Learning Enviroments I am dealing with this quarter

Posted by Gina Rosenthal in instructional_systems | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

After I wrote my last post about my eLearning course, I started thinking about Learning Environments (LEs). I made concept maps for both of my classes that include the designed LE as well as the personal learning environment (PLE) I’ve created to make sense of the courses. My PLE starts with the LE, and then I add the components I need for an effective learning environment.

Here’s the c-map for the eLearning course:

I’d say this is a behavorist-styled designed learning environment

Here’s the c-map from my Inquiry and Measurement course:

I’d say this is a constructivist design.

To be fair, I created a concept map of how one of the courses I am working on has been designed. I have to design courses based on the method my department dictates.

I think we do a good job of creating a real-world environment with our labs. That’s pretty important for technical training. But as I look at how I’ve designed this course, I can’t help but think how our students must augment our designed LE to create a PLE that facilitates their learning. In particular:

  • Could we design the LE to more closely match some of the common PLE components our students have?
  • Do different audiences have different PLEs?
  • How can you capture this information?

5 Responses to Learning Enviroments I am dealing with this quarter

  1. Those maps look nice, but isn’t putting one topic in as ‘including’ a bit cheaty? I would create maps that only show the hardest possible empirical or logical connections and then try to synthesize them into a new map.

  2. gminks says:

    Ron what would it be instead of “including”? I didn’t geek out too much on the maps…but since you are calling me on it maybe I should revise them.

  3. Pingback: PLE construction, instructors, & converting Instructor led learning to eLearning | Adventures in Corporate Education

  4. I believe it is not a good idea to replace facts and / or ideas as nodes, by merely verbs such as ‘includes’, because it sort of undermines the main effect that mindmaps/concept maps have or should have on their ‘readers’: to bring out the logical or experiential relationship between them as concepts or phenomena directly relating those facts and ideas. When you use verbs as nodes, this immediacy is broken and the representational value of the logical or empirical world is less self-evident.

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