We're Just Built Different

Here we are again, diving into another chapter of the book “ The eLearning Designer’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to the eLearning Development Process for New eLearning Designers”  Today we will be in Chapter 3 How people learn.  These are the highlights and my thoughts:

Learning is not an event..it’s a process. 

So often I hear teachers say, “what can I do to engage my students?”, "This curriculum is too boring, it is not fun enough"… we try to make learning an event when it is a process.  Yes we want to make learning fun and engaging but often times the issue is that we are actually rushing the process.  We expect our learners to play the fun games and learn quickly and be able to show their learning all within one lesson set and that is just not realistic.   Learning does not just happen because we as teachers will it to be so with our clever lessons and expertise, it requires something from the learner as well. Learning requires trial and error, desire and motivation, and time and patience.  Learning requires many experiences with the content.   

People learn very differently. 

Children learn differently than adults.  Thus you have to consider your audience when you are designing any training.  However, I do think some concepts overlap regardless of age.   One educator, esteemed for his work in adult education, Malcolm Knowles believed that adults need to be self-directed in their learning, bringing their past experiences and failures into their learning experiences.   Below I have highlighted the principles of his andragogy theory.

I would argue that some children also learn better under these circumstances. It does not just apply to adults only. Classroom teachers are now advocating for more student led activities and student autonomy in voice and choice of their learning.  Administrators want students setting their own academic goals and taking ownership of their own learning.   This is one reason that I believe that these concepts overlap.  

Another educational researcher discussed in this chapter was M. David Merrill whose specialty was in instructional design.  Essentially his principles are centered around rich real world problems, where learning occurs through the demonstration of a skill then applying that newly acquired skill. Learning is also promoted when learners activate existing knowledge or skills in a process he calls activation and then the final process is called integration in which the learner integrates their new skills into their everyday lives. 

I can see some validity with the principles of both of these researchers.  I used many of them within my own classroom.  I really enjoyed reading this chapter and look forward to the next which is … Plan the Project…  stay tuned..