Journal #3

I was struck by this week's readings from Hong, Clinton, and Reiber's "Desinging Creative Interactions." It reminded me of phrases we use in the K-12 arena like "teachable moments" and the project-based learning approach. Teachable moments refers to more spontaneous learning; that is, when a conversation or discussion lends itself to researching and learning new information that may not have been the teacher's original intention, it is considered to be a teachable moment. In my rather short teaching career, these teachable moments have been some of my favorite. The students are the most engaged and involved when it is something they really are curious about, not when it is a contrived, controlled learning environment. The same is true about project-based learning. This learning framework provides some freedom in students' learning. All students can be working on the same type of project, but they can take the project in a direction that most interests them. The Hong, Clinton, and Reiber article very much discusses this same idea in their discussion of the degree of interactions- from "reactive"where the user has very limited control of the learning environment, to "proactive" interactions that put the learner in control of their own learning.

When I think about my project in relation to these ideas, I very much want my project to be more of a "proactive" interaction between the user and the content. I'd love for it to be considered more of a teachable moment kind of instruction, rather than such a purposeful, contrived learning experience. Because I have decided to do video tutorials for teachers on how to create and update their teacher websites, I think it fits into these ideals. The videos will simply be the training for certain features of the program. As teachers encounter problems or have questions about how to do something on their site, they can refer to the videos and then work on their website as they wish. While it is not a part of this project (but is something I'm sure I'll use when I do my Internship either in the Spring or next Fall), I will couple these tutorials with one-on-one assistance. As teachers watch the videos and try their hand at some of the features presented, I will be available to come answer any questions and provide further assistance if needed. I know some members of my grade level have already asked me to present some information at our informal grade-level planning next week, so this will be a good jump start into that kind of learning.

I think this user-based control very much lends itself to more of a "proactive" interaction where teachers can control their own learning, and hopefully I will be able to expand this project into professional development opportunities that contain more of the project-based learning. In conclusion, it is my belief that true learning occurs when the learner is in-tune with the learning process, and when all learning is meaningful. In contrived learning experiences, this is often not the case, and thus, while the learner may "know" the information for a short period of time, they will soon after do what one of my undergrad professors called the "data dump," where information is quickly forgotten.

Hong, Y., Clinton, G., & Rieber, L.P. (2010)