Reflection 3. Week 4. 19/03/14

This week we are to study/explore Group 2 tools ( images, digital video, pod casting ) and then reflect in our blog, how one of these tools allows students to learn.

While taking in this weeks learning material I came to the realisation that there is an incredible amount of opinions, research and beliefs regarding the neuroscience/psychology/sociology of how a human being learns.

As a future educator I need to become quite concerning when analysing the faults and merits of this material. What we don't want to do is 'through the baby out with the bathwater.' 

The learning material this week links us to an article by Meris Stansbury. Stansbury discusses a report titled  'Multimodal learning through Media:What the research Says'.  From the report she states that " adding visuals to verbal instruction can result in significant gains in basic or higher order learning." 

Wow big deal. Even when I learnt my times table rote style in 1969, the teacher knew to have the tables written on the blackboard, because we learnt better by seeing what we were chanting. Does this sort of report exist to reinforce what we already know? or are educators oblivious to the benefits of    the technique of adding visuals to instructions before this report? (I hope not)  I just feel that this type of article reflects badly, on our profession as teachers. 

The report (link below) uses a lot of pages to condemn the lack of scientific study supporting the 'Cones of Learning" theory by Edgar Dale.

http://issuu.com/olliebray/docs/multimodal-learning-through-media/1?e=0 

  

   
One example that I think the report has got wrong, is on page 3 subtitled  'A Myth Shattered: Bogus Data'.

In this section the report attacks one part of the Cone of Learning theory, ".... and the unlikelihood that learners would remember 90% of anything, regardless of the learning process." 

This is against the Cone of Learning theory that states  " After 2 weeks we tend to remember 90% of what we both Say and Do. By Simulating the Real Experience ..... doing the Real Thing." [refer to the image above] 

But I would have to agree with the Cone of Learning theory, from my experience as an employer of staff for 23 years and having to educate all staff in some of their employment duties, the very best way get staff to retain information is to get them to physically do the task to be learnt. Also my teaching area is Manual Arts and I envisage that the pedagogical technique that will be most successful for me will be showing the students what to do and then getting them to DO it.    

I am not trying to vindicate either article, study or theory I am just alluding to the idea that as future teachers we need to use our own critical analytical thinking while researching learning information to be teachers.  "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water" 

The Group 2 tool that excites me in my teaching area of history this week is digital video. Digital video such as YouTube combines original audio and video of real life actual historical events. Motion picture cameras were invented in the 1890's, so since that date many historical events were recorded. This brings contemporary history to LIFE !

History is seen at times as a boring subject of dates and places but digital video can not only be used to contradict this perception but be used to extend a students learning into complex/analytical thinking.

 

For example if my history class was discussing 'the rise of Germany as a military superpower in the 1930's', usually this can involve reading about the economics, politics and also the rise of Adolf Hitler. I envisage darkening the classroom, turning up the volume and using a large screen to show them the following clip. 
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8TUge4sKr4

 
I am aiming to get emotive complex thinking from the students. I would then use a PMI ( positive/negative/implications) chart on the whiteboard and ask students to brainstorm any feelings/thoughts/perceptions/discernment/ from watching this digital media file. 

Digital media also brings truth to contemporary history.  For example if we were studying early 20th flight, author Bill Bryson states in his book 'One Summer 1927' that "Charles Lindbergh instantly became the most famous person on the planet when he landed his plane, the Spirit of St Louis....[ he was the first to cross the Atlantic non stop] "  That's a big statement to make, but by looking through digital media clips a student can find original material to make up their own mind. The following link certainly is an eye opener for students when studying this material. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvq0vwLaeko

 

 

P.S I do not know if the links will open. I have tried to get it to work!! 

    Ok I worked it out. When you preview,  the links do not work. When its published they do!