Learning Styles

Reflections of a manic educationalist

The mobile phone activity asked us to look at the value and application of mobile phones within an educational context. De Bono’s hats http://www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thinking/Hats/hats.htm helps us to organise and share our thinking from various and individualised perspectives.  De Bono’s theory constructs a holistic view, factually, emotively, historically and futuristically of a particular subject matter.

Reading the wiki I can’t help but giggle at the “slate board” comment, mostly because my husband, in a 26 student school in Brisbane, also had used slates in year one. I was absolutely gob smacked when I heard this for the first time. Wow, it’s positively pre-historic!  All jokes aside, the realism is that we, as students, are a multi-generational group with multi-dimensional perspectives, attitudes and realities.  The mobile phone wiki bought home this fact. What it also did was enlighten me on the functions some mobile phones have. Yes I read the article and watched the video for the tutorial but I don’t really think I had a true idea of its applications. In an effort to achieve greater learning outputs the idea of decentralising learning away from the classroom (BN) has merit.  This exercise has given me the opportunity to re-evaluate my perception of mobile phone use in education.  For now the jury is out.

Pedagogies that integrate ICTs can enhance achievement and create new learning opportunities. The extended communication I gain from other students has allowed me to reflect and revaluate my notions of education, teaching and learning.  All the wiki’s, the mobile phone wiki included, supports eLearning through the discussion forums.  The integrated learning of ICTs and course work is consistently reinforced, as is the scaffolding of my knowledge.

Students are supported in their learning preferences, visually- through the pictures, reflectively- through the processing of new information, actively via dialogical processes, intuitively- by the discovery of new relationships between mobile phones and education, verbally- through written commentary and even globally- where the concept of using mobile phones in an educational context, is understood without necessarily understanding possible associations. 

By using an evaluative schema (De Bono’s hats) it used a strategy where you considered and reconsidered about a particular issue. Applied within a school environment, students would be stimulated through active thought processes like creativity, examination and evaluation, question and think logically as well as intuitively.

Reflections of a confounded educationalist

Learning Theories Wiki

I particularly enjoyed the learning theories wiki as it was very interactive. Having the option to choose partners enabled, in my case, the reconnection of students I had previously met at Residential school. We contacted each other initially through CQU email and then through various other technological methods. Working within this group, I felt at ease. This encouraged me to extend my technological boundaries and experience Skype.  After downloading the program, I then needed to identify how the program operated. As a new experience I found it motivating and fun, though what was oddly interesting was one of our group member’s talked me through a few of the features.  Though Skype was working, I only had aural contact and no visual contact. Essentially it was a personalised tutorial.

The nuts and bolts of the activity required time management and organising.  A meeting time was arranged on Skype via email and the odd phone call, date and time were set.  An exchange of our separate research was via email and then through Skype we discussed as a group what we should integrate, from the differing perspectives, to form a cohesive structure.  Naturally the final product was uploaded to the Learning Theories wiki.

The content itself synthesised areas of learning that, for a long time now, had niggled me. You see, I have a son who has learning issues. Diagnosed with a cognitive disorder, he had problems with the short term to long term memory pathways.  I remember it like it was yesterday, years spent playing words association games and eye spy (yes, can you believe, it worked a treat) and the weekly trips to the speech pathologist.  I’m emotional just thinking about it. So yes, I was aware that there were learning styles and that learning is an individual experience. Personally, the learning wiki expanded my knowledge of learning theories which in turn transformed my perceptions of teaching and learning. 

Understanding the relationship between information accession, retention and integration, for a class of students, requires teachers to have an understanding of class dynamics and ultimately the individual levels and learning styles of students.  To gain an initial overview of class knowledge a simple question and answer situation (aural, active, verbal, interpersonal) where the class participates either individually or in groups, would suit. Other methods could include brainstorming (active, verbal and intuitive) or concept mapping of subject material (visual and intuitive).