I can tell that we are nearing the end of the semester and that things are starting to ramp up for summer courses. It has been a few days since I reflected on the blogs from Clark. The next blog in the sequence was about Jesus: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/jesus-72-bc-to-3036-ad-parables-sermons.html. Here is my latest reflection:

Before I begin on my thoughts and reflections on the next entry. I need to comment on something that I heard yesterday. In the process of working on courses, we as instructional designers often get so involved that we lose sight of direction. The comment made was something about being so busy that there was no time to have “fun” and look at all of these fun links and websites. I was taken aback by the comments. I think that it’s not only important but mandatory that any instructional designer keeps a look out for what is happening around the landscape of their profession. I also think that it’s important to know and continue to reflect on learning design theory. Without instructional design theory at the core of our work, we are little more than people who have opinions about what works in teaching and learning. Sorry to jump on the soapbox, but I’m glad to have the chance to reflect back and know that this reflection will help me know in my work and in the future as I consider elements to add to courses.

Here is the link to Donald Clark’s blog entry on Aristotle: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/aristotle-384-322-bc-science-music-and.html.

“…he (Aristotle) set us on a path towards investigation, observation and knowledge, based on experience…”

Reflection: It’s interesting that Aristotle was a student of Plato. I think that often we choose a different path than a successor because we see holes in the path that you experienced. I think that it’s important to have a strong foundation, but I agree with Aristotle that we need to experience and reflect on what we’ve experienced to develop knowledge.

“…he (Aristotle) recommended a balance of activities that train both mind and body, including debate, music, science and philosophy, combined with physical development and training.”

Reflection: Balance is always key. I find that most problems for me stem from neglecting an important part of what makes me me. This has to be true about learning.

“Learning by doing was a fundamental issue in his theory of learning. ‘Anything we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it…‘”

Reflection: Later in the paragraph Clark goes on to say that Aristotle took the view, like Plato, that education should be left for the elite. It’s interesting that he still thought that even the best learners needed to mix practice with theory. To me, theory is only the starting place and that practice should expand on the theory since it brings even more clarity and context.

“He (Aristotle) saw it (music) as an important educational technique, a builder of character and good for the soul, as well as a useful pastime.”

Reflection: I’m not sure why more in secondary and higher ed don’t incorporate music into their teaching. I’m sure that it has something to do with what others may say that it is too juvenile. But I completely agree with the notion that music plays an important part in teaching and learning. Almost everyday, my kindergarten son comes home with songs about things that he is learning. I find him singing these tunes to himself. I’m sure these songs will assist him the future when he needs to remember a necessary concept.

“Education is not the mere transmission of knowledge, it is a preparation for participation in a fulfilled life that reflects and acts on ethical and political grounds.”

Reflection: This circles back to the point that I made before starting my reflection. Learning is something that needs to stay with us forever. There are far too many who even work in education who don’t spend their time growing and learning. Education fulfills a fundamental part of us that when untapped only leads to stagnation and a lack of depth and creativity.

I’ve decided to read and comment on each of the entries about the theorists and their theories. Here is the blog about Plato that can be found at this url: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/plato-428-348-bc-lifelong-learning-3rs.html. Here are the important points that I gathered and my reflections.

“…most of his (Plato’s) writing is in the form of ‘dialogue’. Indeed, his dialogues do not feature Plato himself. They illustrate by example his view that the learners must learn to think for themselves through dialogue.”

Reflection: I’ve always that thought that talking to oneself as you are reading or doing any type of learning is important. Coming to points and conclusions before they are written is a sign that you are engaged in the topic and developing your reasoning skills.

“Above its door were the words Do not enter here unless you know geometry, and he did see mathematics as important training for the mind, along with the idea of proof and clear hypotheses.”

Reflection: As a former math teacher, I think that being able to reason and use logic is so important for any endeavor.

“The educational system should also be designed to determine the abilities of individuals and training provided to apply to the strengths of their abilities. In other words, a severe form of streaming.”

Reflection: The blog talks about Plato’s ideas that the 3R’s are important, and this quote focuses how students should be organized. As a student who broke into the upper levels in 3rd/4th grade, I could see the benefits for individuals but the detriment for society. I believe in the ability of people to change and improve. Not everyone fits the predetermined norms. To me, it’s important to give learners the benefit of the doubt to grow.

“…he (Plato) did not recommend that young minds should be introduced the mathematics and abstract reasoning too early. This simply induces rejection and rebelliousness. At this early stage one must develop character.“

Reflection: I agree with this to a point. One of the unfortunate results in the development of specific curriculum in schools is that many talented learners are assessed based on pace of development, rather than their overall abilities. If you cannot develop your ability to reason abstractly by 5th/6th grade, you are considered less of a math student. It makes little sense to doom a student to a lesser math/science education just because they can’t solve an equation.  Along this line of thinking, I was always amazed at the ability of students to grasp concepts at a young age that were highly abstract as long as they didn’t get thrust into the rigor of completing exercises. I always thought it was important to introduce the concepts as early as possible so to allow time for incubation and curiosity to develop a thirst and purpose for learning the rigor.

“Fiction can cloud a child’s mind and reduce their ability to make judgments and deal with the real world.”

Reflection: I completely disagree with this notion completely. Having a context for learning by telling stories is so important for all ages, especially children. Without imagination, where can be develop our dreams and our enlightened future?

