A Time for Reflection

A Time for Reflection

When this course started I thought to myself that this course would be a breeze.  I have been training adult learners most of my life and have really concentrated on just the training in the last four years.  One aspect of training I am particularly good at is being able to figure out how someone learns and adapt my training style to match that to the learner’s way of learning.  I thought that since I already had this, let us call it “innate”, ability that taking this course would be easy; I could not have been further from the truth.  Truth is that I did not understand any part of the brain; well nothing more than the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa.  I did not understand all the different _isms or theories that have been developed and studied by people for decades.  The biggest item I found surprising was that I did not know as much as I thought I knew about how people learn especially when it comes to the constructivist theory on learning - this theory was to be my undoing.

When we started the study on constructivism and I read all the material that was required I thought this theory was the most ridiculous theory I had ever heard.  I have a science background and I thought it was ridiculous to tell people that they learn by constructing their own knowledge.  In Chemistry, Math or Physics see how well a student does when they are not given key information or formulas to solve problems.  It was not until after gaining some insight from our instructor and actually studying another _ism, connectivism that I realized how constructivism actually works and where it applies and suddenly things started to make more sense.  I was actually using constructivism to learn about connectivism.  I never realized how much I actually use constructivism in my life to learn new things every day.  This was quite the eye opener to now understand that much of my knowledge is derived from constructs of previous learning married with the new item I am currently trying to learn.  I guess I did not realize that this is how I learn many items but I just never had a term for it, nor did I think to find out the term behind how I learn.  Knowing how I learn though will help me further myself over the course of my life, it will help me when I struggle with difficult concepts and why would it not, this is how I have been learning for years – again just not knowing the term.

After examining all the different learning theories, styles, technology and motivation I have come to realize that each of these items needs the others to complete the learning cycle.  Actually I am not sure “needs” is quite the correct term.  Each theory is enhanced by today’s technology but it does not mean anything if the motivation is not present for someone to learn the theory and/or the technology and if these items are not presented in a style that the learner best understands.  Let us look at my own example of learning constructivism.  After reading the mundane information for constructivism utilizing a lot of jargon and boring writing style I was not interested in knowing anything more than I had to about constructivism.  After posting my discussion for the topic on the class discussion board I received a response from the instructor in the class.  The instructor was able to give me both the motivation and the information on the theory in such a way to allowed me to understand the material in a style that was optimal for my learning the concept.

After the instructor was able to help me just by writing the information that works best for how I learn, that has now helped me with how to handle situations such as these when I have to handle a distance learning situation in my career.  My current position actually allows for me to try these items I have learned through this class and the previous class.  It is great to see that the information I am learning will eventually allow me to obtain a degree in Instructional Design and that I can also make use of this information in my current work environment.  For example, just last week I was able to help someone through a concept that was recently taught in the office by utilizing the constructivism theory.  The person I was helping did not understand one of the new applications being taught.  This person is really accomplished at using Excel on her computer and the new application being taught used a lot of the same features as Excel.  I helped her by making references back to how items work in Excel so she could construct the new knowledge of the new application from her previous experience with the Excel application.  This worked; the person understood the new material after I used the reference back to something with which they were already familiar.

In conclusion, I have learned to realize that I am never done learning.  Work on expanding your knowledge base, it is amazing what you might find.

What have I learned about myself and how I learn?

What have I learned about myself and how I learn?

The assignment to wrap up my recent class toward my degree in Instructional Design and Technology is quite thought provoking.  The class started seven weeks ago by asking us the basic question of how we learn.  At the time it was an innocent enough question and without knowing the theories we were about to study I could say anything since I did not know anything.  I tend to be a person who looks at things “outside the box” so I came up with some interesting conclusions on how I learn – even thought I might have a new theory.  After studying the theories of behaviorism, cognitive theory, constructivist theory, and connectivism I am even more confused than ever as to how I learn.

As adults I am drawn to the thought that all of these theories come into play when learning at some point and time.  I think what has happened is that I am now cognizant of these theories is all.  For example, my washer finishes its cycle and a bell rings and like Pavlov’s dog I go running to the bell as a learned behavior.  Yes, somewhere in the back of my head I knew that was what I was doing, I just did not pay attention to the theory and just did the action.

Adult learners just by the nature of their length of time on this earth have to be learning from all of the theories or we would never grow into the adults that we are today.  Sure we all have a preference to one style or another but I feel they all come into play.  My preferential style of learning is more of a meld between connectivism and constructivism which is hard for me to say because when I initially was introduced to the constructivism theory I thought it was the craziest idea.

