Not so joyful start to my Distance Education course

Well, I totally missed the application assignment when it was due.  Thanks to one of my fellow colleagues, I received an email reminder that I was missing information for my classmates to complete their assignments.  Boy, this won't happen again :(  My apologies to everyone for the tardiness of this blog.

Final Leg! Learning Theories Reflection Paper

As I began the course on Learning Theories and Instruction, I was mistakenly under the impression that I already knew the basics, and that this course would just enhance the information that I already had acquired through my undergrad studies in Elementary Education.  Plus, the department I work in is the Education Department, so I felt as though I had gained some further insight in the projects and teaching in which I have been involved.  As I read in week two, the “nurturance of learning and cognitive growth must be a long-term enterprise,” (Ormrod, Schunk, & Gredler, 2009, p. 46), and I continually find this to be true in my pursuit of this Masters degree. To reflect more accurately the journey that I have taken, I looked back through my discussion postings and tried to consolidate my thoughts though these eight weeks.

In growing older and acquiring more experience, I have come to the realization that not everyone thinks or learns as I do.  What I found striking while traveling through this subject matter is that there is much more complexity in how people learn than what I understood at the beginning of the course.  This includes how I perceived my learning to occur.

What I remember from my college days is that the focus was on cognitive and behavior theories of learning.  Wow, there are so many more theories to integrate into instruction!  My personal learning experience is not just memorizing the facts, but involves social constructivism, as well as connectivism (Ertmer & Newby, 1993) (Davis, Edmunds, & Kelly-Bateman, 2008).  I especially appreciated the self-direction and internal motivation qualities of the Adult Learning theory (Conlan, Grabowski, & Smith, 2003) as it relates to my personal learning process.

I will again mention the term complexity in regarding the connection between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation.  Just the volume of subject matter and research in each category suggests complexity, but then the teacher has to consider the learner as well.  One perspective that struck a chord with me in week five was no one theory trumps another in the teaching and learning experience (Fenwick & Tennant, 2004, p. 55).  In week six our focus was on learning styles, and we read that unless the instruction is one-on-one, the provision of material needs to be comprehensive to meet the styles of as many learners as possible (Gilbert & Swanier, 2008, p. 30).  Another facet to the learner is the multiple intelligences theory.  I encourage the reader to explore this theory by searching for Howard Gardner as his thoughts and research are fascinating.

The learning in this course has been most valuable in furthering my instructional design career.  The depictions of learning with the use of technology were so inspiring on the Edutopia website (http://www.edutopia.org).  This is another resource I would recommend the reader to explore further.  I can peruse the writings and ideas that have been provided in the various blogs and other resources to accomplish using available technology and information to maximize the learner experience.  In this way I can hopefully use technology in meaning-making training (Davis, Edmunds, & Kelly-Bateman, 2008).

The plethora of resources coupled with the knowledge and guidance of the professor are invaluable in my learning experience at Walden University.  And I can’t neglect the fact that without the expertise and insight shared by my peers in this journey, the learning would not be as complete.  I am thankful for the material that I have gained, and look forward to using it in the future, as I’m sure I did not obtain the fullness of information that it contains in the eight weeks of this leg of my journey.

References: 

Conlan, J., Grabowski, S., & Smith, K. (2003). Adult learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology.

Davis, C., Edmunds, E., & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2008). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology

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.

Foley, G. (Ed.). (2004). Dimensions of adult learning: Adult education and training in a global era. McGraw-Hill Education. Chapter 4, "Understanding Adult Learners" by Tara Fenwick and Mark Tennant.

Gilbert, J., & Swanier, C. (2008). Learning styles: How do they fluctuate? Institute for Learning Styles Journal [Vol. l].

Kim, B. (2001). Social constructivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology.

Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M. (2009). Learning Theories and Instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York:  Pearson.

Journeying through learning theories with Walden University

The journey through learning theories began early January, 2013.  It is my second course with the goal of having a Master's degree in Instructional Design and Technology.  At the end of seven weeks into the course, I now have the pleasure of looking back to week one, thereby seeing where the readings, blog postings and video resources have altered my initial view on what my preferences might be.

