Thank you for sharing your thoughts on reducing barriers to learning success while learning about common species of trees in British Columbia. I can imagine how engaging a nature walk would be to many young learners. At the same time, you are right that some learners might not be able to do a walk due to access or mobility challenges. I also wonder if these same trees would be in all areas of B.C. The alternative accesses to information you describe seem like good options. I particularly like the virtual walk, which would allow students to still observe leaves and cones in the context of a larger environment and give students some control over their point of view, allowing them to turn leaves over, etc.
Along with providing options for access to content, you have created choices for building and demonstrating knowledge. Thank you for sharing your thoughtful design. I enjoyed reading about it.
Thank you for sharing your reflections on Experiential Learning. This is yet another way of giving students the opportunity to actively engage with their learning and make better meaning of the knowledge and skills they acquire.
I agree that there is nothing like experience to really understand the impact of following a bad diet. It seems to me a key idea to experiment with these in a “controlled, reflective context,” as you note in your fourth paragraph. In order to avoid putting students in situations where they are causing their bodies lasting harm, I wonder what kinds of controlled exercises could be proposed to illustrate the the incorrectness and, sometimes, dangers of some of the myths that can be found on social media.
Ethan, thank you for sharing your research and experience with open pedagogy. I am very interested in the structure of your schooling where you got the opportunity to engage deeply in your learning interests. It must have been wonderful to have such strong ownership of your learning. When transitioning to a more traditional high school model, what did you find difficult?
I agree that health and diet is very personal, requiring some trial and error. I like your idea of integrating student-generated content, and developing peer-reviewed meal plans aligns with Design Thinking as well. Let’s talk!
Conrad, thank you for sharing your thoughts and findings on Inquiry-Based Learning. I agree that inquiry-based learning promotes a deeper understanding since learners are actively engaged in seeking and evaluating answers to their questions, taking information apart, and putting back together into something new. Thank you for sharing external sources to explore as well – so that we can do our own inquiry based learning!
The topic of health and wellness does present an opportunity for students to explore the wealth of misinformation available. Open-ended investigation of diet myths and social media trends, compared with evidence from trustworthy sources, might surprise quite a few learners. This is especially powerful when we think back to the video from a few weeks ago where learners had trouble learning new information about force directions just from being told and really needed to wrestle with the misconceptions they had.
Thank you for sharing your investigation into the Inquiry Approach of instruction. It seems that the process of inquiry as you outline it encourages students to learn deeply whatever their interests may be and share what they learn with others. Since you have chosen the topic of your Learning Design Blueprint and provided resources and structured tests, would you say that your alignment is with early-stage inquiry-based learning? It is an intriguing approach to teaching and bound to motivate students to follow their curiosity to learn more!
I enjoyed the connections you made in this blog post, Kate. Your journey of learning Spanish illustrates very well the different lenses of behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism. I can see how memorization of vocabulary and rules would be limiting. It sounds like the lack of support for learning beyond facts contributed to your lack of confidence at the time. I’m curious if your search for more engaging ways to learn influenced your teacher’s cognitive approach or if their approach and your need was a happy coincidence? Or perhaps, this evolution of need is anticipated by teachers as learners reach a particular point in language learning? In any case, it is clear that the move to cognitive and constructivist approaches allowed you to take your learning to a level where the language was useful for communication. How brave you have to be to put yourself into these situations where you must make many mistakes in order to learn from them.
Integration of the approaches as you describe it for your high school social studies class makes a great deal of sense. As you found from your experience, the foundational knowledge gives a student knowledge and ideas to connect and apply, but the opportunity to make those real world and personal connections is so important to engagement. Would you use a similar structure for an elementary class? Does the level of learning affect how you would balance the approaches?
In the blog post, “Overcoming Challenges in a New Professional Role,” Conrad describes his experience adapting to his first job requiring his training in first aid and CPR. He talks about the power of learning with the constructivist approach, in which he performs in real situations, gets feedback from a colleague, and applies the learning to new situations. He also talks about applying information he has learned from studying principles and procedures using behaviourist and constructivist approaches of learning.
I can really see the progression of learning through this description of your experience, Conrad. As in the class readings, you note the difference in approaches, from behaviourist during practice and with repeated exposure, to constructivist, where you utilize higher thinking skills as you solve unique problems in real situations. I think you made an important observation when you drew on the things you learned with behaviourist and cognitivist approaches in order to support your ability to learn more in a constructivist approach. We really cannot rely on one approach for everything, can we? I am curious, because you mention both behaviourism and cognitivism, but give an example only for behaviourist learning, in what ways did cognitivist learning play a part in your training?
It sounds like the learning in your constructivist phase of this experience was more challenging and a bit disquieting. Having those answers or solutions that we, as learners, can identify as definitely right or wrong makes us feel safe. But, as you said, exploring the grey areas where we look at things we can do better or worse allows us to gain deeper understanding and a different kind of confidence. Now that you have that richer understanding, do you still find yourself ever going back to relying on the memorized knowledge you gained?
What are some other examples of situations where you think combining learning strategies is applicable?
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