Week Two

Chapter One

Question 3: My synthesized view of teaching, learning, and technology.

Chapter One provides a very good foundation for some critical reflection about my own philosophy of learning and teaching. I believe it is important for each teacher to establish personal viewpoints regarding the theories of learning and to develop his or her own teaching style based on those theories as well as experiences in the field. As Lever-Duffy and McDonald point out in our textbook, science offers multiple explanations for how learning takes place and how students learn best. By considering these theories, pondering my teaching experience to date, and thinking about the vast array of educational technologies available today, I am evolving my own synthesized view of teaching, learning and technology.

First, I strongly believe that education is a communicative process. To this point, I must always be aware of the messages I am transmitting and how they are being received. It is important to take into account the variables that affect communication, such as environment, psychological factors, prior experiences, cognitive styles, and learning preferences. I must understand that these factors apply to me as well as my students. In addition, students and teachers come to class with personal filters in place, such as heritage and belief systems that influence the messages that are sent and received. Communication and therefore teaching is not a one-way process. Teachers should seek out feedback in many forms and continually provide opportunities for students to express what they have learned.

I hold an eclectic view of how students learn. No one theory completely explains the amazing capacity human beings have to learn throughout a lifetime. Instead, I believe certain theories apply well to certain types of learning.

The behaviorist theories of stimulus/response and immediate feedback in the form of reward or punishment seem to apply for learning basic skills and facts – the remembering level of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (Forehand, 2005). Examples include learning the multiplication tables, spelling words, names of key periods in world history, or steps of mitosis.

At intermediate and higher levels of learning, the cognitivist viewpoint makes sense to me. Learning is a complex internal process that is hard to describe. At the levels of understanding, applying, and analyzing, explicit instruction is valuable, with its emphasis on modeling and “think aloud” techniques.

I believe the constructivist theories apply well to the highest levels of thinking: evaluating and creating. In order to firmly assimilate or accommodate new information, learners must construct knowledge by integrating it into existing frameworks in their minds. Project work and exploratory learning facilitate this process.

As a teacher, I must take steps to know and understand my class as well as individual students. Our text presents several tools for assessing the cognitive style, learning preferences, and intelligences of students. This information can be used to create class profiles and individual profiles on each of these dimensions. Thus, teachers can adjust their instructional strategies, and tactics based on solid information about how students learn best and what their inherent capabilities are. For example, project groups may be assigned on the basis of individuals’ cognitive styles or class activities may be weighted more or less heavily on one or another learning preference.

I believe teaching style is always a work in progress. I hope my teaching style is constantly developing and being refined. At times I may even choose to reinvent my style. In any case, after careful reflection, I will base adjustments to my style on sound research, observation of master teachers, and constructive feedback from students and other teachers. I do not want to become stagnant in my growth as a teacher; therefore, I will periodically reassess my professional development.

Regardless of a teacher’s particular style, a systematic approach to planning and implementation of instruction is important. The basis of planning should always be the learning objectives students are required to achieve. Then, specific instructional tactics are chosen to facilitate the learning of those objectives. Technology is a powerful tool to support student learning, and it should always be considered in the tactical part of planning. The use of technology in the classroom is never an end in itself. Instead, teachers decide on the use of specific technologies only when those decisions are informed by the focused learning objective, the needs and characteristics of the learners, and the nature of the learning environment. This interplay of factors forms a holistic view of teaching, learning, and technology.

Forehand, M. (2005). Bloom's taxonomy: Original and revised. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/