Understanding the learning theories and learning styles has been quite a fascination for me. This course has provided a wealth of knowledge that allowed me to gain a better understanding of the field of instructional design. In this paper, I wish to address a few points of interest for me regarding this course.
What did you find surprising or striking as you furthered your knowledge about how people learn?
When I first read through the description for this course, I felt that it would be of great interest to me in understanding how people learn. I was not disappointed. One of the things that I learned is that people can relate to more than just one learning theory. Each learner can learn using a combination of different learning theories. Each student possesses different types of intellectual capacities – one person may learn one way and another person may learn in a completely different way. This was definitely interesting to me when there are so many different learning theorists out there that focus on defining the learner.
Can you believe that there are so many learning theories and different variations of each? During my readings for this class and my own personal research, there are a handful of main learning theories, but there are many more variations of the same learning theory. My own personal opinion is that learning theorists are trying to define each learner; however, through their research, they tend to define another variation.
How has this course deepened your understanding of your personal learning process?
This course has provided great clarity in understanding my personal learning process. I understood how I learned and what I needed to retain the most information while learning; however, through this course, I have been able to better define how I learn. I am an independent learner, a cognitive learner. This is the method in which I learn effectively and retain the most information possible. As a cognitive learner, I have a tendency to focus on my previous experience and learnings to determine how to proceed in any given situation.
What have you learned regarding the connection between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology and motivation?
There is a deep connection between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation. Learning theories and learning styles assist in understanding how a student, or any person, learns. Learning styles helps us to understand that each person learns differently depending on how you learn or the method by which instruction is designed. Educational technology is a tool to help people learn. Technology allows for students to have the ability to perform research online, pursue online degrees from the comfort of your own home, and allows for the ability to prepare and submit written assignments for face-to-face and online classrooms. In order to continue to have the interest to learn, you need to be thoroughly motivated. This is the link between the learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation. It all focuses on the ability of a student to learn and use the proper tools to stay motivated and retain the most information.
How will your learning in this course help you as you further your career in the field of instructional design?
Gaining an understanding of learning theories will definitely help me within the field of instructional design. How does one know the audience that they are designing instruction for if they don’t understand how students learn? I believe that understanding the learner will help to design instruction that will create the most impact on each individual learner.
In conclusion, understanding learning theories is important to the field of instructional design and understanding how each individual student learn, whether face-to-face or online. In addition to now knowing how to create blogs, this course has been enlightening. I knew how I learned, but I didn’t really consider how other people learn. This course has provided the clarity I needed to move forward in the field of instructional design.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Technology AND Instruction
So, I'm into Week 7 of my course, "Learning Theories and Instruction". It has been an eye-opener of a course and I have learned a lot about learning theories and the impact on Instructional Design.
Now that I have a deeper understanding of the different learning theories and learning styles, my view on how I learn has not changed. I still belive that I am an independent learner. Online learning has truly helped my ability to learn effectively and retain the most information possible. However, now I'm able to define the learning theory that most defines my type of learning -- cognitive theory. I have a tendency to focus on my previous experiences and learnings to determien how to proceed in any given case. This has definitely been the one major learning achievement from this course.
For this course, I had to prepare a Learning Theory Matrix. This assignment allowed me to analyze the learning theories that exist and has provided a greater understanding of how my own personal learning skills were developed. With the Learning Theory Matrix, I learned about six different learning theories -- behaviorist, cognitive, constructivist, social learning, connectivist, and adult learning theory. Learning about these specific theories has helped me to understand a little bit more about my own learning abilities. One of the things that I learned is that people can relate to more than just one selective learning theory. For instance, I tend to lean more towards the cognitive, behaviorist, and adult learning theories. In the cognitive theory, learners tend to be problem solvers and use a lot of reasoning skills. In the behaviorist theory, learners tend to focus on learning through the use of positive or negative reinforcement, thereby allowing me to understand what I'm learning through learned behavior and repeated experiences. With the adult learning theory, learners tend to learn through real-life experiences. I guess this is one of the reasons that students pursuing masters degree are those who have had some work experience related or unrelated to the particular field that they are pursuing. Although I already understood the way in which I learn, I do believe that analyzing the learning theories and learning styles has revealed to me that I didn't know about before. Sometimes, you tend to only focus on your own world and don't realize what other people do or, in this case, learn.
