Week 1 Reflection (4 April)
Dewey (1938) in Experience and Education emphasized the importance of knowing the internal conditions of the learners. He advocated that planning an educative experience involves consideration of the dynamic interaction between the objective conditions (of the environment) as well as the internal conditions of the learners. I like the way which Malcom Brown has delineated the match between the characteristics of the Net Gen with the corresponding learning theory principles, learning space application and IT application. I feel that any approach to designing learning spaces, be it physical or virtual, must start with an understanding of the learners and their needs. However, though Malcom has captured what I feel the most appropriate starting point of any design process, this piece is too short and cryptic and I really look forward to making more sense of the relationship between learning theories and the actual design of learning spaces in this course.
I also like Rogoff’s attempt of representing the inter-connectedness and inter-dependence of culture and learning. I fully agree that these two are not discrete entities. As I reflect on how classroom settings are designed, I feel that the larger context of societal culture and the more immediate context of school culture really play a big yet quite invisible role of influencing the design considerations. As I see it, culture influences decisions on physical set-ups which in turn impact the type and amount of learning. How learning takes place in turn creates or reinforces the culture of learning. One really needs to consciously step back and ask ourselves which aspects of learning we want to augment when designing learning spaces instead of letting the implicit cultural assumptions of learning rein our decisions.
Finally the reading on How People Learn sets me thinking about how learning spaces can be designed to facilitate more automatic retrieval of prior knowledge and easier conditionalization of new knowledge. If this can be done, we can bring novices one small step nearer to experts, through the innovative design of physical and virtual learning spaces. I am excited to learn more in this course!
Deb Kim "Thank you Sun Sun for your thoughtful reflections on the various readings. You pose some very interesting connections from ideas presented in the readings, with your own prior knowledge as well as speculations about your future experiences in this class. I implore you to continue to grapple with these thoughts on the mutually constituting nature of culture and learning, the environment and learning theories, Dewey, and bring novices to interact in spaces like experts and how to create those spaces."
Free-Write in class - What is Learning? (5th April)
To me, learning takes place when there is association of prior knowledge with new materials and when new meanings and understandings are made out of the new experience. Learning can take place all the time and anywhere, could be deliberate or incidental. A good teacher is one who can capture incidental learning moments, in addition to designing learning experiences and maximizing the chances that these experiences work.
Learning styles are influenced by culture as well as personality.
Reflection during class (5th April)
Class discussion helped me see the deficiencies of Malcom's table:
1. While we can try to accommodate different learning styles and traits through tailoring the physical layout to suit the needs of the users, we can also think about how different settings can drive desired interactions and learning outcomes. Certainly the table can be read from left to right or thought about from right to left!
2. I also understand the concerns that some of the course mates have regarding the over-use of technology by the Net Gen, so much so that there are students who cannot do their homework without an ipod on and online chat at the same time. But that's where a teacher comes in, to guide students on when these are allowed and when they are not appropriate. Where design of physical spaces is concerned, there are certainly places like the auditoriums where we can cut off any wireless connection including even cell phone reception!