Week 1 Blog

Learning Theory and first week experiences

Hi there :) Welcome to week 1 of my blog!

This week in E-Learning we were presented with a selection of information relating to various learning experiences and learning styles. As a third year BLM student I had already been exposed to the majority of this information in previous courses. However, I found this a very valuable refresher and even learnt some new information. Before this week I did not realise that there are two different learning style taxonomies- VAK and Fender and Solomon.

I believe that learning about learning styles is an extremely important part of becoming an effective and supportive teacher. To maximise student learning teachers need to be aware that every child is NOT the same. All students have a variety of past experiences, prior knowledge, interests, attitudes, values, beliefs and learning styles. If teachers are unaware of all the different learning styles they will often tend to teach to the learning style that suits themselves best. This means that any student not of the same learning style will often struggle to learn new information. Teachers who are aware of the different learning styles and understand how to teach to each learning style are able to incorporate all the learning styles into their teaching and facilitate all learners.

As a part of this weeks engagement activities I completed two different learning style tests. These tests helped me to realise what sort of learning style I am and what I should do to support my own learning. From the first test it can be seen that I am both an active learner and a reflective learner which means I learn best by taking a moment to enternalise new information and then put it into practice. The test also showed that I am a sensing, verbal and sequential learner. This means that prefer to learn verbally by listening to others and speaking. I also prefer to learn in logical steps rather than focusing on the big picture. I believe that these results are fairly accurate and will assist in improving my study habits.

Fender and Solomon taxonomy

Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences

This weeks moodle block also provided information on a variety of learning theories including behaviourism, cognitivism, social constructivism and connectivism. Each of these theories suggest how learning occurs in a variety of ways. I do not believe that one of these theories are more effective than another but that they are all useful for different circumstances and different curriculum content. One learning theory that i found particularly interesting and had not heard of before this week is connectivism. Basically connectivism involves working with computers and the internet to discover new knowledge. I believe both connectivism and social constructivism are the two learning theories that relate most to this course.

While completing the moodle work and writing this blog I have realised that this term is going to be very full on (however, also interesting and engaging) and I will need to dedicate more time to working with moodle than I have for previous subjects. I believe that the key to this subject will be keeping on top of the work each week so that weeks 6 and 12 will be less stressful. To get a better grasp on this weeks content I have created a mind map with all the content knowledge. Hopefully this can be useful to people reading this and to myself for the future assessment tasks.

This graphic organiser was created on bubbl.us (which I found very useful and quite easy to work)

Overall I have enjoyed participating in the first week of Managing E-Learning. I found the moodle content useful and enjoyed looking at a range of new technologies during the tutorial. I believe that this is a very important subject as technologies in the classroom will be the way of the future and will also allow for greater learning and engagement.

Hope you all enjoyed week 1 :)
Michelle