Reflection on Learning

A glance back to my initial musings around learning was helpful, as it helps me see the growth in my ‘thinking about thinking’ pre and post constructionism. Learning about constructionism as a theory for learning has helped me reconfigure my ideas around educational design, learning, engagement, and the role of the teacher. I am completely inspired by Mitch Resnick’s ideas about the kindergarten approach to learning (2007) and so looking back to my original model of learning I realized that the iterative cycle of imagine, create, play, share, reflect and imagine… is missing, as is his focus on creativity, projects, interest-driven passion and play. 

My original ideas about learning were highly focused on interactions, as I wrote: Learning is a construction process radically affected by interactions, backgrounds, languages, understandings, connections, experiences, cultures, actions, multimedia, locale, emotions, relationships, gestures, materials, opportunities, and engagement.  In order to understand learning, it is important to think about all the different ways that our lives are affected by each interaction and also to understand that we are always changing--this results in learning.  Every interaction results in some form of learning-doesn't it?  I touch the stove and get burned; I learn to be more careful.  My grandmother comments that the length of my skirt is "interesting"; I learn that she doesn't approve of my dress and that I need to watch what I wear around her.  (Excerpt from my first blog post about learning)

Today, I do stand behind the interactive nature of learning from my original model of learning and the focus on it’s social nature, but I realize that I failed to attend to the learning environments and learning design. Also, I left out the role of the teacher, role of meaningful engagement and design principles that enhance learning.   I will attempt to add these constructionist tenants to my model of learning in this blog post. My updated model shows the expanded ideas about learning in red pen.

Expanded ideas include meaningful engagement and teacher role and I expand on these ideas through a constructionist lens here. Meaningful engagement happens when students are pursuing interest driven learning.  Ito et. al. (2013) explain that “when a subject is personally interesting and relevant, learners achieve much higher-order learning outcomes” (page. 12). Through this course I have come to understand the importance of meaningful learning and learning must be personalized to be meaningful.  Also, newly added to my model is  the teachers’ role.  In constructionism this relationship is seen as an apprenticeship model.  This can be traced back to early work kindergarten, where Froebel proposed that a teacher should act as a guide rather than a lecturer (As cited in Brosterman, 1997). Other important additions under the Doing/Making section of the model  include creativity, tinkering, design, objects-to-think-with, concrete, iterating, reflecting, and reformulation as critical aspects of learning. Finally, under experiences I added that knowldege is constructed and that learners should learn to be consumers rather than merely producers.