Your post very deeply connected the course material to your own lived experiences which I enjoyed reading! I relate to the fact that you made a mind map to comprehend the difference between cognitivism and constructivism, as I had a similar process for figuring out the concepts I found difficult to understand at first. Your interests in the health informatics field and climate change are interesting to read as I don’t know much in those fields, and I found your lessons in climate change to be very useful to learners, specifically in cognitivism with graphic organizers, as those are really good ways to see the mental processes that students go through. From your other writing on constructivism I can see why that is your preferred learning style as it really shows through that you care about activism and helping others any way you can in the real world. Lastly, I liked how you took a short answer approach and answered several prompts. I took the opposite approach and answered two prompts with long answers, but after reading yours I will definitely try the multiple short answer prompts for my next blog post!
Author: klgrove20
- What concept did you find difficult to understand? How did you approach learning the concept?
The concept I found difficult to understand was the confirmation bias in the Why is Learning Hard? post. I was initially confused between the factors of the way students understood the misconceptions vs. the correct information. I couldn’t understand how the misconceptions produced better learning results than correct information. After rewatching that part and reading the rest of the post it began to make sense to me that confirmation bias must be looked at through the lens of student engagement. I realized I was confusing myself by thinking that the misconceptions simply made the students do better on the quiz. I now know that confirmation bias is the understanding that students are less engaged with the material presented to them when they are aware that the material is correct. Hearing incorrect material made the students more engaged and aware of what is wrong so that they don’t put that information on the quiz.
2. Based on your reading, would you consider your current instruction style more behaviorist, cognitivist, or constructivist? Elaborate with your specific mindset and examples.
I would consider my instruction style mostly cognitivist, but it could also be a bit constructivist. I like the idea of taking a student’s previous understanding and incorporating it into lessons as an aim to help them understand the material I am teaching. For example I like to use activities that force the learner to be an active participant instead of just a passive learner. One activity is the pair and share, where I would propose a prompt before the lesson giving me the opportunity to hear their knowledge of the subject. The students get into small groups and each read out their answers to get the conversation going. After the lesson I propose that students take what they know and what they learned to answer a question in small groups again. This gives the opportunity to not only expand on their knowledge, but also assure that everyone gets a chance to participate, no matter if they like speaking or not. I am using prompts and questions, but it is through the learner’s answers that I take into account their mental processing and do not just let them passively answer like in behaviorism.
Hello! My name is Katelyn Grove and I am in my second year at UVic studying history and minoring in education. I am originally from San Diego, California, and after spending the past year and a half in Victoria I truly have an appreciation for all parts of the West Coast! I’m excited to build up my posts on this blog!
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