BUNNY VIDEO

Reflections For Day 5 . . . cont, A&ILE

Training and Education require to be purpose driven. Resources need to be justified and planned to minimise waste and maximise learning effectiveness.

After spending time and efforts in instructions of a learner, whether the learner actually attains higher cognitive abilities, internalises the knowledge and created new knowledge, will in turn requires review of the interventions and strategies.

This means a review of the learning environment as a whole where the learner, the instructor, the people, the physical aspects and psychological aspects inclusive, all interacting and affecting learning.

Much focus has been put on internal validation where content achievements of the learner are emphasized, stakeholders need to be reminded of the importance of validating the entire learning environment to foster a wholesome development of the learner and allowing a positive learning experience.

Imagine an environment that's learning conducive, becoming a culture, where people approach learning instinctively and sharing is supported in systemic view. Perhaps building a learning culture and climate will take years, even generations, it is a worthy cause that benefits all.

Coming for this module allowed myself to see learning as inclusive of more than teaching content. And validated assessment tools are in existence to help any organisation to systematically review its learning processes and reveal gaps for enhancements.

Reflections For Day 5, A&ILE

On summarising Day 4 & 5 learning . . .

By going through the experience of administering the WIHIC in our class, though a scaled down version, learning for me occurred in two dimensions:

The Content: The survey process . . . the data collection / statistical analysis / drawing of lessons learnt / giving recommendations . . . and re-examining the Murray's Needs-Press Model.

The Context: This is definitely most important in supporting learning fulfilling both the hygiene and motivation factors. Able to appreciate the Social interactions, of how team and cooperative learning works and happens.

Teach Less, Learn More? This is THE Way!

Reflections For Day 4 . . . cont, A&ILE

. . . that . . . Belief Drives Reality.

" Believe to See, or See to Believe? "

The quote . . . in each part, each in its own is a belief. And the environment & circumstances will be shaped by the beholder of that belief.

Environmental conditions are the collective manifestations of individual's interactions with the greater world . . . interpreting and perceiving what's important and necessary, for surviving and living.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I Have a Dream"

delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

Reflections For Day 4, A&ILE

Yawk! Main bulk of the day is group activity doing up report on Assessing of Learning Environment in NIE Classroom.


aMAZING! How the group just sprung into action . . . each of us knowing and doing what's needed and contributing what each is most best at, great initiatives!

~ Team Dynamics, that the total is greater than the sum of the parts! ~


Special THANKS! to DR Quek for taking care of our Brain by feeding us with lots and lots of FRUITS!

Reflections For Day 3, A&ILE

Today was very much about Group Activities - Using Case Study to learn about Survey Instrument.

Main Learning Points -

• Instruments are validated, when using, keep meaning intact.
• Avoid reinventing the wheel, find the appropriate Instrument and modify.
• Modify only to suit the Audience, Language style and Context.(Why modify?)
• Manage Survey Fatigue to achieve Consistency, Reliability and ease of result collating.
• Prefer having all positive statements to ease result collating.(How to modify?)

The day went by . . .

Morning . . .

• Arousal, a simple exercise to survey the class about years of service. Then, started to introduce terms like mean, standard deviation, average, etc.
• Went into lecture on modifying of Learning Environment Inventory.
• Did a WIHIC-preferred to experience it and understand how its modified.
• Case Study about survey findings from three schools to learn about how School Learning Environment Questionnaire was used to elicit responses coupled with Naturalistic Approach for further gathering of Qualitative feedback.

(By now, exposed to WIHIC and SLEQ)

How to conduct survey?

Administering -

• Determine the Inventory use, target audience, sample size, set up base questions for research.
• Inform and seek consensus from stakeholders(School, Parents).
• Conduct survey.

Interviewing -

• Is instrumental survey sufficient? Conduct interviews to capture qualitative feedback missing from the survey.

Consolidating -

• Collate findings
• Prepare report
• Share with stakeholders and interested parties.

Afternoon . . .

• State change, introducing Mr James Peh, student of Dr Quek.
• Rubrics on assignment, 'My Blog'.
• Group sharing on Case Study
• Summarising the findings by Dr Quek.
• Did WIHIC-Actual, follow up to WIHIC-Preferred.
• Reflections.

My Additional Learning . . .

Adult learners love case study, especially well presented with positive & negative perspectives. It allows opening for differing interpretations and inferences.

Adult learners tend to be self-driven (actualise or peer pressure) to do well in assignment given (My Blog).

Mr James Peh's sharing of interesting Internet sites and tools.

Reflections For Day 2, A&ILE

Continued with the previous day's efforts, I'd managed to create my first Blog.
Some achievements today were,

• created my first blog
• using of gmail as a form of learning environment
• making use of LessonBox for online asynchronous learning
• using MindMap to capture learning points for revision

Today's Learning Focus,as I've gathered, as follows,

1. What to assess about the Learning Environment?
- Physical
- Student
- Social

2. How assessment instrument came to be?
Development of LE inventory
Murray's need-press model > Walberg&Moo's research on classroom&school climate > Moo's LEI > Moo's CES > reaffirming Lewin's theory that interaction of personal character and environment determines human behaviour (learning). > developed Assessment Instruments for different learning environment.