Technology plays a great role in my learning, through my undergraduate and now my graduate program. Technology allows me the ability to perform research online, pursue my undergraduate and graduate degree from the comfort of my home, and even to prepare written assignments, presentations, and diagrams for online courses.
Now that I have a deeper understanding of the different learning theories and learning styles, my view on how I learn has not changed. I still belive that I am an independent learner. Online learning has truly helped my ability to learn effectively and retain the most information possible. However, now I'm able to define the learning theory that most defines my type of learning -- cognitive theory. I have a tendency to focus on my previous experiences and learnings to determien how to proceed in any given case. This has definitely been the one major learning achievement from this course.
For this course, I had to prepare a Learning Theory Matrix. This assignment allowed me to analyze the learning theories that exist and has provided a greater understanding of how my own personal learning skills were developed. With the Learning Theory Matrix, I learned about six different learning theories -- behaviorist, cognitive, constructivist, social learning, connectivist, and adult learning theory. Learning about these specific theories has helped me to understand a little bit more about my own learning abilities. One of the things that I learned is that people can relate to more than just one selective learning theory. For instance, I tend to lean more towards the cognitive, behaviorist, and adult learning theories. In the cognitive theory, learners tend to be problem solvers and use a lot of reasoning skills. In the behaviorist theory, learners tend to focus on learning through the use of positive or negative reinforcement, thereby allowing me to understand what I'm learning through learned behavior and repeated experiences. With the adult learning theory, learners tend to learn through real-life experiences. I guess this is one of the reasons that students pursuing masters degree are those who have had some work experience related or unrelated to the particular field that they are pursuing. Although I already understood the way in which I learn, I do believe that analyzing the learning theories and learning styles has revealed to me that I didn't know about before. Sometimes, you tend to only focus on your own world and don't realize what other people do or, in this case, learn.
Technology plays a great role in my learning, through my undergraduate and now my graduate program. Technology allows me the ability to perform research online, pursue my undergraduate and graduate degree from the comfort of my home, and even to prepare written assignments, presentations, and diagrams for online courses.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Connectivism
My network is made up of all of the people and things that impact me everyday -- family, friends, career, and education. My family and friends have always driven me to continue my education and have driven a lot of my motivation along the years. They have shown me the importance of continuing my education throughout the years. As a child, my mother and grandparents provided me with learning tools, i.e. toy computers, interactive books, so that I can learn everything that I needed to learn. This has made me the hands-on learner that I have become as an adult. Due to being raised as such a hands-on learner, it is tough for me to withstand the lectures and speeches involved in traditional classrooms.
The digital tools that best facilitate learning for me has been tools such as podcasts, YouTube how-to videos, ebooks, and blogs. These have been the tools that I have used and they have helped me to learn and helped me in understanding and comprehending more than I believe I would learn in the traditional classroom.
I gain new knowledge when I have questions by doing research online or at the library and hoping to locate information that I would be able to grasp the concept. At Walden, there are a lot of resources available to learn. In addition to the professor and fellow students, the Walden library is a great resource for doing research.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Neuroscience and Information Processing...Week 2
In order to understand how a person learns, you must understand how the brain works. This is an interest of mine as I've always wondered what makes the mind tick...what is necessary to make you brain work and why does everyone learn differently.
I reviewed several websites and online journals in the hopes of answering this question.
Orginisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
This website is a great read for those interested in the workings of the brain and how people learn. A center known as the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) focuses on understanding how students of all age learn. They developed a project, known as the "Brain and Learning" project, which allows the center to understand the learning processes of a person throughout their life. It took 7 years to complete, but once completed, they were able to publish a publication on their findings, "Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science". If you are interested, you should definitely take the time to read through the findings. It is really intriguing.
Learning and Problem Solving as an Iterative Process: Learner's Living Repository (LEAR)
This article is very interesting. It focuses on a learning repository that utilizes problem-solving techniques to solve issues in the working environment. It allows for a forum to create ways to ensure that learning and problem-solving occurs in the workplace.
