The Learning Brain

Traditionally, families have inventive means of teaching kids lessons especially when it concerns their safety. Lightly waiving a child’s hand over some heat source so they can feel the warmth and associate fire with danger in order for them to stay away or finding other non-traumatic ways to instill caution and help the child build self-restraint. Many of these methods have to be repeated over time in order for the child to begin naturally recalling the experience. This week course video discusses repetition as an ineffectual means of educating someone. However there is evidence to the contrary. The two resources I found this week pertaining to learning, how we learn and what role the brain plays in that process focuses on the psychology of learning and improving children’s listening comprehension through manipulation.

The first article is from Walden’s free online community for educators -http://connected.waldenu.edu/.

ConnectEd

ConnectEd is a free online community, hosted by The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University, where educators can get informed, engaged, and inspired. While other sites focus on lesson plans, ConnectEd offers practical advice about the professional and personal challenges you face in your educational settings and in your life.

This website provides a valuable resource for educators to connect with other educators and keep abreast of techniques for teaching various groups in a community format. This particular article What Is the Psychology of Learning? – summarizes how individuals learn and defines different learning theories.

…learning is a change in behavior, ability or knowledge that occurs as a result of experiences a person or animal has. In order to be considered learned, a behavior or change in knowledge must be permanent and cannot result from any type of sickness or physical damage. (Psychology of Learning, 2010).

The article defines classical and operant conditioning and cognitive and operational learning. Both classical and operant conditioning could pertain to the previous example I presented in teaching kids safety and self restraint. Classical learning is achieved through stimuli or association with and event or object and operant learning develops through consequences that encourage or discourage.

The second article is a case study on 76 kindergarten and first grade students using physical manipulation.

Improving Children's Listening Comprehension with a Manipulation Strategy.
Journal of Educational Research

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=111&sid=37802334-d2ed-41e0-be79-d97a3d3c5d0e%40sessionmgr112

ABSTRACT. The authors examined the cognitive benefits of physical manipulation. Participants were 76 kindergarten and first-grade students randomly assigned to 2 strategies: stories with pictures or manipulation. In the pictures strategy, participants listened to story content and viewed pictures. In the manipulation strategy, participants moved manipulatives as directed by the stories. After a training period, the pictures or manipulatives were removed and participants were instructed to imagine story events. Significant differences in favor of the manipulation strategy on free and cued recall were observed during all 3 instructional periods. Furthermore, strategy by recall type and strategy by grade-level interactions were identified during the training sessions. After training, the participants were instructed to imagine story events, and a significant difference was observed in favor of the manipulation strategy. (Marley and Szabo, 2010)

The article concludes that educators should use a two part strategy to enhance and improve learning and listening skills and gives suggestions as to how educators teaching different grade levels can utilize this method and tailor it to their grade level. As we have discussed and learn this week the way we learn develops and extend from various sources and cognitive learning is a culmination of these events and develops overtime through our individual processes of problem solving and gaining insight.

References

Marley, S. and Szabo, Z. (2010). Improving Children's Listening Comprehension with a Manipulation Strategy. Journal of Educational Research, 103(4), 227-238. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=111&sid=37802334-d2ed-41e0-be79-d97a3d3c5d0e%40sessionmgr112

ConnectEd. (2010). Retrieved from http://connected.waldenu.edu/about-us

ConnectEd. (2010). What Is the Psychology of Learning? Retrieved from http://connected.waldenu.edu/learning-and-perception/adult-learners/item/800-what-is-psychology-of-learning

Instructional Design Resources

Everyone remembers various first they have experienced throughout their lives first crush, first cell phone, or the first time you drove a car. Now that I am officially a blogger I will add this to my list of first, right now the experience feels like the first time I tried to program a VCR to record while I was away from home (never did get that to work) but if you are successfully reading this then my achievement rate has increased extensively.

That leads me to the purpose of this blog which is to relate this experience to you and recommend electronic resources I have found useful in the past to assist me while navigating and creating on and for the World Wide Web and creating e-learning and instructional design materials.

The first web site I am recommending is eLearning Learning it is a collection of blog posts and articles focused on the subject of eLearning.(http://www.elearninglearning.com/blog/blogging/instructional-design/)

One specific blog (Michael Hanley) E-Learning Curve Blog (2010) discusses learning methods and defines 3 specific types: formal learning, non-formal learning, and informal learning. The article briefly describes how one can receive an education – formally through a traditional educational or training institution in a systematized manner described as intentionally seeking some type of degree or certificate, non-formally through intentional knowledge seeking but not to achieve any certification or planned diploma but still in a structured manner, and informal learning which occurs by living and gathering experiences.

The latter is usually unintentional and is not structured; it often happens by accident or often unconsciously. Instructional Designers should considered why and how individuals learn and factor those theories into to the construction of their designs.

The other two sites I am recommending are Adobe TV - http://tv.adobe.com/%20/ an online video resource for expert instruction (Adobe Inc.) that Industrial Designers and other related professions can utilize to learn how to create and publish their materials. One specific video highlights a new resource that convert’s blog content into a voice broadcast. Use this link to view Mike Potter’s interview of The BlogRadio’s architect Bruce Hopkins - http://tv.adobe.com/watch/interview/interview-with-blogradio.

Lastly, I am recommending to anyone using the Internet and creating materials that will be utilized on the web or other electronic sources to familiarize themselves with the W3C - http://www.w3.org/: “The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards”. It is a major resource to obtain standards and best practices for various software programs as well as computer technology terms, definitions, and code samples to name a few.

One specific example of the type of useful resources and information it provides is the Feed Validation Service…“a free service that checks the syntax of Atom or RSS feeds”. It also provides a Markup Validation Service to validate Web pages - http://validator.w3.org/feed/& http://validator.w3.org/ . The term validation relates to whether a page item or background code is conforming to a specific standard or preset determination or is simply correct. For example, when you place a text box (field) on a web page to provide a space for the user to enter their name you can set validation to ensure once the user hits submit or exit they have actually type something in this field.

References

Adobe Systems Inc. (2010). Adobe TV. http://www.adobe.com/

BlogRadio. (2010). Cloud-based, streaming media for RSS. http://www.podblogr.com/

eLearning Learning.com. (2010). http://www.elearninglearning.com/blog/blogging/instructional-design/

Feed Validation Service. (2010). http://validator.w3.org/feed/

Hanley, M. (2010). E-Learning Curve Blog. Retrieved from http://michaelhanley.ie/elearningcurve/ on May 4, 2010.

Markup Validation Service. (2010). http://validator.w3.org/

Potter, M. (2009). Episode: Interview with BlogRadio. Adobe TV. Retrieved from http://tv.adobe.com/watch/interview/interview-with-blogradio

W3C. (2010). The World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/