EDUC 630 - Learning Styles and Presentations

I consider myself an audio learner. I even find myself stopping in the middle of silent reading if I encounter a word I don’t know how to pronounce because I “hear” my reading in my head. In spite of that tendency, I find it difficult to assimilate what I hear from an audio presentation of a lesson. Although I like the ability to listen more than once, I learn much better when I also see the words written out or have to interact with the presentation in some way. When I am face to face with my instructor, that is usually interaction enough to help me remember the lesson. When my instructor is online, however, I need more than just audio. A presentation to back up and reinforce the audio is a big help, especially when I can manipulate the presentation myself or have to respond in some way during the presentation. The response can even be in the form of a question or questions to ponder.

Online Communities

Although I use e-mail frequently and check it every day, my favorite online community is Facebook. Through Facebook, I can get a sense of what is going on in the lives of my friends and family. My children post pictures of my grandchildren and updates of their lives on a regular basis, sometimes right at the time of happening. Since I can access my Facebook page on my iPhone, I can see the pictures or posts wherever I happen to be. I belong to several groups on Facebook that keep me connected with people I knew as a child. I also check my church’s Facebook page for pictures and announcements. Most of the games I play on my laptop are played through my Facebook page.

I have friends all over the world, and Facebook allows me to chat with them in real time or keep up with their news even though we live so far apart. At any given time on my Facebook page, there might be posts written in four different languages. I only understand two of them, but pictures don’t require an understanding of the language, so I can see how cute my Taiwanese friend’s baby is without needing to translate her post.  

Nature of Technology Adoption

I believe there are several barriers to the widespread use of technology in our K-12 local public schools. The first is probably the most obvious: technology can be very expensive and schools have limited finances. The second barrier is the lack of time in teachers’ schedules to explore new options. The third barrier is related to the second: teachers often prefer to stick with tried and true methods and aren’t willing to be innovative. A fourth barrier could be the lack of support on an administrative or a community level, although I don’t see that in my local school system.

To break down these barriers, there are several things that can be done. In my local school system, not only has money been set aside in the budget for technology implementation but each school has a community-based fund raising organization specifically for purchasing technology. Volunteers can help teachers with copying, etc., to allow them more time to explore new options.  Professional development can be implemented to help enlarge teachers’ vision for the possibilities available.

I have seen great strides in technology implementation in the three years I have been substituting in my local schools. The state has mandated certain levels of technology, but the community wants to see this development, too, so it has steadily improved.

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My name is Alma Waskey and I have lived in Bedford, VA, since March, 1988. Even though I am of an older generation than most college students, I have always enjoyed learning about new technologies. Some of my favorites are my laptop and my iPhone, but I also have a Kindle Fire that I am learning to use and appreciate. On my laptop, I mostly check e-mail, complete schoolwork, and try to keep up with my many friends on Facebook, but I also like to play games. I have been married to Dave for the last thirty-eight years. We have three adult children, all married with children of their own. It is a pleasure and a privilege for me to spend time with my grandchildren. I live on a small farm and love taking care of the animals we raise. Right now we have cows and chickens, but we have raised sheep and even kept a goat for milk for a short time. I love to teach and have taught in a variety of contexts throughout my life. I started teaching Sunday School when I was sixteen and have continued teaching off and on (mostly on) ever since. I decided to teach my children at home until they started high school, so that kept me very busy during their early years. When the youngest started eighth grade, she and I started school (I as a teacher for seventh and eighth grade) at a newly begun classical Christian school in Bedford. I taught there for eleven years, eventually teaching every subject taught at the school. Since I was trained as a math teacher, I was the principal math and logic teacher for the older students, no matter what else I taught. I resigned when the school eliminated seventh and eighth grades, and now I keep busy with volunteer work at the local pregnancy center, watching four of my grandchildren one day a week, substituting occasionally in the local public schools, teaching AWANA and Sunday School, and helping care for my parents who both have Alzheimer’s. Dave and I are trained treatment foster parents, so even though we don’t have any foster children right now, that could change on short notice.

Best Practices in Online Learning, K-12

Although I had a difficult time finding even three articles on best practices for distance education for the K-12 learner, I read a few more that addressed educational best practices for the K-12 learner using technology in the classroom. Cher Ping Lim(2004) states that learners need instruction in how to learn online to get them started, they need advance organizers to process the learning to come, and they need scaffolding “provided by the instructors or through peer interactions, or … embedded in the online learning component (Lim, July/Aug, 2004)” to help them get the most out of their online learning experience.  Another article examined the barriers to changing classroom instruction to reflect best practice which the authors identified as learner-centered instruction (An & Reigeluth, 2011). A third article addressed the advantages of individualized instruction with a 1:1 ratio of students to computers in a classroom (Rosen & Beck-Hill, 2012). All three of these articles are based on the constructivist theory of learning which states that the learner constructs knowledge based on his experiences (Seel, 2008). My favorite style of learner-centered instruction, probably because it fits so well in the math classroom, is problem-based learning, or PBL. In PBL, the teacher sets up a problem based on or modeled after a real-world problem. Usually in small groups, students then try to solve the problem as the teacher guides them with strategies and problem-solving skills. The series of textbooks I used when I taught elementary and middle school math was authored by a man named Saxon and commonly called Saxon math. He believed in teaching students how to identify and categorize math word problems at an early age, so (as an example) students learned that a “some and some more” was an addition pattern which could require addition or subtraction to solve based on what was missing in the problem. Several other patterns were taught, giving students strategies to recognize and solve real-world problems. If a student is taught via PBL, he is more likely to develop his own problem-solving strategies, giving him more independence. I believe the purpose of education is exactly this, to teach students to think independently (higher order thinking), knowing how to reason things out for themselves, so they can become lifelong learners.

References:

An, Y.-J., & Reigeluth, C. (2011). Creating technology-enhanced, learner-centered classrooms: K–12 teachers’ beliefs, perceptions, barriers, and support needs. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(2), 54 - 62.

Cote, D. (Sep 2007). Problem-based learning software for students with disabilities. Intervention in School and Clinic, 43(1), 29 - 37.

Lim, C. P. (July/Aug, 2004). Engaging learners in online learning environments. Tech Trends, 48(4), 16 - 23.

Rosen, Y., & Beck-Hill, D. (2012). Intertwining digital content and a one-to-one laptop environment in teaching and learning: Lessons from the time to know program. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 44(3), 225 -241.

Seel, N. M. (2008). Empirical perspectives on memory and motivation. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. V. Merrienboer, & M. P. Driscoll, Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 39 -54). New York: Routledge.