In the first week, the focus was on behaviorial, cognitive and constructive theories (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). My discussion posting stated, "I relate more with the behaviorist philosophy, but agree with the constructivist blending of the styles as well." Ensuing weeks provided information on social learning, connectivism and adult learning. We reviewed several articles out of the University of Georgia that provided consistent information about most of the theories and how they might be implemented into instructional opportunities. The insight provided was quite valuable, and if you have access to them (and have the interest in theory) I would strongly recommend that you review the content.
One tidbit of wisdom I gained was that different theories fit with various developmental seasons regarding our own learning styles. A younger learner might benefit more from behaviorist principles (providing response to behavior), while the cognitive theories a little later in development obviously focus on how the mind can be further stimulated to process and retain information. We move on to more social interaction in our formal learning, and end up in an adult learning world where our motivation is rooted more internally.
But wait, you might be wondering where technology fits in all of these learning theories? Each week, there were different resources we were encouraged to use, including this blog and a RSS feed. The spotlight in the seventh week was emerging capability available for instructional environments. I was pleasantly encouraged by the fact that the technology that was portrayed was functional and readily obtainable for teaching and learning.
Some examples of these trends were found in the Horizon Report, another interesting resource for teaching. Mobiles, Cloud Computing, Geo-Everything, the Personal Web, Semantic-Aware Applications and Smart Objects were the focus of this report. Please use your own web-searching ability and look up some of these opportunities. The short titles do not reveal the extensive branches that make up these technological resources. My classmates expressed several ideas for use of these trends, and I will definitely use them for research and adult learning enhancements.
I have listed a couple of the sources we could access through the University. I encourage all of you to use these marvelous tools to enrich and accessorize your journey.
References:
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.
Johnson, L., Levine, A., & Smith, R. (2009).
The Horizon Report (2009 ed.). Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium.
