Third Blog Posting

Blog Posting 3/12
Following our extended break, my confidence due to my improved skills has soared. Receiving feedback on my DD#1, and my POAI has helped to cement my understanding of both the concepts and materials, and my ability to quickly identify meaning from the terminology has gotten me more excited about this learning process.

Coming from a scientific background, where the learning material is much more specific, (even though the concepts may be abstract), taking these phrases which refer to ideas has been a challenge to me. However, the more I work with the material, the better able I am to see the building blocks of design almost tangibly, and assemble these ideas into the design.

The procedure being used to instruct me in this has been different from any I have ever experienced, and I have impatiently wished for the material to be given to me so I can begin to use it. I believe I am more of an auditory learner, and it is my desire for the instruction to be presented to me in the manner in which I am accustomed, and it is not.

Then, I am required to search for the instructional material myself, and hope that the understanding I have, the weak understanding, is enough to get me through the assignment at hand. This has been very frustrating, because I want to do it correctly the first time. I want to know what I am supposed to do, and then I want to do it. This class isn’t designed that way.

That being said, and having read about two different learning theories, Active Learning in particular, Constructivism to a lesser degree, I see the value in what appears to me to be an unusual teaching method. Finally!! My frustration and tentativeness cause me to dig through the material, request more information, and work harder personally to obtain a better understanding of the assignment, which results in my learning it more thoroughly than I would if this class were given with the traditional instructional methods to which I am accustomed.

I griped about it because I was having to put forth more effort, yet I think I was learning it better than I would have had it been presented in the way in which I am accustomed. I still don’t like it too much, but I guess I need to adjust my acceptance level because it does seem to be working. Active learning, requiring more from the learner, the learner plays an active role in her learning, is happening before my very eyes an ears.

Constructivism, building on my prior understanding of how things work, is happening before my very eyes and ears, as I take the methods I have come to understand from having learned myself and having taught my children and add to them with this model of instructional design. All of the components, understanding the learners, considering the contexts, knowing what the learners should be doing once they learn the material, it has always been vaguely there in some mild form or another, but this course is putting names to these components, and requiring that they are all addressed every time, so that proper instruction is most likely to be given.

I guess other than the fact that I really wish I could gripe more about having to give more of myself in order to enhance my learning, I don’t have any other specific suggestions for improvement. I have said before that this class does have a rather high work load, but nothing like a little work to make one feel confident and established, dang it.