My Reflection on Learning Theories and Instruction

What did you find surprising or striking as you furthered your knowledge about how people learn?

It’s amazing to stop and think about all the different ways that people learn. Somewhat overwhelming actually. As a teacher I’ve experienced on some level all of the different theories that I’ve now studied but didn’t know their backgrounds or sometimes their terminology. I’ve taught based off of instinct, experience and training from when I was a martial arts instructor which I never realized how handy it would actually be for teaching and life decisions. I was very happy and surprised that my instincts and training have been pretty good so far and has been substantiated by what I learned in the Learning Theories and Instruction course. Not only that but it has expanded my knowledge and given me a lot of ideas on how to change classes I teach.

• How has this course deepened your understanding of your personal learning process?

This course has deepened my understanding of how I learn personally by having me reevaluate and examine my own learning process more. I already knew I was a visual learner and that for certain subject matter needed elaboration and analogies, but I found that I’m also a cognitive/connectivist learner that gets bored with behaviorist learning if I do it for too long. I need to be challenged. I also realize that I do like acknowledgment more than I thought I did which was a surprise for me because I never really thought about it. Getting positive feedback and comments helped motivate me a lot more than I expected and in turn makes me think of how I need to work on giving more of it to my students. Another thing that I acknowledged was how much I prefer more freedom with solving problems. This was something I had done in the past but once again, never really stopped to think about.

• What have you learned regarding the connection between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation?

I’ve learned that the connection between learning theories, styles, education technologies and motivations are extremely intertwined with teaching, especially teaching in current times. There is no absolute right way of teaching everybody. People are different from different backgrounds, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, ages, experiences, perceptions and adaptability levels, and so must the tactics of teaching acknowledge these differences. The connection to me isn’t trying to find the perfect way or rule of how to teach but rather the best balance of addressing the majority of commonalities that learners do have.

The assumption that most learners (adult or otherwise) have certain things mostly in common.

1. The need and want to know

2. Access to technology that’s common today.

3. Responding positively to motivation and being affected by both positive and negative reinforcement

4. Empirical experience (though more prevalent in adult learners) that can aid or in some cases hamper learning

5. At the very least, the ability for introductory or basic behaviorist learning if not cognitive

• How will your learning in this course help you as you further your career in the field of instructional design?

What I’ve learned in this course will help me address a much broader range of learner then I acknowledged before. I’ve already started rewriting some of my courses upon reflection of problems that students have had in some classes after studying the material of this course. I believe as a teacher, especially if you’ve been doing it for a while, it’s extremely important to look from the perspective of the students and not just students from the past but students who are different from the ones from a few years ago. I know my students have changed over the years. They have more entitlement, more technological distractions, far less behavioral control and even lower sense accountability, but there is also the students who are far more technologically savvy, are more vocal and less shy to comment (I suspect social media has something to do with that), and know they have a wider range of resources at their disposal to find answers so it’s a mixed bag, but a different one from when I was originally a student. Knowing these different theories, styles, technologies and motivational techniques inspire me to make much better content as a Teacher and Instructional Designer.