Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology - Final Thoughts

At the beginning of this course I contested that there was a place in our 21st century schools for the traditional cognitive learning theory. I stated that this operative learning style was a conditioning that humans naturally progress to obtain new information. Similar to Pavlov’s dog humans generally are attracted to positive rewards and try to stay away from punishment. I also contended that the multiple learning styles also have a place in our schools today. While the traditional learning theory may be great for classroom management the learning styles are great for helping students obtain information better. As a teacher it is important to develop several ways to present our lessons to appeal to these learning styles. This is the only way we can reach the most students.

I also stated that there are always going to be those students who get all the information no matter what and these students will always get high marks. It is thorough multiple intelligences that we can reach the rest of the students, the ones I like to call tweeners. Tweeners are students that are in between a B and an A, or a C and a B. These students are on the border of the next grade. If through multiple intelligence teaching I can push my students up one or two levels, then for me multiple intelligences will be worth.

A goal for me is to continue the development of the multiple intelligences theories in my lessons. I hope to be able to reach as many students in my classes as possible. I will continue to research and find new ways to present my material to appeal to as many students as possible through the use of cooperative learning and technology.

Another goal for me is to look at my records over time to see if progress is being made. By looking at my grade books, building unit scores, and MEAP scores over time I can see if my practices are paying off for my students. I know many teachers reject these standardized tests and criticize them harshly, but as long as our students have to take these tests, teachers may as well use the information we get from these tests.

Overall, I learned a great deal from this course about how the brain works and learns and many different ways to appeal to the brain in learning. I also learned a great deal of ways to implement teaching strategies that will appeal to many different learning styles. Most importantly these teaching strategies do not completely change my old way of doing things rather it simply adds a few changes that make the lessons appeal to more students. By making these small modifications perhaps I can reach more of my “tweeners”.