I reviewed several websites and online journals in the hopes of answering this question.
Orginisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
This website is a great read for those interested in the workings of the brain and how people learn. A center known as the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) focuses on understanding how students of all age learn. They developed a project, known as the "Brain and Learning" project, which allows the center to understand the learning processes of a person throughout their life. It took 7 years to complete, but once completed, they were able to publish a publication on their findings, "Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science". If you are interested, you should definitely take the time to read through the findings. It is really intriguing.
Learning and Problem Solving as an Iterative Process: Learner's Living Repository (LEAR)
This article is very interesting. It focuses on a learning repository that utilizes problem-solving techniques to solve issues in the working environment. It allows for a forum to create ways to ensure that learning and problem-solving occurs in the workplace.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Introduction and Historical Perspectives...Week 1
Honestly, I knew nothing about Instructional Design before I started attending Walden University. But I did know that I wanted to get involved in education and training. Once I read through some websites and the information on Walden, I knew that Instructional Design was the perfect fit.
When I was doing my research, here are some of the sites that I reviewed:
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/
This website contains a wealth of information related to Instructional Design. It provides a clear definition of instructional design, which helped me tremendously in moving forward with my decision to pursue a career in this field. There are also a list of recommended books related to instructional design and focuses on the biographies of some notable instructional designs from the present and the past. This was possibly my favorite website to review as it had all the information I've needed all in one website.
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/InstructionalDesign.htm
This website also provides information on Instructional Design, but to a completely different level. It provides a very detailed definition of instructional design in a way that anyone can determine how it relates to them. It also provides an understanding of the different learning methods and opens up the idea of what Instructional Design is all about.
http://www.cogsim.com/idea/idea/isd.htm
This website was a simplified method by which to provide an understanding of Instructional Design. In my perspective, it provided ann answer to many of the questions that I had about the concept of instructional design.
I also reviewed the following blogs and websites recently:
http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-learn.htm
This website provides an interesting spin on the entire concept of instructional design. The website focuses on learning theorists and their theories. But it also provides numerous texts to reference some key understandings of the concept.
http://instructionaldesignblog.blogspot.com/
I truly enjoyed reading this blog. It gave me everything that I was looking for to get an answer as to why I should decide to pursue this field. I wish I found it prior to doing research for this course. Lauren Pressley (the blog writer) was in the same shoes that I was in, trying to determine if this is the field for me and wondering if this is really what I wanted to get myself into. Lauren submitted multiple posts on instrcutional design and information literacy, which provides a wealth of resources to research into this field further.
When I was doing my research, here are some of the sites that I reviewed:
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/
This website contains a wealth of information related to Instructional Design. It provides a clear definition of instructional design, which helped me tremendously in moving forward with my decision to pursue a career in this field. There are also a list of recommended books related to instructional design and focuses on the biographies of some notable instructional designs from the present and the past. This was possibly my favorite website to review as it had all the information I've needed all in one website.
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/InstructionalDesign.htm
This website also provides information on Instructional Design, but to a completely different level. It provides a very detailed definition of instructional design in a way that anyone can determine how it relates to them. It also provides an understanding of the different learning methods and opens up the idea of what Instructional Design is all about.
http://www.cogsim.com/idea/idea/isd.htm
This website was a simplified method by which to provide an understanding of Instructional Design. In my perspective, it provided ann answer to many of the questions that I had about the concept of instructional design.
I also reviewed the following blogs and websites recently:
http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-learn.htm
This website provides an interesting spin on the entire concept of instructional design. The website focuses on learning theorists and their theories. But it also provides numerous texts to reference some key understandings of the concept.
http://instructionaldesignblog.blogspot.com/
I truly enjoyed reading this blog. It gave me everything that I was looking for to get an answer as to why I should decide to pursue this field. I wish I found it prior to doing research for this course. Lauren Pressley (the blog writer) was in the same shoes that I was in, trying to determine if this is the field for me and wondering if this is really what I wanted to get myself into. Lauren submitted multiple posts on instrcutional design and information literacy, which provides a wealth of resources to research into this field further.
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