Karen Kaminski (KKaminski@vines.colostate.edu)
Thu, 21 Jan 99 16:08:43 -0700
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 99 16:08:43 -0700 From: "Karen Kaminski" <KKaminski@vines.colostate.edu> Subject: [ifets] Discussion Summary #4
Since Mary's last summary, the dicussion has been fairly inactive.
Chris informs us that his point is that teachers should know a lot more
about how students learn and different styles. He is concerned that an
instrumental approach to identifying a student's learning style may hinder
student development and that it is much better to help them adopt a range
of different approaches.
Thank you, Chris! I personally believe that most educators are aware of
different learning styles. What they don't have the skills to do is to
incorporate them into their content delivery. I would also suspect that
part of this is a time and comfort issue. How many people teach the way
they are most comfortable learning themselves?
Chris continues, reminding us that variety is the spice of life. This is
why he thinks 'engaged' is a useful word for describing the mental activity
taking place. He goes on to differentiate between the difference between
being engaged and being interactive with regard to learning with a
computer. Again, I would agree. I am sure that we can all remember
having conversations where we were interacting with the other party while
our minds were engaged with other matters. Here I agree with what Mary said
in her summary. The technology used is just the medium to deliver the
message. It is the relevance of the message that will engage the students
in the learning process.
As Nora reminds us, the education-as-regurgitation may still exist in
primary learning but is certainly not dominant in adult learning. Adult
learners are the 'market' that hs pushed both institutional and workplace
learning toward an applications focus. And as Martin reminds us,
engagement does not come from the computer... but from the individual and
the social group.
One of the advantages of learning in a traditional classroom is the social
contact with fellow students. Distance programs using cohort groups are
showing more success than those that offer open registration to randomly
sequenced courses.
This is a brief summary, if I have missed something, please let me know.
Karen
Karen Kaminski, Coordinator of Instructional Design
Office of Instructional Services
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
email: kkaminski@vines.colostate.edu
voice: 970-491-3713 fax: 970-491-6989
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