Week 6: "What is learning?" and "How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?"

Surprisingly I find little--by little I mean nothing--has changed about my core definition of learning: the process through which understanding replaces ignorance. However, the way to make learning more meaningful, which focuses on the role of the teacher in learning, is ever growing.
Therefore, the following example paints a picture of what schema theory has added to my opinion of the role of the teacher in learning: This week, my lesson plan talks about a technique used to understand the words of Isaiah. I found it very beneficial when another teacher demonstrated it, though not until now did I realize that it was a form of schema theory. The lesson takes a couple chapters from Isaiah quoted in the Book of Mormon, and compares it to a modern courtroom experience with a plaintiff and a defendant, and a broken contract. As students of all ages often find Isaiah difficult to understand, the teacher plays a pivotal role in helping students understand his writings by seeing how it can be applied to today or something else familiar to them.

Week 5: "What is learning?" and "How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?"

Learning is the process through which ignorance is replaced with understanding. Before skiing, I had no idea what it entailed. I substitute teacher in 5th grade however, had instructed me on some basic techniques, that help me paint a mental picture of skiing. When I hit the slopes for the first time 5-6 years later, I still remembered my "lesson" from the sub. That, plus some reasonable balance I had acquired through years of experience on roller blades, helped me demonstrate that which I was ignorant of before: that I could in fact ski.
The substitute taught me something I remembered years later, because he taught some movements I was already familiar with, simply swaying from side to side, and incorporated it with something new: the art of skiing.

Week 3: "What is learning?" and "How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?"

This week's entry will focus on how teacher's can effectuate learning. As a reminder I still define learning as the process through which understanding replaces ignorance. What's more, I'm convinced that for learning to take place, the learner must use or employ what he understands. For example, a student that learns the Pythagorean Theorem must use it in the appropriate context successfully to demonstrate to himself and others that learning occured. Now to the point of today's entry.

Often in class, there exist students who do not wish to learn (refer to President Obama's speech yesterday for support of this fact). In these instances a teacher plays an extremely important role in helping students do something beneficial for themselves, even if they came into class wanting to do nothing of the sort. If a teacher can appropriately identify the antecedents of inappropriate behavior and design and implement behavior support plans, she can help motivate a student to learn. With that said, the unique personality of all our students makes successful teaching, reaching and engaging students to learn, "the finest of the fine arts." (Boyd K. Packer, Teach Ye Diligently)

Week 2: "What is learning?" and "How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?"

From week 1, my core definition of learning has changed not at all: Learning is the process through which understanding replaces ignorance. I still feel that for learning to take place, something unknown, misunderstood, or even disregarded (such as a skill, formula, or law) is recognized and to some degree comprehended. If someone learns about the simple mechanics and steps to changing a tire, while in some driver training, they will demonstrate they understood that learning by reciting the steps, written or verbally. Furthermore, they demonstrate even greater, more important real world understanding by actually using the techniques necessary to successfully change a tire. However, I do see how important it is for a teacher/trainer to conciously understand and recognize the ways people learn. For example, a teacher familiar with the behaviorism theory, will have a greater understanding of the need to incoroporate positive and/or negative reinforcement in their teaching to help a student learn.

"What is learning?" and "How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?"

As this is post # 1, I felt that speaking in basics is best. Without further ado, my comments on the two questions follow:

1.What is learning? I define learning as the process whereby understanding replaces ignorance. When ten years old, I found it exileratingly fun to go down a hill on my bike while jerking my handle bars repeatedly to the left and right, which caused my bike to wobble as I sped downward. Much to my surprise, my joy lasted but moments before I found my shirtless, shoeless body flying through the air only to come to a grinding hault on the asphalt. In this incident, I was truly ignorant concerning the consequences of turning my handle bars too sharply and too quickly while riding my bike. And I especially didn't realize, unfortunately, that long, steep declines exacerbates that outcome. The school of hard knocks taught me quickly concerning that subject, and I readily learned to not make that same mistake twice.

2.How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer? In the example given above, I acknowledged my ignorance of certain aspects of gravity when they related to bike riding. That painful yet poignant lesson was something I didn't need to learn from personal experience. If a friend, parent, or older sibling explained the potential hazard (I include as an aside that I actually learned to ride my bike at the age of five, by my older brother, who taught me by pushing me down another steep grassy slope during winter (my bike was a christmas present) without training wheels), my lesson would have come sooner and a lot less painfully. In this instance, anyone with the necessary understanding would have qualified as a teacher, though probably their ability to relate that understanding in a way that I understand would also be a necessary attribute.

Slow and Steady

Though not the fastest to do so, I have finally created my blog for class (on Blogger, whereas previously I just used ITLS website). Huzzah!