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.

Walden University Week 2 Searching for Information Processing Theory and Problem-Solving Methods

Once again, the overwhelming amount of information about pretty much anything one could hope to learn threatens to shut my search engine down.  The assignment this week - well, one of them, anyway - was to locate resources about the following topics:  the brain and learning, information processing theory, and problem-solving methods during the learning process.  The first topic is of much interest to me, but I felt as if the resources already listed for the week covered that area.  I therefore chose to look into the other two topics.
I found a very interesting and thorough site on Information Processing Theory: http://www.education.com/reference/article/information-processing-theory/  .  I appreciate clarity and simplicity in learning communication, and this site demonstrated both, and was visually pleasing in font and design choices.  The organization was clear as was the information given.  There were references listed at the end for further gleaning.  The content was descriptive of the information processing model, and also gave implications and strategies for instruction.  I highly recommend giving this site a viewing if this topic interests you.
When I searched for Problem-Solving Methods, several results were listed.  I looked at a couple of the sites, and found this gem:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/sde.htm#top2 .  Although this site also exhibited the simplicity and clarity I value, it isn't quite as eye-catching as some other views.  The information was compiled and presented by Dr. Craig Rusbult as part of his PhD process, and he describes strategies for learning as well as tips on design.  To receive the plethora of information that he gives, one could navigate for hours through the links on the various pages.  If you wish to review a specific topic, the front menu is very helpful.  One of the discussions and information sharing was about the Integrated Design Method (IDM) and Integrated Scientific Method (ISM).  Both are described as flexible and not rigid systems.  The IDM is a "roadmap that shows possibilities for creatively rational wandering," and ISM is a "way to understand structured improvisation, guided by goals."  Sounds interesting, yes?  I also appreciated his definition of a problem as any situation one can make a difference in or that one can make better.  This site also includes clear descriptions of theories and teaching strategies.

Why Joyful Journey?

When I first discovered that I needed to create a blog for my course of study, I realized that a name needed to be chosen.  How does one come up with a name?  Well, first of all, my sister has a marvelous blog based on her middle name, which is Grace.  Her postings reflect that theme, and they are more meaningful because of the underlying topic.  Second, my middle name is Joy, and I try to incorporate that into all aspects of my life.  There are so many single moments of joy in my journey, but my belief is that my Creator wants me to be in a constant state of joy.  I hope to continue the documentation of my journey much longer than the requirements of the class, and I hope to instill some level of joy into those who read/journey with me.

Walden University Week 1 Learning Theories and Instruction

My journey so far has not included searching and utilizing the blogging network.  This week, I have ventured into several blogs and seen varied content, as well as the magnitude of learning I can receive from this source.

As the video on blogs and the video on RSS feeds describe, there are tens of thousands of blogs that one can view.  I tried to narrow my search to technology tips and skill sharing.

One blog that I viewed is found at this link:
educationtechnologyguy.blogspot.com
The author has set up a very easy to navigate site that includes organizational tips as well as technology downloads and advice.

There were several sites in the Edublog link that I will definitely peruse in the future, but were rather overwhelming to someone who has not ventured too far into complex multimedia technology.   Other blogs were rather personal and specifically spoke to the writer's own journey.  I found many, although skillfully designed and visually appealing, did not speak to my needs as a learner in Instructional Design.

larryferlazzo.edublogs.org was a blog that dealt with much feedback on different learning theories and styles of teaching.  I will be able to develop my cognitive aspect of design by incorporating some of the research listed on his blog.

Another blog that I would love to explore is professorjosh.wordpress.com.  His writings seem to explore the relationship between the online student and instructor in various venues.  How to make the most of the environments for the benefit of the learner is very important to me in my future designing.

Beginning

So...another step in the journey toward a Master's in Instructional Design and Technology has been taken.  I have created a blog.  Hopefully, this will be the beginning of many posts to come and the recording of an awesome journey of learning and adventure!