Week 2 continued

Activity 2

The benefits to the learner of this approach?

Rather than simply being conditioned to think in a certain way, they are thinking for themselves. The information is presented to them in such a way as to make them think and use their previous experiences to process the data. It also gives them a more rounded view – they pull their ideas from their own previous experiences, so they can see the relevance. 

How is it useful in my own teaching context?

It may be useful in my own teaching context as a way to make the courses I design or the way I teach interesting, focused and also to make me aware that I need to find a way to use students' prior knowledge to teach them. I can see it incorporates more interesting visuals, and also has a very structured learning approach (steps 1 – 9). It gives the students more of a chance to think for themselves… so as a teacher, I would need to make sure I gave them that opportunity, and also made sure I had a good understanding of the audience (students) that I would be teaching/creating a course for.

What particular content areas might benefit from this approach?

I can see that online learning would benefit greatly from this – the use of web videos, music, online questionnaires, online resources can make a lesson very visually interesting and also varied.

Drawbacks?

It would certainly mean that students would want to think for themselves, and a certain structure to the lessons needs to be set (steps 1 – 9). It would put more demand on the teacher to getting it right, to be engaging and interesting, especially for the students in question, and ensure that the information presented is right for those people.

If students haven’t learnt this way before, then it may take them some time to feel comfortable in this way of learning… so it may be as a teacher, I would need to take extra time or be available to assist the students in this different type of learning, particularly at the start.