Changing Perspectives of How I Learn

Now that I have a deeper understanding of the different learning theories and learning styles, I still consider myself to be essentially cognitive and constructivist in my learning processes. I realize now that I don’t have to be limited to a particular learning style to be an effective learner, and that it’s advisable in this ever changing environment to look at new and emerging strategies for learning that I may not have used but help me improve my effectiveness.

The behaviorist theory, I believe, will always be core to learning new and basic material, just as stimulus and response is core to social learning and is interwoven in general human experience. Take, for example, the call and response in poetry, in religion, in parenting, verbal and nonverbal communication… in law and social order run a red light, get a ticket, pay a fine – don’t do it again. In the work force, there’s performance evaluation, client feedback – we will always measure how we’re doing and what we know or think we should know on the basis of this theory. It’s tried and true and will always find relevance, I believe in the human learning experience.

After the basic behaviorist theory, things start to get more complicated. I begin to fear that, as a cognitive and constructive learner, my data can become as jumbled on the inside as my work desk on the outside if I don’t pay careful attention to what’s happening as I learn. The problem is that oftentimes information comes fast and furious, and I’m not always sure of how to organize it so that I can recall it in a meaningful way. This is true especially now that I’m so blessed with technological tools that can give me so much access to copious amounts information in a relatively short period of time. I’m a heavy user of networks and diverse resources. This is why I say that it’s time I stepped back and looked at more learning strategies that can help me with this.

As we’ve begun to think about how we think and how we learn, applying all the relative ‘learning theory speak’ in the appropriate context, I still believe it’s very important to me as a learner to be able to pull the bits and pieces of information that I’m learning into a meaningful context, and to be able to transfer that knowledge to relevant situations. In week 1 of the learning theories course, I understood how I learn, even though I didn’t speak the LT language the way I do now. Now, through video instruction, reading different group opinions, discussion threads, blogs and text book data about learning theory, I’m much more comfortable discussing how I learn in relation to different learning theories.

I still hold to the premise that the more information I have, the less I want to store in my internal database – and why should I, with smart cards and thumb drives, internet bookmarks and other such tools available for use? High level concepts are important, connections are important… but what I want to know most about the ‘stuff’ that goes with it – resources, details, supporting data, case studies and research trials – is where to access it when I need it. This is one role of technology for me. The other is how to use these amazing tools to have a meaningful exchange with others about the concepts and the stuff to gain a deeper understanding as I move forward.