Lesson 6: IT enters a New Learning Environment

          It is helpful to see useful models of school learning that is ideal in achieving instructional goals through preferred application of educational technology. These are the models of Meaningful Learning, Discovery learning, Generative learning and Constructivism.

          In these conceptual models, we shall see how effective teachers’ best interact with students in innovating learning activities, while integrating technology to the teaching learning process.

Meaningful learning

         If the traditional learning environment gives stress to rote learning and simple memorization, meaningful learning gives focus to new experience that is related to what the learners already know. New experience departs from the learning of a sequence of words but gives attention to its meaning. It assumes that.

          Students already have some knowledge that is relevant to new learning

          Students are willing to perform class work to find connections between what they know and what they can learn.

          In the learning process, the learners are encouraged to recognize relevant personal experiences. A reward structure is set so that the learner will have both interest and confidence, and his incentive system sets a positive environment to learning. Facts that are subsequently assimilated are subjected to the learner’s understanding and application. In the classroom, hands-on activities are introduced so as to simulate learning in everyday living.

Discovery learning

           Discovery learning is differentiated from reception learning in which ideas are presented directly to students in a well organized way, such as through detailed set of instructions to complete an experiment or task. To make a contrast, in discovery learning students perform tasks to uncover what to be learned. New ideas and new decisions are generated in the learning process, regardless of the need to move on or depart from organized setoff activities previously set. In discovery learning, iti s important that the students become personally engaged and not subjected by the teacher to procedures he/she is not allowed to depart from.


Generative Learning

           In generative learning we have learners who attend to learning events and generate to learning events and generate to learning events and generate meaning from this experience and draw inference s thereby creating a personal model or explanations to the new experience in the context of the existing knowledge.

             Generative learning is viewed as different from the simple process of storing information. Motivation and responsibility are seen to be crucial to this domain of learning. The area of language comprehension offers examples of this type of generative learning activities, such as in writing paragraph summaries, developing answers and questions, drawing pictures, creating paragraph titles, organizing ideas/concepts, and others. In sum, generative learning gives emphasis to what can be done with a piece of information, not only on access to them.

Constructivism

           In constructivism, the learner builds a personal understanding through appropriate learning activities and a good learning environment. The most accepted principles of constructivism are

-        Learning consist in what a person can actively assemble for himself and not what he can received

passively.

-        The role of learning is to help the individual live/adapt to his personal world.

These two principles in turn lead to three practical implications:

-        The learner is directly responsible for learning. He creates his personal understanding and transforms information into knowledge. The teacher plays an indirect role by modeling effective learning, assisting, facilitating, and encouraging learners.

-        The context of meaningful learning consists in the learner connecting school activity with real life.

-        The purpose of education is the acquisition of practical knowledge, not abstract or universal truth.