Week 8 - How do I learn now?

Week 8

Marylou Bernasek

Stitching a blog together really makes sense to me now. As I write my last assignment for this class I see that each week as we learned new theories, new learning styles and added more tools to our classroom desk we were actually slowly stitching together an Instructional Designer!! – At least that is how I feel about all the learning and blogging and writing these past 8 weeks

The most surprising event in this learning theory class was that I learned I’m not just a visual learner. This knowledge was an eye-opener for me and will help me as I design online classes. As I began to perceive that much of my intrinsic abilities had made me curious and the best way to get quick answers was to extrinsically see pictures I realized that my curiosity was my motivator and could be satiated through other means of a quick knowledge fix – i.e.:

Connecting learning theories, styles, educational technology and motivation made me immediately think of the mind-map exercise. As an immigrant to the technology field I wondered if I would be able to keep my head above water and really learn through technology. As a result, that exercise as I wrote in my response that week was the most eye opening event for me in this class. I think it showed me that while I was not motivated at first to construct it the more I began adding bubbles and lines the more excited and motivated I became. To see that I was being motivated to learn through an educational technology was stunning. Yes, it was visual but it was more than that. As I drilled into learning how to connect ideas and actions the visible part of the lesson actually lessened and the constructivist theory engulfed what I was doing. I grabbed at that theory and used a cognitive approach to add to my map – all the while enjoying myself immensely. I realize now that this knowledge will be part of my LTM available to me for use in designing online classes.

My learning in this class has ingrained in me a sense of satisfaction (whoa – ARCS emerges!!). Because of that my confidence in applying my knowledge has risen and my confidence in moving forward in the classes has grown. I can take the theories, styles and learning tools from this class and begin to assess my students and my curriculum to pair them up for the most beneficial learning environment available. Since we have learned that online learning does appear to be the future of both education and corporate classrooms, I feel that instructional design tool box is getting heavier. Sensing how my future students could and can learn and understanding the theories and styles that can be adaptive to the students’ needs give me a foundation for knowing that I can do it now.


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Ormrod, Dr. Jeanne. 2009. Information Processing and the Brain
Ormrod, Dr. Jeanne, Schunk, Dale H., Gredler, Margaret. 2008. Learning Theories and
Instruction, Merrell Publishing, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey