Brad Larsen's blog

Learning- a convoluted idea that has more written about it then necessary and yet still seems to elude us. ha ha ha! Seems I have been reading about learning forever and still don't know as I can define it. Learning in terms of people, is a unique process by which information such as a task or idea is embedded in our minds that can be used or called upon at later point of relevance.

How can we help students learn -in terms of Bruner- (wasn't honestly impressed with what was shared). BUT I think he hits a few points that are important. When teaching our lessons should not be self concluding. Good learning should promote the learner towards more. More learning, more understanding and more information. As we teach or learn the concept should be such that it can be used later in life. Much the same as one of the ideas before. Create a foundation that can later be built upon for further learning.  

I have had some past experiences with just this subject. I took calculus- twice. Passed both times but I needed it the second time because the first time was in high school and I didn't remember any of it. I still have/had no clue about most of the stuff I learned. The classes were often, here is the math problem here are the formulas that you will need-  take this number and put it here move this over here... yada yada yada.  I had no concept of why I was doing it really or what that got me when I was finished. There was the occasional story problem and they just seemed to be the most confusing problems because I did not understand what they were asking me to do. Later in my college career I had a class that we started doing static bridge problems. Meaning we had to figure out if we have a bridge with a force pushing this direction on it, how is that force dispersed and what kind of strain is put on the different beams of the bridge.Click here to read more »

In this paper I would like to discuss when and why a video posting of a teacher can be useful. Also why it might not be useful and maybe over used. I am also thinking about dabbling into what methods of instruction would be best used to replace some of the videos that are used by teachers that would better serve their purposes.

 San Jose, D.L., & Kelleher, T. (2009). Measuring ecoshock and affective learning: a comparison of student responses to online and face-to-face learning ecologies. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 5(3), Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no3/kelleher_0909.htm

Rose, K.K. (2009). Student perceptions of the use of instructor-made videos in online and face-to-face classes. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 5(3), Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no3/rose_0909.htm

Learning via Case based learning. When I started working this topic I was seeing it as a new idea. The more I thought about it and began planning on how to use it and how others have used it in their lessons, I discovered many teachers use this without even knowing they are using this method. I think it is something that many teachers do naturally. It is a very natural and useful way of sharing useful information. I was also surprised that students were supposed to fail before the story was shared with them. But that failure is what causes students to want to learn. It creates the motivation that drives the student to actually learn. I would say that the broader you can see and apply the the concepts to life the more innovative you can be.

 I don't think this weeks topic really changes what learning is. It is more just a way of approaching how learning can be helped or hindered. I actually wasn't too impressed with the article. I mean it made a good point of how and why students may not ask questions. But it never had a clear and precise call to action or answer to it. I was interested to hear what they had to say, in high school I went from being one of those students who was self motivated and pushed to learn the material and slid into just completing the task and then in some classes wouldn't ask questions because I was worried about... I don't know what others thought and didn't want to bother the teacher or something... I was interested to see what they recommended to do to stop that from happening. They didn't say as I can remember.