rhyl macfarlane's List: Provide Ad Facilitation to Support Learning

• According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.
• There are three ways to eliminate dissonance: (1) reduce the importance of the dissonant beliefs, (2) add more consonant beliefs that outweigh the dissonant beliefs, or (3) change the dissonant beliefs so that they are no longer inconsistent.
• Dissonance occurs most often in situations where an individual must choose between two incompatible beliefs or actions. The greatest dissonance is created when the two alternatives are equally attractive.
• Dissonance theory applies to all situations involving attitude formation and change. It is especially relevant to decision-making and problem-solving
• Consider someone who buys an expensive car but discovers that it is not comfortable on long drives. Dissonance exists between their beliefs that they have bought a good car and that a good car should be comfortable. Dissonance could be eliminated by deciding that it does not matter since the car is mainly used for short trips (reducing the importance of the dissonant belief) or focusing on the cars strengths such as safety, appearance, handling (thereby adding more consonant beliefs). The dissonance could also be eliminated by getting rid of the car, but this behavior is a lot harder to achieve than changing beliefs.

• Principles:

    

  1. Dissonance results when an individual must choose between attitudes and behaviors that are contradictory.

    

  2. Dissonance can be eliminated by reducing the importance of the conflicting beliefs, acquiring new beliefs that change the balance, or removing the conflicting attitude or behavior

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• Knowles' theory of andragogy is an attempt to develop a theory specifically for adult learning. Knowles emphasizes that adults are self-directed and expect to take responsibility for decisions. Adult learning programs must accommodate this fundamental aspect.
• 1) Adults need to know why they need to learn something (2) Adults need to learn experientially, (3) Adults approach learning as problem-solving, and (4) Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.
• andragogy means that instruction for adults needs to focus more on the process and less on the content being taught. Strategies such as case studies, role playing, simulations, and self-evaluation are most useful. Instructors adopt a role of facilitator or resource rather than lecturer or grader.

• Example:

    

  Knowles (1984, Appendix D) provides an example of applying andragogy principles to the design of personal computer training:

    

  1. There is a need to explain why specific things are being taught (e.g., certain commands, functions, operations, etc.)

    

  2. Instruction should be task-oriented instead of memorization -- learning activities should be in the context of common tasks to be performed.

    

  3. Instruction should take into account the wide range of different backgrounds of learners; learning materials and activities should allow for different levels/types of previous experience with computers.

    

  4. Since adults are self-directed, instruction should allow learners to discover things for themselves, providing guidance and help when mistakes are made.

  • Start class with explanation of why we need to learn this. Where it can be used in industry.
    Brief style assessment/project in hand book is good for this method. Task orientation with projects and tutorials good!
    ?Having demonstration, videos, text books, paper, group and individuals activities/learning is good, caters for all aduults

• Principles:

    

  1. Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction.

    

  2. Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for learning activities.

    

  3. Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance to their job or personal life.

    

  4. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented.

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• theoretical framework of Bruner is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge
• instructor and student should engage in an active dialog

  • Might be good for a talkative person/student. What about a shy introvert??
• the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves

• Curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what they have already learned.

    
• theory of instruction should address four major aspects: (1) predisposition towards learning, (2) the ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner, (3) the most effective sequences in which to present material, and (4) the nature and pacing of rewards and punishments.
• Much of the theory is linked to child development research

• Principles:

    

  1. Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn (readiness).

    

  2. Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the student (spiral organization).

    

  3. Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and or fill in the gaps (going beyond the information given).

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• developed by psychologist Howard Gardner, suggests there are at least seven ways that people have of perceiving and understanding the world. Gardner labels each of these ways a distinct “intelligence”–in other words, a set of skills allowing individuals to find and resolve genuine problems they face.

• Is somewhat autonomous from other human capacities

   

  Has a core set of information-processing operations

   

  Has a distinct history in the stages of development we each pass through

   

  Has plausible roots in evolutionary history

   
• • Verbal-Linguistic–The ability to use words and language
   
  • Logical-Mathematical–The capacity for inductive and deductive thinking and reasoning, as well as the use of numbers and the recognition of abstract patterns
   
  • Visual-Spatial–The ability to visualize objects and spatial dimensions, and create internal images and pictures
   
  • Body-Kinesthetic–The wisdom of the body and the ability to control physical motion
   
  • Musical-Rhythmic–The ability to recognize tonal patterns and sounds, as well as a sensitivity to rhythms and beats
   
  • Interpersonal–The capacity for person-to-person communications and relationships
   
  • Intrapersonal–The spiritual, inner states of being, self-reflection, and awareness
• Instruction–Gardner advocates instructional methods that appeal to all the intelligences, including role playing, musical performance, cooperative learning, reflection, visualization, story telling, and so on.

• Assessment–This theory calls for assessment methods that take into account the diversity of intelligences, as well as self-assessment tools that help students understand their intelligences.

   

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• Constructivism is a philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in. Each of us generates our own “rules” and “mental models,” which we use to make sense of our experiences. Learning, therefore, is simply the process of adjusting our mental models to accommodate new experiences.

• There are several guiding principles of constructivism:

   
   
  1. Learning is a search for meaning. Therefore, learning must start with the issues around which students are actively trying to construct meaning.
   
  2. Meaning requires understanding wholes as well as parts. And parts must be understood in the context of wholes. Therefore, the learning process focuses on primary concepts, not isolated facts.
   
  3. In order to teach well, we must understand the mental models that students use to perceive the world and the assumptions they make to support those models.
   
  4. The purpose of learning is for an individual to construct his or her own meaning, not just memorize the “right” answers and regurgitate someone else’s meaning. Since education is inherently interdisciplinary, the only valuable way to measure learning is to make the assessment part of the learning process, ensuring it provides students with information on the quality of their learning.
• it promotes using curricula customized to the students’ prior knowledge. Also, it emphasizes hands-on problem solving.
• onstructivism, educators focus on making connections between facts and fostering new understanding in students. Instructors tailor their teaching strategies to student responses and encourage students to analyze, interpret, and predict information
• onstructivism calls for the elimination of grades and standardized testing. Instead, assessment becomes part of the learning process so that students play a larger role in judging their own progress.

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• A way of using Kolb's learning styles is a  cycle whereby we learn. This is different from Kolb's styles which state that  people have preferred static positions regarding these.

  • Show diagram of the cycle
• Experiencing
• Most experiences are not worth further  movement on the cycle as we are already familiar with them and they need no  further interpretation and hence no need for learning
• Reflecting
• Having experienced something which does not fit well into our current system  of understanding, we then have to stop and think harder about what it really  means. This reflection is typically a series of attempts to fit the experience  to memories and our internal models
• Theorizing
• When we find that we cannot fit what we have experienced into any of our  memories or internal models, then we have to build new models. This theorizing  gives us a possible answer to our puzzling experiences.
• Experimenting
• the next step is to prove it in practice,  either in 'real time' or by deliberate experimentation in some safe arena. If  the model does not work, then we go through the loop again, reflecting on what  happened and either adjusting the model or building a new one.
• help people learn by giving them experiences, helping them reflect and  build internal models, and then giving them the means of trying out those models  to see if they work in practice.

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• David Kolb published  his learning styles model in 1984
• experiential learning theory
• 984 book 'Experiential Learning:  Experience As The Source Of Learning And Development' Kolb acknowledges the  early work on experiential learning by others in the 1900's, including Rogers,  Jung, and Piaget. In turn, Kolb's learning styles model and experiential  learning theory are today acknowledged by academics, teachers, managers and  trainers
• experiential learning theory
• fundamental concepts towards our understanding  and explaining human learning behaviour, and towards helping others to learn
• this process  represents a learning cycle or spiral where the learner 'touches all the  bases', ie., a cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting
• Immediate or concrete experiences lead to observations and reflections. These  reflections are then assimilated (absorbed and translated) into abstract  concepts with implications for action, which the person can actively test and  experiment with, which in turn enable the creation of new experiences.

• Kolb's model therefore works on two levels - a four-stage  cycle:

   
   
  1. Concrete Experience - (CE)
   
  2. Reflective Observation - (RO)
   
  3. Abstract Conceptualization - (AC)
   
  4. Active Experimentation - (AE)
• different people naturally prefer a certain single  different learning style. Various factors influence a person's preferred style

  • amazing
• • Acquisition - birth to adolescence - development of basic abilities  and 'cognitive structures'
   
  • Specialization - schooling, early work and personal experiences of  adulthood - the development of a particular 'specialized learning style' shaped  by 'social, educational, and organizational socialization'
   
  • Integration - mid-career through to later life - expression of  non-dominant learning style in work and personal life.
• Kolb calls 'dialectically related modes'  of 'grasping experience' (doing or watching), and 'transforming experience'  (feeling or thinking):
• Kolb meant by  this that we cannot do both at the same time, and to an extent our urge to want  to do both creates conflict, which we resolve through choice when confronted  with a new learning situation. We internally decide whether we wish to  do or watch, and at the same time we decide whether to  think or feel.

