Learning Theories Wiki

Communities of Practice.
This learning theory ended up being a classic choice for me.  Social constructivism is not something that I have been heavily involved in throughout my university learning.  I was interesting reading why I need to become more involved (somehow) in my own community of practice.  I am still finding this a challenge for me.  Even though I am very open and outgoing face-to-face, as a digital immigrant I have not integrated the social networking of the technology age.  Not getting mobile phone reception and being on satelite  internet does not help either.  I struggle to keep up with course material and family.   And thus do not look for time to surf the net, or communicate with others.

The course asked for a reading/video to be examined in greater depth to broaden the knowledge of a concept that a learner may not have come across before, or to re-examine ones perspective on this particular learning theory, or to challenge ones current thinking on learning theories.

The Expert Jigsaw strategy was used for this activity to develop teamwork and cooperative learning skills within our learning cohort, to help develop a depth of knowledge not possible if a student were to try and learn all of the material on their own, will often disclose the learner's own understnding of a concept as well as reveal any misunderstandings, and gives other members of the cohort an opportunity to enter in discussion and consolidate their own knowledge and understanding.

As a secondary science teacher this strategy would be very beneficial, as often there can be a lot of material, or issues, related to a single topic.  It would also bring different aspects of the topic and the individuals social/cultural views to the attention of all learners and one would hope this would promote substantive conversation.  Jigsaw learning allows students to be introduced to material and yet maintain a high level of personal responsibility, develops teamwork and cooperative learning skills.

This online form of reading and presenting back allows all students to have an opinion in a non-threatening environment, to be heard, have time to think, research and reflect, can increase confidence and participation.   It can also be used very effectively in a classroom setting by involving all learners with a smaller protion of work/learning, and giving the individual a less threatening environment to have a voice.

This activity was behaviourist learning in that it was well scaffolded with the PMI table; directing the learners attention to the teachers intended learning outcomes from the reading.  It also meant that all students were reporting their information in the same format which allowed for easier analysis and evaluation for all learners.  It supported individuals with different learning needs as is can reduce the problem of dominace, give students the chance to discuss their report and modify it based on the suggestions of other members of the expert group, gright students can be encouraged to develop the mind set of 'teacher', just to list a few advantages.  I believe this would be a good strategy to use in a science classroom for starting a new unit, or for a culminating activity at the end of a unit of work.