Organizing My Thoughts About Learning

Tonight in class, we will begin discussing Jonassen's updated "Mindtools" text. We will try to make sense of how he wants us to "travel" through the text. Tonight's goal is to begin apply his "framework" for creating meaningful learning experiences for our students. We'll use a concept map to document our thoughts and embed that concept map in our blog and reflect on it. This way, we'll be able to document how our thoughts evolve throughout the course.

Some key ideas from chapters 1-3; your reading due Tuesday night:

Meaningful learning:
1. Meaningful purpose
2. Conceptual engagement
3. Conceptual development
4. Methods and strategies that support these three components (Jonassen, 2006, p. xiii).

Jonassen asks: "How do we engage and support conceptual change in students?"
Jonassen answers: "...building models of phenomena being studied is among the most effective methods" (p. xv).

How we will begin to organize our ideas: (refer to the graphic organizer on p. xvi of the text).
1. Identify learning goals.
2. After skimming through chapters 4-8, how do you classify your learning goals? (domain knowledge, systems, problems, experiences, or thinking)
3. How do you want your students to model phenomena and which tools should they use? (chapters 9-17 discuss the tools)
4. How will you assess this learning? (chapter 3 and also throughout 9-17)

We are going to create models of the ideas we are learning. Here is my Graphic Organizer as a sample:


This is a different type of thinking for most. In addition, intense learning about technology has to occur throughout this process as we create "Mindtools". I'm calling for a shift in my students' thinking; a change in the way they do things. It's all about their "learning". I share a thought from Will Richardson's most recent blog entry: we need to try to re-envision our own learning; not just our students. I think this class will do that.

Your comments are welcome!

Learning WITH Technology

Are your students learning with technology? If so, HOW? If not, what needs to change?

1. Support knowledge construction
• represent learners' ideas, understandings, and beliefs
• produce organized, multimedia knowledge by learners
2. Support explorations
• access needed information
• compare perspectives, beliefs, world views
3. Support learning by doing
• simulating meaningful real-world problems, situations, and contexts
• represent beliefs, perspectives, arguments, and stories of others
• provide a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking
  
4. Support learning by conversing
• collaborate with others
• discuss, argue, and build consensus among members of a learning community
• support discourse among knowledge building communities
  
5. Intellectual partners that support learning by reflecting
• help learners articulate and represent what they know
• reflect on what they have learned and how they came to know it
• support learners' internal negotiations and meaning making
• construct persona representations of meaning
• support mindful thinking (Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1999 as cited in Jonassen, 2000)