• Peter Honey and Alan Mumford developed their learning styles system as a  variation on the Kolb model while working on a project for the Chloride  corporation in the 1970's. Honey and Mumford say of their system:

   

  "Our description of the stages in the learning cycle originated from the  work of David Kolb. Kolb uses different words to describe the stages of the  learning cycle and four learning styles..."
• • 'Having an Experience' (stage 1), and Activists (style  1): 'here and now', gregarious, seek challenge and immediate experience,  open-minded, bored with implementation.
   
  • 'Reviewing the Experience' (stage 2) and Reflectors  (style 2): 'stand back', gather data, ponder and analyse, delay reaching  conclusions, listen before speaking, thoughtful.
   
  • 'Concluding from the Experience' (stage 3) and  Theorists (style 3): think things through in logical steps, assimilate  disparate facts into coherent theories, rationally objective, reject  subjectivity and flippancy.
   
  • 'Planning the next steps' (stage 4) and Pragmatists  (style 4): seek and try out new ideas, practical, down-to-earth, enjoy problem  solving and decision-making quickly, bored with long discussions.
• • Activist = Accommodating
   
  • Reflector = Diverging
   
  • Theorist = Assimilating
   
  • Pragmatist = Converging

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• Cognitive flexibility theory
• Cognitive flexibility theory is especially formulated to support the use of interactive technology (e.g., videodisc, hypertext). Its primary applications have been literary comprehension, history

• Principles:

    

  1. Learning activities must provide multiple representations of content.

    

  2. Instructional materials should avoid oversimplifying the content domain and support context-dependent knowledge.

    

  3. Instruction should be case-based and emphasize knowledge construction, not transmission of information.

    

  4. Knowledge sources should be highly interconnected rather than compartmentalized.

  • Good for higher level quals Diploma of Graphic Design. apply skills to intelligent design solutions/problems

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• showing that short term memory is limited in the number   of elements it can contain simultaneously
• From an instructional   perspective, information contained in instructional material must first be   processed by working memory. For schema acquisition to occur, instruction   should be designed to reduce working memory load. Cognitive load theory is   concerned with techniques for reducing working memory load in order to facilitate   the changes in long term memory associated with schema acquisition.

• Principles:

   

  Specific recommendations relative to the   design of instructional material include:

   

  1.   Change problem solving methods to avoid means-ends approaches that impose   a heavy working memory load, by using goal-free problems or worked examples.

   

  2.   Eliminate the working memory load associated with having to mentally integrate   several sources of information by physically integrating those sources of   information.

   

  3.   Eliminate the working memory load associated with unnecessarily processing   repetitive information by reducing redundancy.

   

  4.   Increase working memory capacity by using auditory as well as visual information   under conditions where both sources of information are essential (i.e. non-redundant)   to understanding.

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• Computer mediated communication (CMC)

   

  Computer technologies used to  communicate in a range of contexts, including educational settings. These  technologies include the following:

   

   

  Asynchronous communication
    Discussion boards - allow users to post messages via the Internet in  a threaded discussion. Communication is usually facilitated by a lecturer.
    Email groups/lists - electronic mailing groups organised around themes,  common interests, professional associations, course enrolments etc.
   
    Synchronous (real-time) communication
    IRC (Internet relay chat) - located on the Internet, users can engage  in direct textual communication in real-time, accessing particular interest  group chat lines.
    MUVE (multi-user virtual environment) - a more sophisticated version  of IRCs, attempting to integrate elements of nonverbal communication  into dialogue.

• Concept mapping

   

  A technique to allow students to visually represent  and inter-relate connections and/or relationships between concepts, ideas  or information,  drawing on existing and newly introduced knowledge. Candy (1991) argues  that "when students are asked to draw a concept map linking graphically  the relationships between concepts in a particular field, they externalise  their understanding and put it in a form that can be read and interpreted  by their teacher and peers".

• Demonstrations

   

  A practical presentation of a process or procedure or  skills which is designed to illustrate theoretical principles. Demonstrations  require  careful sequencing, oral and visual explanations, appropriate illustrations  and opportunities for students to pose questions and clarify problems.  The demonstration may take place within a lecture or as a supplementary  class activity after a lecture.

