Learning Theories Wiki

This activity saw me partnering up with someone who resides in Bundaberg so the use of ICTs was important in fulfilling this task as meeting up for a collaborative session unfeasible and impractical. What was valuable to my own learning was connecting with this other student and sharing viewpoints. This allowed me to see the same text from a different angle, which increased my understanding. The way my partner and I approached this task was through the perspective of our differing specialisations, which contextualised the information making the learning relevant to the real world. The way this was not used to its full potential, again on my part, was in not reading other group’s contributions. I believe that I will in the future when I perceive that their information is relevant to my learning.

This activity, especially using the PMI format, can help students convey their ideas, move their opinions from inside their head into an open forum. Forcing students to look at a certain topic from the three viewpoints will help the students deepen their understanding especially when working in a pair or group scenario because other students will perceive different aspects as pluses, minuses and interesting points.

This activity was constructivist in that it was reliant on the student to construct their own learning through following the PMI scaffold and through collaborating with their partner effectively. It is also cognitivist in nature because the PMI scaffold allows students to process information into a digestible format for which they can recall the learned knowledge later when required. Through this activity students have gained access to a database of summated, useful and specific information on topics of significance to their learning thus introducing them to a manner in which to gather and be connected to information.

The approach to be taken is open to different perspectives – diversity in students would be advantageous in increasing others’ learning as concepts and approaches not considered by one student would be the focal point of the information for another thus creating a melting point of points of views, collaborated and summated for effective learning.

Once completed this online database would be effective in supporting learning through providing the students with a place to go for quick digestible information in assistance to their learning process.