I advise every teacher to write down their own personal learning theory. Application of an instruction strategy and using a learning theory depends on both character and ability of teacher and students in the class. In other words, there is no perfect strategy, and teachers must keep in mind that each brain has a different understanding and nerve connections (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010a). Therefore, one teacher can benefit from same learning theory while the other one cannot and one strategy can work in one class and will not work in another.
Likewise, I wrote my first personal learning theory in the beginning of EDUC 6711 course. In my learning theory, I pointed out how to motivate students, engage them to the lesson and help them to learn with activities, demonstration and project based assignments. At the end of this course, I acknowledged that my personal learning theory was good but not completed. For instance, I did not know that the brain can process maximum 7 information pieces at the same time (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010b). I am happy to see that new trend is student-centered learning, and that is what I am trying to achieve in my current lesson plans. However, I understood that sharing the product, explaining the results, and making it a public entity reinforce the learning effectively (Thurmond, 1999). Additionally, I should include social learning and connectivism into my learning theory.
I am planning to modify my personal theory of learning. Students will participate actively in presentation of the product. I will also create online groups with students from other schools and ask my students to perform online interviews. Additionally, I am going to enrich homework types, and will give an opportunity to choose a homework type that student want. Moreover, I will focus on organizing my lesson plan using both text and visual mapping, and try to limit the number of information that students need to process less than six.
This course both drew a new vision about how to use technology that I knew, and taught new technology tools. For example, I never taught that I can use spreadsheets to draw graphs of data collected in experiments. After now, I will tell my students that they can use spreadsheets while processing the experiment data. Additionally, I like concept maps (https://bubbl.us/). One of the immediate adjustments that I will practice is the concept map. I am going to create lesson outline with using concept maps together with text and images, and will distribute it at the beginning of the lesson. At the end of the unit, we will fill the concept map together with students and review the lesson. According to research, this will provide a dual coding and will improve the understanding of students (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010c). Another immediate adjustment that I am going to do is VoiceThreads. I will ask my students to post their presentation to the VoiceThread. As a result, everybody can comment on presentation in a longer time period, and I can follow the participation of the students.
The first long term goal that I plan to incorporate is Microsoft Kodu. I will organize a Create your Physics Game competition, and ask students to create a physics related game with using Microsoft Kodu. This will engage students to physics, teach them basic programming abilities, and make their physics knowledge enduring. I downloaded Kodu Game Lab (from here) and classroom kit (from here). Once I feel myself confident, I will introduce this program and competition to the administration and perform school wide physics game competition. Like Dr. Orey (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010d) states that firsthand experience is necessary to understand, and participants will build a game and gain firsthand experience from this competition.
Second long term goal that I am planning to use is virtual trips. Together with my students, we will collect the links of physics related virtual trips from the internet, and will use them whenever appropriate. Everyone is welcome to submit their virtual trip links related to the high school physics. At the beginning or middle of the lesson, I may introduce virtual trip to the students. I think this will help them to relax and enjoy the lesson. They may ask questions that they wonder and share their real world experiences. I am sure that this will engage students to the lesson.
In conclusion, this course taught me that there are lots of new education technology tools, online resources and software. Instead of searching same sites again and again, I should start thinking out of the box and perform wild searches to find new strategies, technologies and tools. I am sure that while I am writing this post, someone is uploading a new education tool to the website, and, as a teacher, it is my duty to check efficiency of this tool and use in my class to improve my teaching performance, and help students to learn better.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program seven. Constructionist and constructivist learning theories [Webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore , MD
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Program one. Understanding the brain [Webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Program five. Cognitive learning theory [Webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore , MD
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c). Program five. Cognitive learning theory [Webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Thurmond, A. (1999a). Constructionism. Retrieved from The San Francisco State University Web site: http://online.sfsu.edu/~foreman/itec800/finalprojects/annmariethurmond/defconstructionism.html