“Music and sports should then be brought into the curriculum…”

Reflection: This sounds so counter to where education is currently moving. We compartmentalize so much that could be integrated.

“On the other hand, his appreciation that people learn differently over time has been taken up by those who see ‘andragogy’ as a theoretical construct.”

Reflection: It is interesting that he believed that only a few should be given formal education at a young age, but that he also believed in lifelong learning for all. Personally, I believe in the notion that ideas and concepts need to introduced at a developmentally appropriate time, but we need to include the masses to have an enlightened society.

Saw the following on my twitter stream and decided to check it out:
http://www.learningpool.com/50-of-the-best-learning-theorists-from-donald-clark/. I am definitely glad I did decide to check this out. Here is the link to Clark’s blog that contains all 50 blogs: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/

Here is a TED Talk that the author of the blog, Donald Clark, did:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJ_ATgrnnY]

Here are my thoughts/reflections on Socrates: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/socrates-469-399-bc-method-man.html.

“ Most learning professionals will have heard of the ‘Socratic method’ but few will know that he never wrote a single word describing this method, fewer still will know that the method is not what it is commonly represented to be.”

Reflection: This is a great time to refresh/learn with so many in my organization wanting to see innovation. To me to truly move forward, you have to investigate the past, reinforcing tried and true practices, and correcting misconceptions. To me the Socratic method has always meant leading students to understanding through questioning. As a math instructor, I lived by this principle. I was always wary of giving away too much lest students would miss important concepts integral for success. This was difficult for me, and I’m not sure how successful I was with it.

“…in terms of learning, ideas are best generated from the learner in terms of understanding and retention. Education is not a cramming in, but a drawing out.”

Reflection: At the heart of my method was this principle, but how is this accomplished? I completely agree with the last statement. Learning is such a difficult idea to contain within any philosophy. It is as much an art as a science, especially because we are talking about a learner who is hard to generalize.

“What is less well known is the negative side of the Socratic method. He loved to pick intellectual fights and the method was not so much a gentle teasing out of ideas, more the brutal exposure of falsehoods.”

Reflection: Here is one answer to my question above. I often found myself bringing up controversy in my math class about things like countable and uncountable infinities for instance. Or the fact that .99999…… equals 1. Stirring up this type of “controversy” made many students upset and caused them to try to refute these proven ideas. To me, students who question were more willing to use their own minds to prove or disprove. The action involved in this would help students to become active learners who relied on themselves. My goal was always this notion of independence.

“Beyond the famous Socratic method, he did have a philosophy of education which included several principles:

1. Knowledge and learning as a worthwhile pursuit
2. Learning as a social activity pursued through dialogue
3. Questions lie at the heart of learning to draw out what they already know, rather than imposing pre-determined views
4. We must realise the extent of our ignorance.
5. Learning must be pursued with a ruthless intellectual honesty”

Reflection: I’d like to focus on principle 2. This is such an important part of learning to me and a key principle of the IST philosophy. Collaboration is essential in any pursuit, especially the pursuit of learning and knowledge.

“His lasting influence is the useful idea, that for certain types of learning, questioning and dialogue allows the learner to generate their own ideas and conclusions, rather than be spoon-fed.”

Reflection: As a student, I felt that most of my teachers worked on the philosophy that students were an open vessel into which to pour knowledge. It was almost like instead of using a spoon a gas pump was used. The more knowledge you could handle, the brighter you were. I can see now that this approach was not to anyone’s benefit. Unfortunately, as an instructor myself, I fell too much into the notion of getting information and knowledge to the learner. My true feeling is that a question that causes students to pursue knowledge is worth much more than a knowledge dump.

“This has transformed itself into the idea of discovery learning, but there have been severe doubts expressed about taking this method too far. We wouldn’t want our children to discover how to cross the road by pushing them out between parked cars!”

Reflection: I discovered over time that teaching and learning math or science is best done by creating an environment where students are prompted to find the answer to questions on their own. Not all students thrive in this environment, so it’s best to sprinkle this with other methods to reach more learners.

“ To ask open questions about facts can be pointless and result in those awful classroom sessions where the teacher asks a question, hands shoot up and a few can answer the question.”

Reflection: This is an important point, but in subjects like math or science where it is assumed that all is known, using the Socratic method can help open up minds of students who don’t truly understand fundamental concepts to grasp them better.

“In e-learning, Roger Schank has taken the method forward into designs based on questions which access indexed content, especially videos. One could also argue that search based inquiry through Google and other online resources allows the learner to apply this questioning approach to their own learning, Socratic learning without a Socratic teacher. Intelligent tutors and adaptive learning systems, like Cogbooks, truly account for where the learner has come from, where they’re going and what they need to get there. Sophisticated e-learning is allowing us to realise the potential of a scalable Socratic approach without the need for one-to-one teaching.”

Reflection: Smart tutors are improving all the time, but there is something special about the human connection of an instructor who can elegantly use the Socratic method to facilitate learning.

“…if we were to behave like Socrates in the modern school, college, university or training room, we’d be in front of several tribunals for bullying, not sticking to the curriculum and failing to prepare students for their exams.“

Reflection: As I was reading this article, I was thinking the same thing. The way that curriculum is written and implemented there is little flexibility to use the Socratic method. Hopefully, we don’t completely push this important pedagogical perspective away.