Blogs

When Prof. Belland announced the field trips at the beginning of the semester, I got very excited to see what goes on in our field of study, in the private sector. I sadly was not able to attend the first one, but I did get to go visit LetterPress Software. There I was able to meet a professional in our field with some of interesting insight.

Though his name escapes my mind at this time, he was a very simple guy, with simple ideas. Now, even though simplicity was his favorite way of describing what he shared with us, there was a lot of complexity creating this simplicity. His ideas were indeed simple, and I must say I do share his beliefs in designing simple instruction, but the steps to get there, may take a lot of time and experience to develop.

Bruner's theory that we studied this week is hard for me to get a full grasp on.  It seems that he has so many components to his learning approach that it was hard for me to narrow down to the central parts.  The key parts that stick out to me most are the spiral curriculum and the discovery learning.  If there were more "key" components, I missed it!

What is learning?  If knowledge can be represented in 3 ways: iconic, enactive, and symbolic, then it seems that learning takes place in three ways: iconic enactive and symbolic.  I think that any time we find another way to represent our understanding of the world around us we have found another way to learn.  And another way to teach for that matter.

As I worked through the theory this week I thought about how Bruner has talked about academic learning and turning it into how we learn in the "real world".  My mom never sat down with me and said, "Kandyce this is how you eat."  You learn to eat (well, most of us) by watching and practicing.  I love to eat with chopsticks, and if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at it.  I've never visited an area where folks use chopsticks regularly, I have no Asian influences in my family, but we did eat a lot of Chinese when my mom went back to school.  For whatever reason one night I tried using chopsticks and the rest is history.  I enjoyed trying something that was different, I liked being able to do something that no one else in my family could do and I thought it was cool to say "Could I please have chopsticks?" while the rest of my family used those silly American forks.  In a strange way I think this story could translateClick here to read more »

Extra Credit Blog Assignment:

ITLS Alumni Interviewed: Nanette Sorenson
Year Graduated: 2005 (Masters of Science)
Current Employer: LDS Church (www.lds.org)
Current Position: Project Manager

I had the great opportunity to speak with Nanette Sorenson about her experiences with the ITLS Department and how those skills transferred to her career.