THE BEST THING SINCE THE PENCIL

One of my favorite tools is Microsoft OneNote. As far as I’m concerned, OneNote is the best invention since the pencil. It captures text from anything with text in it. It also scoops up images. With it I can clip sections of anything on my computer screen, or I can print to it like a digital printer. With the resulting virtual pages, I can highlight, stamp, or write on (by typing or by digital pen) what I’ve captured. I use it for my education extensively. For instance, this past week, I printed all of our digitized learning resources to it including the two ebook chapters, the video transcript, the articles, web pages, etc. I organize the different weeks of lessons under virtual tabs in my virtual OneNotebook, and I name each page. Everything is in one convenient place. I use OneNote for my todo list at work, also. I can copy emails to it, drag whole files into it (which can be opened with a double-click in their native format), and create tables of prioritized tasks with status.

MY PROCESS

Tools/toys are great, but there has to be a method to gather information. My usual method when I have questions or want to learn something, is to start by searching for information through the Internet. I use not only web sites I find through search engines (I use mostly Google), but I use the university library website from where I work and from the university where I go to school. I also search Googlebooks, Amazon, eReader.com, and Audible.com for ebooks or audio books on the subject. Since my office is about 200 yards from my employer’s university library, I use that resource also for non-digital information and to talk to research librarians (some of the most wonderful people in the universe). I also purchase books – usually from eBay or Half.com (since I’m cheap/thrify), but sometimes from brick-and-mortar stores.

SOMETIMES IT’S WHO YOU KNOW

Since I am a director for an IT division of a university and I am studying Instructional Design and Technology (IDT – a blend of information technology and education), I also have a bevy of people resources I can tap for information. For instance, one of the employees in my division is also a part-time professor of IDT for a class called Emerging Technologies – how perfect is that? One of the departments in my division is the academic technologies department which installed and maintains all the academic hardware for the university. There is a lot of information just waiting to be tapped here, and if someone in our campus doesn’t know it, it’s a good chance that someone in one of our other 22 campuses in our system will. I sit on a lot of committees across the system, so I have an “in” at most of the campuses.

SO – DO CONNECTIONS FACILITATE LEARNING FOR ME?

When I first read of connectivism, I didn’t think it was something I was going to agree with, but I kept an open mind and kept reading, listening, and researching. After doing the Learning Network Mind Map above, I can now see just how much this theory applies to the way I learn today. I’m represented in the mind map as the purple rectangle in the middle. Representations of a portion of my information sources are the shapes surrounding my purple rectangle. When I want to learn something, I send inquiries out along one or more of those arrowed lines to gather information that relates to what I am researching. Visualization and seeing how things connect and are related is used heavily to filter out my queries for the information that fits. My environment and what is available to me through it and the digital-culture I live in provide me with these available information resources. The little lines with arrows — my connections to my world – are what link me to my learning resources.

This is in essence connectivism, and although it does not completely explain every way I learn, it definitely explains a great deal about the way I learn and where my available information lies.

Resources found for Brain & Learning, Information Processing Theories, and Problem-solving Methods During the Learning Process

 

This week, I’ve been researching websites or online journals available that relate to

 

The Brain and Learning

 Information Processing Theory

 Problem-solving Methods During the Learning Process

 

WEBSITE: EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY INTERACTIVE

 I found an excellent website – Educational Psychology Interactive –  from Dr. William G. Huitt of Valdosta State University’s Department of Psychology and Counseling.  

 

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/

 

This is an excellent resource for not only the 3 topics listed above, but for many more. A look at the “topics” link in the middle of the main page, reveals 84 topics from 4MAT system of instruction and Academic Learning Time (ALT) to Teacher efficacy/expectations and Values. Dr. Huitt gives valuable reference citations for further research in each of his online articles, sometimes with overviews of these readings as seen on his page titled “Brain & Biology” where he states that Bruno Dubuc’s website on “The Brain from Top to Bottom” gives “an excellent overview of the brain in an interactive format.”

 Selecting a topic of interest from the Topics list, and then clicking the Internet Resources link at the bottom of the page, will produce yet another listing of links to use for more reading. So the Educational Psychology Interactive website is not only a valuable resource in itself, but it is also a great “jumping off point” for further research and readings.

 

JOURNAL: MIND, BRAIN & EDUCATION

 Through Walden University Library’s A-Z E-Journal List, I found an interesting journal titled “Mind, Brain & Education.” This journal is published by Wiley-Blackwell is the creation of the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society. This journal combines educators and researchers to collaborate and integrate their knowledge, research, theory, and practice as it is related to fields related to the mind, brain, and education. There are many more topics that the 3 that I am researching as listed above, but by using the search feature of the library’s database and filtering for the journal name and a desired subject, such as problem-solving, one can find a variety of thought-provoking articles.

 One article I found is from Mind, Brain & Education’s June 2008 edition titled, “Learning as problem design versus problem solving: making the connection between cognitive neuroscience research and education practice.” This article by Jason L. Ablin references a study done on two students and how allowing those students to create problems to solve to achieve a learning objective was more effective than the instructor creating problems for the students to solve. This is because by the students creating the problem to solve the students in using already constructed knowledge to create new knowledge. This uses the student’s already established strengths to solve the problem rather than using the teacher’s strengths and makes the learning process more individualistic for the student. The article points out that teachers learn more about a subject by creating the learning materials (or problems to solve) than they previously knew and that this creation of problems firmly cements the knowledge in the mind.

 

SUMMARY OF THE TWO RESROUCES FOUND

 Whereas the journal may not be a ready-made resource for the beginner to learn basics, it gives interesting and valuable insight into what practioners and researchers are finding in the field on a higher level of the subject of education. I can see where it would make interesting reading to stimulate further thought and possible lend hand to give topics for paper writing or further research.

 The website I mention above, however, I can see myself using as a daily resource while learning instructional design and technology, especially in regard to:

 

The Brain and Learning

 Information Processing Theory

 Problem-solving Methods During the Learning Process

 

Thanks for visiting. Please let me know what you think of these two resources and how you think they will help you in your learning and research.

Pam D.

Other Resources

I have explored several blogs and resource sites on instructional design as a part of my first master’s class. I have to confess that I got a little carried away as I tend to do with all of my research for school or work. Research has always been a passion for me. I won’t even tell you how much time I spent in the stacks of the university where I work when my office was on the second floor of the university library. It was like putting the office of a compulsive gambler in a casino.

The assignment called for only three examples of sites that I am to bookmark, give a brief overview of (with embedded hyperlinks), and thoughtfully critique the usefulness of and how the site might serve as an ongoing resource as I work in the instructional design field. I found a wealth of material, and it was hard to pare it down to just three, but I managed with much lip chewing and vacillation.

IDOS – INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN OPEN STUDIO

The first site I’ll talk about is IDOS, which stands for Instructional Design Open Studio. It can be found at:

http://id.ome.ksu.edu/blog/2006/feb/13/welcome_to_instructional_design_open_studio_idos/

This site is run by three instructional designers from the Mediated Education office of Kansas State University.  I feel more comfortable with a site that has people behind it working in the field and as a bonus work for a university since a university environment is where I plan to use my knowledge in this area of study. The site welcomes, but does not guarantee the use of, postings from faculty, staff, and Instructional Design practitioners. The fact that this implies some sort of “culling process” and does not just allow any type of codswallop onto the site while not ruling out differing viewpoints is also attractive to me as a resource for information and dialogue about the field.

Blog postings are categorized in 31 different categories from accessibility to virtual skills. Postings span back to 2006. The site also announces “IDT Roundtables” which are live discussions held at a particular date and time on specific topics through the Kansas State University’s web server. I found no archives of past discussions, but there are handouts available for some roundtables with links to other useful sites and the credentials of the speakers. I anticipate using this site in the future for reference and information and hopefully I can post useful information there in the near future.

MERLOT

Another site is the MERLOT project site which can be found at http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm . The MERLOT project is a cooperative project to share:

• Learning materials
• Colleague interactions
• Personal collections
• Learning exercises to use in your own classrooms or trainings
• Guest expert talks
• JOLT – the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching

The site does not have a blog per se, but it does have many blogs referenced in articles and under its Material Detail tab. One such blog is financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com. One of the things that drew me to this site is that MERLOT was started by California State University – my employer. My hope is to one day either be a part of the project or to be able to contribute to it in some way. The concept of this type of “shareware for educators” is a one I feel very excited about.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN CENTRAL

The final resource I’m reviewing is Instructional Design Central which can be found at http://instructionaldesigncentral.com . This site is more of a reference than a blog although it does have several forums lists. The site provides access to:

• Instructional Designer resources
• Information
• Learning opportunities
• Community services

Part of the information provided includes job listings; where instructional design degrees can be obtained; conference listings; design sites, definitions, history, models, and forums. The site is well organized and has informative content with links for more research. Much of the content is backed by people who are in the field and many of the reference material links have an “.edu” ending, which gives some initial validity to what is being said.

CONCLUSION

I will be able to use all of these sites as sources of information about instructional design for not only my research for the classes I am taking but as resources for materials on classes I will create. I invite you to visit these sites and discover what you think and hopefully they will be useful to you and whatever interest you have in Instructional Design and Technology as well.

Thanks for taking the time to visit. Feel free to comment on this or any other aspect of Instructional Design and Technology you’d like to discuss.

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