I'd like to devote my first posting to Brooklynn A. Welden - an Assistant Professor of Diplomacy and Gender Studies at the International University of Humanities and Social Sciences, San Jose, Costa Rica. I met her when I was considering Walden as an international student. She is my colleague at an online English school and she was guiding my steps through the admission process. Actually writing this blog has a lot to do with her being such an inspiration. Well, today strangely enough I've got an email from her with a quote that best describes my feelings about this course so far "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called Research."- A. Einstein.
To go through many things I didn't understand and among them technology the least worrying I did a lot of contemplation and here I will try to sum it all up.
I tried to provide a 3 dimensional outlook on what learning is: theoretical, practical and spiritual.
Thus, all learning theories of the week were summed up in a concise and logical manner in Meredith's Musings blog created by a previous student of this course at Walden. It provided many good examples on how I can improve on organizing, reflecting and mind-mapping information. Besides, it is an excellent stop on route to further immersion into the program.
Another blog I had to explore is the blog that would give some practical ground to exemplify what I need to use in my classroom as an online instructor and that also enables me to see how I can extend my instruction over cyber time and space. Teacher Reboot Camp felt as if written by me a while since today. I have been thinking about starting a language community where all of my students would be able to share their experience and learn through interaction with one another. It seems to be a corner stone of the course presented. Are you with me Dr. Paige?
The last blog and my pet lamb is the Talent Code not exactly an educational resource but more of a psychological coaching program which I ran into translating a self help book for Dr. Joe Vitale. As the author of the Talent's Code Daniel Coyle puts it “great talents are a product of the following combination: deep practice, ignition, and master coaching.” I found his amusing 3 Deadly Habits: How NOT to Develop Your Talent resonating with some of the learning theory we dwelled on this week.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM “In order to develop your talent slowly, you should regard your talent as your own private creation, and your challenges as private challenges that only you can solve. Don’t look elsewhere for guidance; certainly not to other performers.”
BEHAVIORISM: “In order to develop your talent slowly, you should never, ever review your performance. You should regard errors as unfortunate, unavoidable events, and do your best to immediately hide their existence or, even better, erase them from your memory.
And COGNITIVE THEORY: In order to develop your talent slowly, you should approach each practice and performance as if you’ve never, ever done it before. You should be casual. You should avoid any repetition of actions, thoughts, or patterns of any kind, and instead make every day completely different.
I think many instructors can find it helpful to have a look at Coyle’s EXPLORE YOUR TALENTS section which stands proudly in my teaching kit. I use it to identify a learning bug of a student I’ve got this time
