Revisiting Learning Theories

At the beginning of the term, I viewed myself as a Cognitive and Constructivist learner. After exploring the different learning theories and learning styles in greater depth and breadth, I would revise my view to include Cognitivism, Social Learning Theory, and Connectivism. As a learner, I am always striving to simplify, organize, and encode data in meaningful ways that connects to my background knowledge. When approaching a new concept or task, I always begin by brainstorming everything I already know about the topic or task as well as pinpointing any previous experiences that could apply to the new task. Using this background knowledge as a diving board, I can comfortably jump into the pool and swim from the known into the unknown. Cognitive strategies enable me to establish a purpose for reading, interact with text, chunk or organize facts, and encode data into memory. These strategies help not only to monitor mental
processes, but they also enable me to adjust and adapt my approach when certain strategies are not working. Although I had a solid grasp of this learning theory, I discovered many new things about Constructivist learning. After probing it more deeply, I realized that I did not construct knowledge independently on my own little oasis. Instead, I collaborated within a specific learning community (face-to-face at Immaculata and online through Walden) during learning activities to discover meaningful concepts and content. My learning was shaped by all of the divergent voices, ideas, resources, and activities within each context. As a result of this collaboration within each community, I developed knowledge about instructional design and methods of research. On the other hand, I had never heard of Connectivism before taking this class. Technology has become an essential component in my academic endeavors that empowers me to locate formal and informal data sources, save, organize, and annotate resources, collaborate with peers and practicing professionals, and publish my discoveries, explications,
and opinions. Technology is fun and exciting; I am constantly seeking out new tools that can enhance my pedagogy or professional life. With the explosion of technology tools, online communities, and data sources, I have been cultivating a rich network of social, technological, and educational connections. This network has been empowering me to organize, negotiate, collaborate, and present my learning to the world from the convenience of a personal computer in my kitchen! Creating these diverse networks happened quite naturally, without even
knowing that it illustrated an emerging learning theory--Connectivism.