ICTs Week 2 Learning Activities and Thoughts

Learning Activities:

Think about your own experiences at school and write a list of what you believe was student-centred and what was teacher-centric...

I think majority of my experience at school was teacher-centric. I don’t remember many classes asking things to students like what we are learning about now. I remember that drama, art and home economics were always a bit more learner-centred but I believe this was only because of the prac aspect of these subjects. Religion was the learner-centred because the priest wanted us to believe through our own way, we drew pictures up until the last day of yr 12. I remember Maths and English being chalk and talk every day.

Contrast this approach with what you have experienced in your own education and think about the advantages and possible pitfalls of this approach...

I think that the Profiling Phase is important as it is refreshing to see that teachers now should not just assume what was taught the year before and move on straight away. Question 2 is very learner-centred (as are all 8 questions) as it focuses on what is necessary to be taught (curriculum etc.) and what they want to learn. So what can be incorporated into the ‘needs’ that is something that they ‘want’ to learn as well? There is a lot of feedback approach in these questions and in my education, I never was asked what I wanted to learn which I think is the difference in today’s teaching and the advantages it has.

Learning Activity design

Since my second teaching area is Drama, I decided to do a drama activity. In school we learnt about the Japanese theatre known as Kabuki where men play both gender roles and it is all shown through movement. It is known for its elaborate costumes and make up. If this was a drama theatre style studied within the curriculum, I thought the students could research thoroughly through library, search engines, any means of research and find out the authentic way to apply makeup and what different colours or designs on the face symbolised. After this they could create an educational video showing viewers how to apply Kabuki make-up and why they wear it etc. Then post it onto YouTube. If this was a long term activity they could submit action plans, story boards, scripts etc. Obviously this is just a rough idea and more research would have to be conducted.

1. Write a list of formal learning experiences that you have had over the last two years.
2. Categorise each of these learning experiences (between 1 and 10) according to Dale's Cone and the Learning Pyramid (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)
3. Add up all of the scores and divide the total by the number of learning experiences.

Performing Arts degree- 10
Responsible Service of alcohol certificate-7
Employment training (new job) including Evacuation etc.-8

I realised after looking at Dale’s cone that I was so lucky to do a degree such as performing arts. Every experience I could think of within these 3 years was a 10! We had mentors come in from different companies; we performed an array of different shows in different settings. Everything we did was 100% hands on. Of course there were moments of chalk and talk when we were learning something new but this always followed in an example of what we had learnt. My university studies were very rich in experiences.
Outside of Uni, I just thought of when I obtained my RSA and I wondered why I scored it do high for just a 3 hour lecture. The man who took it was so into his work and what he did and he enriched us with a story for everything we learnt. He had an example for everything! To make something as mundane as a RSA course interesting, I really admired him. His preparation and dedication is something I will take and try to implement in my teaching experiences.
For the employment training, we had a very hands-on approach where we did a real evacuation drill. The venue where I work is a big place so to get this many people out is a very serious task. It was a very good learning experience to do this in a dramatic experience. They told us that “now was the time to make mistakes”. A very good experience.
So over all my learning experiences over the last 2 years was a 8.3 which is a good outcome.

Learning style results Results for: Courtney Rice ACT X REF 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> SEN X INT 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> VIS X VRB 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> SEQ X GLO 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- -->

I found that I was all over the place which is why my scores are so balanced except for visual/verbal. For some questions, I preferred team work and for the others, I preferred working alone. Then I like text in some aspects then pictures in others. Very inconsistent. Interesting to see though. Every learner will be different and our biggest task will be to accommodate for all these needs. Outcome for personality test moderately expressed extravert slightly expressed sensing personality distinctively expressed feeling personality moderately expressed judging personality Problems within the classroom would be to cater for all these differences. Not only are the students learning styles different but my results for the personality test were different again! So imagine what it must be like for developing, ever changing students! Maybe for a primary school setting it would be easier as you have the same set of children for a year, but for a secondary teacher, this will prove a challenge as they have a number of students in a number of classes. These tests were very interesting to do!! It just goes to show how different everyone is. I think a diverse classroom is also a rewarding experience as everyday will be different and every learner will bring something different to the class. Rediscovering Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs This reading had so much content and very interesting ideas. I agree with Kanc that there are some downfalls with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I think that what some students lack at home, they gain at school and vice versa. How can we ensure that children coming into our class feel covered in the physiological, safety and love aspects? What if a child comes from a hard home life and like I said above what they lack at home, they gain in school? Or do they have to have the love and safety at home before they even can begin to learn? I think Maslow had the right idea but this does not apply to everyone. To cater for a wide range of diversity in a classroom and having all students involved means providing belonging, love and safety to a child. Sir Ken Robinson Clip Some quotes I found interesting from Sir Ken Robinson’s speech, as mentioned on the discussion board, I just found him so captivating! I agreed with everything he said: “Kids will take a chance, even if they don’t know, they will have a go.” “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” “We are educating people out of their creative capacities.” “Picasso said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” This week has been full of content. It is really interesting to see what sort of learner I was and how I want to be taught. I am assuming the results from these tests were different for everyone, as will the results for students in our classes.