LearningHaven.wikispaces

Throughout his week, my classmates and I are supposed to 'play around' with the newly set up learninghaven.wikispaces and then answer the following questions in our blog.

• What do you think of the new "how people learn" wiki?
• What helps you learn?
• What gets in the way of your learning?

I think the new LearningHaven wiki is very much structured. It gives a very clear path of where Dr Tee would want to lead us to. He wants us to understand the process of how people learn by asking us to watch how people learn at primary, secondary and tertiary levels so that we are able to design instructions based on how learners learn. It is quite fun to be able to watch the videos and analyze how lessons are conducted in other parts of the world although Dr Tee could have asked us to find the videos instead. The process of watching and listing how the students learn fit the first two stages of Bloom's taxonomy which are knowledge and understanding. The following activities A-D involve application, analysis and synthesis of Bloom's taxonomy whereby we are to match and categorise the processes according to a template prepared. The reflection part of activity D fits the evaluation stage of Bloom's taxonomy. Therefore the content of the new wiki is designed and developed according to the stages involved in Bloom's taxonomy which is from easy to difficult.

Now that I have answered the first question, I'll move on to the second question. What helps me learn? A teacher's vivid explanation and instructions made it easier for me to learn. Listening to lectures alone will help me to retain maybe 40% of what is being taught, but involving in activities will engage me more in the learning process. I may be able to retain the lesson up to 90% or more. Being a hyperthyrotoxicosis patient for quite some time, I could not sit still and listen to lectures or mundane meetings for more than at most 20 minutes. I will either fall asleep or end up doing something else.

Move on to the third question, what gets in the way of my learning? Hmm... well I would say if I don't have a basic knowledge of what I am about to learn, I will feel lost especially when I was not able to connect my existing knowledge to the new acquired knowledge. I'll give an example, when I first entered Instructional Design and Development class last two semesters, I have zero knowledge on the subject since my first degree was in ESL/Pedagogy. When I walked out of the first three classes I fell like yelling and crying outloud. I did not know where to hook my worry and concern and where to start. Knowing that the reputation and expectation of the lecturer is high give me an ever greater pressure. What helped me most then were my teammates. Working collaboratively in completing assignments and projects help me to learn and grasp what is required of me. Besides, after three weeks, I began to see connections and relate the new acquired knowledge with the existing knowledge I have. Furthermore, the lecturer did give a little scaffolding when she prepared templates for learner analysis and guided questions to guide us in doing our project.

I've answerd all the three question, now let me write about my personal view of our new wiki.
I appreciate Dr Tee's effort in preparing all the materials and it is a lot easier for us to see what are required for us to do. Probably, realizing that we do not have much time left to complete the first wiki on our own besides not getting the outline and the content right, Dr Tee has gone to the extent of guiding the whole class every step of the way. Of course we would be delighted to have our weight lifted. Of course, we think and see things differently, that is why none of us could think and see the way Dr Tee sees how the wiki should be like :) It is as if Dr Tee is holding a torch light and has prepared for us the ladder. Now our job is to climb up the ladder one by one while Dr Tee holds the light and torch our way up.