The past three weeks of this GDLT have seen me engage in learning theories and tools that I otherwise might not have contemplated or discussed. Overcoming the stumbling blocks of fulfilling a wiki activity has been enlightening and given me a sense of achievement.
The profile wiki activity was my beginners introduction to wikis. I found that having access to other's profiles very helpful for further activities thus allowing Connectivism (Siemens,2004), to play a relative role. This Connectivism theory has enabled a realisation of exactly how much I rely on gathering information from outer digital sources to supplement and advance my knowledge and learning practices. In today's digital age of learning, and speaking in the context of Connectivism, it is not so much the know-how or what that is priority, but where you are going to find the information. This is definitely, I feel, a key to teaching successfully in today's ICT enveloped era.
Only for a very small part I believe Behaviourism (Gredler, 2001) still exists in learning, however I only see this being effective in the P-3 years. For the years after this mentioned age group, I feel learners need more than praise to keep them engaged. An example of keeping myself engaged while learning was partaking in the Learning Theory Wiki. Undoubtedly if this task had not required collaboration and reporting digitally, I would have found it to be another long winded and lonely reading. Because this activity was conducted in a new and interesting format I was instantly connected, with the connectivity not stopping there. To be knowledgeable in other learners assigned readings, their wikis had to be accessed, therefore more connections were being made. I was able to relate this activity not only to Connectivism but also the Constructivist Learning Theory through (Modritscher, 2006,7), "The learner is to seek out the knowledge or solve the problem on their own....". Once my personal observations had taken place collaboration began.
The Mobile Phone wiki introduced another new learning tool in the way of De Bonos 6 Thinking Hats (1985). This was an enjoyable task adding to the communal opinion ladder and being able to view everyone's thoughts. Wiki's are definitely an instant way of breaking thinking patterns that have embedded over time. Thoughts and opinions of others suddenly transcended to either alter or amplify my own. Immediate learning occurred when reading other's ideas that hadn't entered my train of thought.
In conclusion I have found the three aforementioned exercises to be of great value to my personal learning. These activities have given me newly developed skills and knowledge to take to my own classroom and pass onto my learners and understand better how they learn. Digital learning relaxes the constraints of traditional methods allowing for creativity and connections to be made with a seemingly endless supply of knowledge to be acquired.
Hi Leandra,
ReplyDeleteGreat comments / reflections!
I am not a great fan of Behaviourism, but concede that it has a very real part in education (and training). My day job sees me working with adult trainees. We use elements of behaviourism learning theory often.
By way of example, last night I watched a UK police / crime TV drama; one character made a rather telling statement. The context was emotional survival in difficult circumstances (and young people at school can have some very difficult circumstances). The TV character said "(we all have a happy place where we go to unwind, mine is my gold fish, someone else cries) We go through the drills and come to work the next day".
Behaviourism applied to a classroom, in the first few moments: getting the students to switch on to this subject and switch off to the last subject / discussion / distraction". Part of that is the 'hook' / 'arousal', which is ... behaviourism. As Prensky said if we do not engage our students we will lose them; and Behaviourism gives us tools to hook them so that Cognitivism and Constructivism practices can be applied.