I have come to realize that I do construct my own knowledge based on what I have learned in the past and I use my networks of interactions with others to expand on my constructs.  It is funny, I am a huge movie buff and I am big on relating things back to movies so here goes, I feel as though I am the Ferris Beuler of my world of networks.  I have so many different nodes that I interact with that would not really interact with each other normally and I get along with them all equally well.  What I mean by that is I belong to a country club – just because I love the game of golf, but I also belong to a group of motorcycle riders.  I learn many things from both groups and interact well with both groups but yet I do not think either of these groups would interact together.

Speaking of movies, let us turn for a moment to technology and the role it plays in all this learning I am doing.  All this learning would not be possible without the technology advances.  I started taking the course on my iPad so I could travel easier without having to lug around a heavy laptop.  This is one area I was wrong – not everything I had to do for my classes was able to be done on the iPad, so I had to revert back to my laptop from time to time.  When posting we needed to use the APA style for references, however I would forget the book when I would go on my trips so I pulled it up using Google instead - where would we be today without Google (or Apple or Microsoft for that matter).  I remember the day of DEC Rainbow PC computers – wow am I aging myself.  Technology plays a big role – I actually have this blog – never thought I would have one of these.  I am on Facebook, mostly because my daughter convinced me to “get on board”.  I am hooked into LinkedIn – do not go there too often but do see the merit of the site.  It is funny, I work every day with technology – I train people on technology applications but outside of work I did not want much to do with technology – I like to be unplugged from time to time but alas I do not think that will be possible for too much longer.

So to summarize – I feel that I still learn the same way I always have, I just have a lot more resources available and I can now use the appropriate theory names when describing how I learn.  One area that has been of significant resourcefulness is the social networks that I now have which I never did as a child, so that has been a big help in my learning process.

How Do Connections Facilitate Learning?

After building a mind map of all my connections to people and groups it was amazing to see how much was there - stop and think about all the people you connect with in your daily life.  Remember the comment someone said about people and connections, “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”?  It was once said that most of Hollywood could be on the list for six degrees of Kevin Bacon because of the diverse scripting of roles Kevin has done in movies.  He has worked with so many actors that have worked with so many actors and so on.  Now take that and turn it around to yourself.  Think about the six degrees of you and who all those connections are and the different directions and the different elements you have learned from those different interactions – here are some examples of those in my life.

When discussing learning and the people you learn from you have to start with your family – they are the people you learned everything from in your early years.  Back when I was a baby there were not fancy digital toys like today and honestly I feel the best way for young children to learn is without the high tech gadgets.  The most high tech young children should get with their learning is watching Sesame Street on the television – now there is a community full of connections which learn from each other.

After learning the basics and values from your parents and family members it is time to move on to more sophisticated learning which starts in late high school and moves into college and then adulthood.  Yes learning does happen in adulthood – it happens every day. 

In my connections there are many outlets for learning for example when I first started working for the company where I am currently employed.  Day one someone in the office was “showing me the ropes”.  The whole community (the office) would pitch in and help me learn not only what I needed to know on the computer but also what I needed to know for the business in general as well as where to find the bathroom and the kitchen (two very important places to know about).  Eventually I would help others to learn things they did not know – an outsider sometimes brings a fresh perspective.  While this network of people was small in comparison to my network today, it was the only network I knew business wise.  If I had questions on issues there was a hierarchy to getting answers:

1.       Start with the team members

2.       Go to other teams

3.       Go to in-house management

4.       Go to tech training sources either on-line or via the phone

5.       Go to help desks (they were not the best of help for difficult issues)

So you see you may start with small connections but end up developing much larger connections either by design or happenstance.

Working out in the corporate world has changed the way I learn from when I was formally schooled.  School is important to getting the necessary information; however the real learning for me has always been on-the-job.  I graduated from college with a degree in Communication; however my first job (and for many years later my eventual career) was in the computer programming arena covering programming in engineering and business.  I was able to learn the necessary tools to become a successful programming through some courses in college but really from each of the jobs I had doing programming.   Everyone has innate abilities within themselves and so I just needed to look to my network of people to help me learn and eventually I was the person that people looked to for their learning. 

In conclusion, I believe it is impossible to learn without a network or connections in your life.  People do not live in a vacuum so the world and the people in it whether you have direct contact with them or not are the connections you learn from for your whole life.  Isn’t that GREAT!