2nd Week

How do people learn? How did life outside of the classroom impact students? What is the role of the brain and learning? How do the students acquire languages? Is there a role played by emotions in learning? Why many students did became dedicated to Literature and to me? I began to observe how most of my colleagues taught and tried to understand the connections between the above mentioned quarries. Gestalt psychology suggests that everything comes together in the moment of action, and if we want to know why and how students are learning then we have to know how they are making sense of a situation how they are relating to what is being learned. According to Ormrod.J.E, Shunk D. H.earning, Gredler M (2008) Mind Learning Principles are based on research done on animals, postmortem studies, case studies of people with brain injuries and other pathological conditions & Electrical recording and neuro-imaging but it is said that none of the principles 100% perfect. As many agree “Learning” involves both focused attention and peripheral perception and it involves conscious and unconscious processes. When you think about Learning languages and the mechanisms of Learning .It is amazing to learn that a language learner goes through the same steps when learning a language. D.A Wilkins (1976) distinguishes between synthetic and analytic approaches: a synthetic language teaching strategy is one in which the different parts of the language are taught separately and step-by-step so that acquisition is a process of gradual accumulation of parts until the whole structure has been built up. Moreover, left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for language learning & mathematical calculation skill (Learning theory and instruction P 34). Lenneberg (1921–1975) who was both linguist & neurologist was the first to say that language acquisition and cognitive psychology specially concept of innateness. He was in the view when a child reaches 12 years ability of learning languages concentrates to the left side of the brain. Therefore, it is very clearly seen that if you can expose a child to many languages before 12 child finds it easy to learn as both sides of the brain works.

1st week application

Week 1 Application
This is my first blog for the Walden University So you will have to bear with me if I have done a mistake. I hope to be good blogger. I am sure I will definitely be a competent blogger one day.
For this assignment I looked at three separate blogs related to instructional design. In my current position I work as a teacher Educator attached to National Institute of Education dealing with adult learners and as the national coordinator coordinating Regional English Support Centers popularly known as RESC centers where the staff of this centers help teachers and children in peripheries of the country . So anything I can read and bring back to assist my work I felt worth reading and subscribing to.

The first blog I looked at Instructional Design for eLearning Approaches: the first cite of mine is it is about many issues of e-learning I liked Planning and Management in Distance Education and Training because it takes about benefits of e–learning such as:
1. “The most cost-effective way to deliver instruction (training) or information."
When you think from the point of view of the institution for staff development in-service teachers should come to the institution and the cascade model is being used to train the teachers in the country. I feel if we can use on line training it saves the problem of in-service instructors coming to the institution and in their work place they can get the training.

2) Universality. "Concern over differences in platforms and operating systems is rapidly fading".
Here in Sri Lanka we use moodle as the operating platform but as the blog (http://ideas.blogs.com) suggests we to can make use of open sources and the nature of universality makes it popular with everybody.
3) Scalability. "Programs can move from 10 participants to 100 or even 100,000 participants with little effort or incremental cost (as long as the infrastructure is in place)."
This feature too is very user friendly. We need not bother about numbers. If we try to organize a workshop we will have to find a suitable venue and limit the participants but online workshops do not have such limitations

The second blog I looked at is http://learntoelearn.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/adult-learning-whats-in-it-for-me/ it also talks about what adult learner needs and how they learn. It is true that we cannot use the same method to teach young learners to adults. I felt it is very relevant my job. It says “Every adult learner wants to know one thing: what’s in it for me?”This means that we cannot decide for them as for children we need to think about a needs survey when planning a workshop or a course. Furthermore, it talks about get the employees interested in learning. The following extract gives a clear idea about it.
“So how do we get these employees interested in learning? Here are a few suggestions:
• Immediately explain to the learners why the training class is important to their particular job
• Have clear and detailed goals for the training class
• Link the training class to the employee’s prior work experience
• Actively involve the employees in the class
• Treat the learners with respect and treat them like adults, not children
• Show the learners the benefits of the training, i.e. make more commission, prepare themselves for advancement, stay on top of the competition”
The tips given are very useful to any one handling adults

/http://nkilkenny.wordpress.com/ is the third blog I went through .This blog will be very helpful as it talks about “Future Think for Educators” and shares resources with those who read and post. This will be beneficial as an Educator who is involved in curriculum designing I will have to think about future and cater the needs of the child in 2030 .Moreover, it talks about Our Educational System has Failed Us – Parents to the Rescue .I felt the information given is very relevant to my career

Walden University

This posting is for Walden University