Learning Environment Inventory is based on Moo's Scheme of,
Relationship Dimension
Personal Development Dimension
System Maintenance & System Change Dimension

FIT = Interaction between the Learner with the environment and other people that results in a positive learning experience.

3. Why assess?
Is it a waste of time & resources?
Are learning outcome meant through, quality relationship of the teacher & learner situated in environment and interaction?
Is there 'beyond academic achievements', such as attitudinal enhancements?

Also, assessment of Web-based learning can be in the form of peers' feedback through sharing of blogs and other new media.

Additional Learning - State Changes employed by Dr Quek:

• Lecturing
• Individual work using computer
• Group learning through collaboration (research on Pioneers of LE, Barry J Fraser)
• Social interaction, 'a walk downhill to canteen for a cuppa and back'.
• Self Reflection using Blogger

Group Attributes - My inferences of the Group Work experience,

• Forming Stage, very cooperative and eager to engage and share.
• Able to focus on group objective of completing assignment in 30 min.
• Immediate volunteering of main role players to minimise dispute.
• Simple structure with immediate takers during tasks delegation.
• Understand & moderated personal standards & requirements to form and accept group standard.
• Focus on objective and allow learning to take place.

Social forming of group > Learning through interacting with Internet - Problem/Need > Criteria > Search > Retrieval > Processing > Completion > Comparing & Discussing(Internalising) > Evaluate >Substantiate > Conclude.

Reflections For Day 1, A&ILE

Fresh NEW menu of Learning @ NIE for, Assessing and Improving Learning Environment . . .

Today's focus is first to examine, the fundamentals of learning that includes,

1) Describe Main Components of Learning Environment -

• Social/Organisational,
• Performance of person or in group setting,
• Self (or People) that carries the needs, roles, motivations and attributes with him,
• Tasks/Roles & Responsibilities
  

2) Analyse the relationships between the learner when interacting with the society, machine, knowledge, learning strategies, physical environment and himself(learning style & personality) - the entire spectrum of learning environment. What is the person's needs and how the environmental press is either supporting or hindering the fulfilment of the needs.

3) Differentiate the various types of Learning Environment as - a)Learner centred, b)Knowledge cnetred, c)Assessment centred and Community centred. That learning occurs most effectively when the four types of environments are build into a seamless form.

The learner may requires the structure of the LCE to help build and develop the cognitive skills before moving on to internalising of specific discipline knowledge and having the ability to transfer knowledge (KCE). Surely, to be sure that learning is effective, evaluation mechanism need to be in place to help both learner and instructor to assess effectiveness of knowledge transfer and retention. To make learning relevant, learner must be able to relate and apply the subject matters in the social context and validating the successful acquisition of knowledge completed.

4) Dr Quek also highlighted learning on the internet via, weblogs, podcasts, coursewares and forums thus making learning relevant to today's learners' lifestyle.

My Additional Learning,

a) What is Learning? - persisting change(+/-) in performance or potential that results from experience and interaction with the world.

b) What is Learning Environment? - that which includes physical conditions (real & virtual), social conditions and learning strategies that fulfils the learner's outcome (goal, performance, objective).

c) The positive and negative qualities that affect learning such as: needs, motivations, relevancy, culture, climate and accessibility.

d) The fulfilment of learning that is directly supporting the learning outcome or performance objective - assessment and evaluation.

Today's learning journey somehow caused me to infer the followings . . .

I'll always remember the story told during the Educational Psychology module by one of the classmate when she posted to the class a question asking about the difference between Israel's educational system and ours. In the Israel's system, parents and teachers encourages questioning during lessons and at home. Parents may start the day wanting their children to set the aim of asking 10 questions and returning home with answers. Teachers, on the other hand, will always encourage the class to ask instead of giving answers the first instance. Giving answers stop learning as the learner will never felt hunger for knowledge. On the other hand, allowing asking and questioning creates the environment to feel safe and experiment, at least given the freedom to hypothesize with one's perceptions of the content/subject.

Questions, either provided by the teacher or self-directed, allows ownership of learning, build awareness of what the learner does not know yet, and become responsible to help himself to the learning. However, generations of us are still in the era of telling, both parents and teachers inclusive.

Learner's instil in themselves' the spirit of inquisitiveness that's paramount to building lifelong learning behaviour. This Enquiring-type of learning environment should be seamless between the school, home and the general public (community) such that the culture for learning is congruent enough (as in people accept others to ask) to make continual learning intuitive.

In our society, in my opinion, people are made to percieve shame and discomfort, even during pre-school and at home, about being inquisitive. Perhaps, my experience with the educational system is outdated but a visit to my children's primary school and observing the culture there provided little insight that learning and inquiring are encouraged. Still, these all are my partial observations and rather judgemental conclusion. To focus attention only in certain areas (eg. certain schools) where being curious is encouraged will merely see the efforts nullified when the learners start interacting at home and the general public(community). Creating positive learning environment is crucial in ensuring our nation's only resource of human capital to be of quality. Efforts must be put in to educate and promote (even helping to make paradigm shifts through greater awareness) inquisitiveness at all levels of society, home and education partnerships in order to truly make Singapore a learning nation.

To experience learning to be relevant, exciting, spontenous and having the right to question should be accessible to all. And our country's educators (private and public) can certainly help in this mission by leading and influencing with the mindset of sharing and contextualing teaching (social constructing) content to suit learners.