Week 7 – Motivation

• What is learning?
  
  • Learning can occur when the right motivational factors are involved. I believe attitude plays an active role in intrinsic motivation. Throughout my secondary education and undergraduate work, I was more extrinsically motivated to get good grades. Now in my graduate degree, I feel that I am truly intrinsically motivated to really learn the topics given to me. My attitude has changed because what I am learning is more relevant to help advance my career.
    
• How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?
  
  • I think the ARCS strategy models how we, as teachers, can design effective instruction.
    
    • Attention: Draw and hold through fantasy or curiosity
      
    • Relevance: To daily lives or future careers
      
    • Confidence: Make it challenging, but doable to build confidence
      
    • Satisfaction: Give opportunities to show off work
      

Week 6 – Human Development

• What is learning?
  

  
   

  Piaget theorizes that learning takes place when disequilibrium occurs and either through assimilation or accommodation schemas are developed and equilibrium is acquired through adaptation. This is similar to my original post where I said, "People have preconceptions (usually misconceptions) about how things work because we inherently want to make sense of the world around us. Learning takes place when the preconceptions are changed."
  

  
   

• How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?
  

  In the formal operational stage we, as educators, need to help students learn how to solve problems and be able to articulate that information to others. Also by having them actively solve problems in groups or pairs and asking them for comparisons and explanations. One way I accomplish this is in my classroom when a student has a problem solving a math problem, I will have a peer explain it to them. By doing this, they are learning to work together and the student that is explaining is then required to enter into formal operations by having to explain/articulate how to solve the problem.

Wk 5 – Schema Theory

• What is learning?
  

  Students have preconception and misconceptions about how things work because we inherently want to make sense of the world around us. Learning takes place when preconceptions are changed. This change can take place in many different places and can be caused by many different reasons.
  

  Learning also takes place when something new is introduced and you are able encode it properly to store it in long-term memory. Then be able to retrieve it when proper cues are presented.
  

  Teachers need to help students "learn how to learn." As stated before, students sometimes construct meanings that are faulty or limited. On page 557 of Joseph D. Novak's paper entitled Meaningful Learning: The Essential Factor for Conceptual Change in Limited or Inappropriate Propositional Hierarchies Leading to Empowerment of Learners states that "the construction of new meanings [learning] requires that an individual seeks to integrate new knowledge with existing relevant concepts and propositions in their cognitive structure." Learning happens when we construct new meanings.
  

  As educators, we also need to recognize the role that experience and culture play in building one's knowledge. Experience and culture shape how we interpret given situations that, in turn, affect how we learn.
  

  
   

• How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?
  

  There are many ways learning can be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer:
  

1. Linking new knowledge/information to previous knowledge.
   
   1. Can be accomplished using advanced organizers.    
      
      1. Concept maps
         
      2. Venn Diagrams
         
      3. KWL charts
         
      4. Graphic Organizers
         
      5. T-chart
         
      6. Flow chart
         
      7. Time Line Chart
         
      8. Spider Map
         

2) Motivating students by showing them the usefulness of what they are learning.

3) Using positive reinforcement to motivate students.

4) Using mnemonic devices for learning.

5) Breaking material into "chunks" to aid in processing new information.

 

Using a combination of strategies will be most effective.