Learning Theories
My goal for this course is to prepare myself and help other teachers with the transition to blended and online learning environments. I have a master’s in Education and 15 years of experience teaching, so I know a lot about learning theory from my training and continuing professional development. For example:
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set a purpose and spark interest
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activate prior knowledge and curiosity
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use objectives and essential questions
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build vocabulary and reading/writing/research skills
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deliver instruction with modeling
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provide scaffolding and differentiation while moving from guided to individual practice
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focus on higher-level thinking and college/career readiness
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give formative and summative assessment with feedback
I’m taking this course because I have a lot of questions about how this translates to an online environment and/or to professional development for adult learners.
(1) How can online learning create meaningful interactions and build relationships between teachers and students, especially for students with different needs and abilities?
(2) How can we use new technologies to help give learners more frequent/timely feedback that is also specific, personalized, and conducive to the growth we are hoping to see in regards to knowledge and skill development?
Personal Learning Experiences
How do personal learning experiences in your life relate to learning theory?
Elementary School Example
In elementary school, the AG students spent one day a week at a special site for enrichment. We were learning about historical artifacts and archaeology from an AG specialist teacher who worked full-time teaching a certain age group at this site. We had some introductory instruction in the classroom, but the majority of the unit was an actual archaeological dig outside with an inspection/reflection of the artifacts we found. The site was in an older downtown area, so she did have to “plant” artifacts making it authentic. We did this not to learn about the specific history of this site, but to experience how social scientists gather artifacts/data/evidence and draw conclusions about the culture/past from them.
University Example
In my graduate school course on teaching methods, my professor/mentor would always design the lesson using some of the methods he wanted us to learn. So if we read an article on pedagogy for homework, he would have us come in and use carousel brainstorming in small groups to analyze and present conclusions/questions to the whole class. Afterwards, we would have a post-mortem about the method we had just used as learners to reflect on the strengths/weaknesses of the methods and how we might use it as teachers. Then, we would come back to the larger topic of pedagogy and write an exit-slip to summarize the big take-away. We were learning this skill in preparation for our student teaching experience the following semester; therefore, we were highly motivated because the stakes were very high and our “test” with real students was coming soon.
Professional Setting Example
I was part of a three-year training program that focused on four teachers from each school who could then lead PD sessions for the teachers at their school. The leader was a representative of Discovery Ed hired by our school district, who also used to be a teacher and administrator. We met about 6 days a year for 3 years. We learned the information through demonstrations, group discussions, and being given time to create something for our class while asking for help from the instructor. Though she was always incorporating the Discovery Ed product, the overall focus ended up being integrated teaching methods using a wide variety of products and techniques. The goal was for us to learn these new methods, test them out in our classrooms, redeliver the training to our faculty, and give feedback to the district.
Overview and Comparison
