What constitutes learning for me is meaningful/purposeful use of knowledge acquired. Learning facts and or concepts without meaningful application will be forgotten quickly, after the exams. When projects are included as part of the formative and summative assessment, it allows the students to process information more deeply and in a context that is meaningful to them.

I think learning should take place in a collaborative environment (face-to-face or online) whereby more ideas/thoughts can be generated/shared through discussion on a topic prescribed by the instructor. There should be required readings before the discussion/class so that students would have some information to process during class with peers and instructor. For on-campus courses, this approach would be called a flipped-classroom when content is read outside class and discussions during class can go deeper. As students share their thoughts on the given topic, they are participating in the learning process. In physical classrooms, seats should be arranged to facilitate small group discussions so that every student have a chance to participate (an example of a collaborative classroom design)

We can know that learning has occurred when students are able to describe the concepts and explain their understanding for application. Some visible signs of learning are: high student motivation and the questions they ask about the topics given. Sir Ken Robinson made this statement that “curiosity is the engine to achievement” -when students are curious about a topic or subject, they are more likely to learn.

I appreciate what Douglas Thomas shared about giving students “opportunities for exploration, play, and following one’s passions.”  When I took the course Introduction to Distance Education, I was allowed to write about learning objects for my final paper. At that time in my previous job, I needed to learn more about LOs, so researching articles on that topic was meaningful for me.

My philosophy on learning is that it should be engaging (interesting and meaningful), in manageable chunks (from simple to complex), involves group discussions, include assessments for learning (formative) and assessments in learning (summative), and should not be hindered by use of technologies that are unfamiliar.

P/S what is the url for Wordle? I still cannot figure how to use it since 3 months ago and how do we create a blog category for week 3

http://worditout.com/word-cloud/212548

Thanks, Rachel