• Experiential learning/experience-based learning

   

  (see also: Adventure-based  learning; Problem-based learning; Project-based  learning)
    An approach to teaching and learning that is based on the presumption  that every experience has the potential to be an opportunity for learning.  Students are placed in contexts or environments where they can assimilate  information and develop skills from being personally involved. Experiential  learning strategies include role plays, games and simulations, case studies,  problem-based learning, fieldwork and work-based education.

• Jigsaw method

   

  A teaching strategy where each student works on one part  of a learning task and then works collaboratively with a group of other  students to  combine the various parts and complete the activity. The learning task/problem  is broken into parts and students are asked to work on a response to  that part-task individually. Then students working on the same part work  in a group together to come up with a response and check their understandings  against those of other students. Students then form into different groups  in which each of the different parts of the task is represented, and  each student explains to the others their response to their part of the  problem.

• Lectures

   

  The term 'lecture' is derived from the medieval Latin lectare,  meaning to read aloud. In a tertiary context, a lecture has come to be  understood  as a public presentation by a teacher to a large group of students. In  its most common form, where a teacher speaks without any changes of activity  for the whole allotted time, the lecture offers limited opportunities  for active learning. A lecture can, however, be a very effective way  of teaching and learning if a lecturer includes strategies that facilitate  active rather than passive learning. See Ramsden (1992, p. 152) for a  discussion of the 'problems with lectures'.

• Micro-teaching

   

  A method that has been used primarily in teacher training  but can be adapted to a range of teaching contexts, in which students  give a lesson,  speech, presentation, or interview and it is videotaped for later review  and discussion by a group of students and the teacher. The micro-presentation  usually focuses on one skill, for example, asking questions, vocal  production, use of body language. Micro-teaching is a form of role playing.

  • could be my video of my lectures and put onto ipod and server

• Problem-based learning

   

  (see also Project-based learning)
    Boud (1985) describes PBL as "the idea that a problem should be  presented before learning begins, or, on a large scale, that learning  should be organised around problems which are related to the profession  rather than around the academic subjects that underpin the field".

• Project-based learning

   

  (see also Problem-based learning)
    This approach's major characteristic is that by the end of a course students  produce a thesis, computer program, design plans, model, portfolio, written  and/or oral report, posters or some other piece of work, either individually  or in small teams. They have been able to explore a topic in depth and  develop skills and processes of an applied nature. The teacher or supervisor  assists in the formulation of the problem or task, the design and conduct  of the project, the ensuing investigations or development and the ultimate  product. This approach is often adopted as a final year culminating course  activity.

• Tutorials

   

  (see also Seminars)
    A meeting of a small group of students (ideally 12-15) with a tutor,  which has traditionally been a supplementary discussion of the topic  or focus covered in a formal large group lecture. Effective tutorials  will give students opportunities to engage with lecture material in  a more direct and personal way, practise oral and critical thinking  skills,  and clarify content or solve problems.

• Workbooks/learning guides

   

  Written materials for students that are designed  to aid the organisation and learning of materials and promote the application  of knowledge. They  may include diagrammatic representations of information and approach  to content, course structure, learning objectives, assessment outlines,  readings, additional reading lists, outline of expectations of students.

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• Knowledge is the relatively uninvolved acquiring of information, the information is presented to the person be it through a book or a lecturer and is absorbed into the mind, in my case this involves sitting in a lecture theatre, taking notes and then reading the text book.
• Learning on the other hand I see as an ability of a person to use information and be able to see past all the primary word meanings of it to other levels, learning involves going out and actively, independently seeking information, the process of learning should offer a deeper understanding of knowledge and the perception to not take things at face value, to interpret, to inquire and to analyze.
• analyze

  • Learning is a process
• Studying at university or just living life in general can be either a learning experience or a knowledge experience depending on how the individual wants to treat their opportunity to learn they can disregard it or they can cherish and use it.

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• Constructivism looks at learning as an active process in which the learner builds  on prior knowledge to select and transform information based on their own cognitive  structure (patterns of mental action that form intellectual activity).

• What is Taught and what is Learned

   

   

  It is a simple point that what is taught is not the same   as what the students learn, but it does have a number of   implications.

   

   

  

   

   

  In the figure above, it is clear that some of what we   teach is wasted effort: but the diagram is a representation   of only one learner’s learning.