Sunday, March 16, 2014

EDUC 6115 - Week Two - Article Analysis

For this week's assignment, I chose to find a website and a scholarly article. I also wanted to focus on two different topics.

The first analysis is of a website:  Teacher Tap - Brain-Based (Compatible) Learning. This website is focused on K-12 learners, and seemed maybe too simple at first glance, but once I explored a little bit more I realized this has plenty of links to outside resources. Though it is geared toward educators of adolescents, I think having a foundation of knowledge about how the brain works and aids in learning in younger students can provide us with more knowledge about how the brain aids in adult learning. This website actually sites studies and expands on things that are in our textbook, as well as mentions ideas that we have not read about yet. For example, the authors talk about Caine and Caine's three conditions:
  1. Relaxed alertness 
  2. Orchestrated immersion
  3. Active processing
My favorite part of this site is the list of brain-based learning resources. Even though I am not creating e-Learning for children, I find this website to be useful and will likely come back to it. The authors actually taught at the K-12 level, but now both teach online courses at Indiana University. This reinforces how useful these tools could be at the adult level. 

Johnson, L., & Lamb, A. (2007). Brain-based (compatible) learning. Retrieved from   http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic70.htm
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My second analysis is of a journal article. This article theorizes about an educational model for problem-solving-centered learning. I found it to be useful because it goes over the topic of constructivism more in-depth than what we learned before. Under this category, the author offers the teacher's role and the students' roles, which provides an interesting perspective. 

Under the category of Problem Solving-Based Learning (PBL), the authors offers the proper steps to take in order to "bridge the gap" between the real world and academia, and what is expected in each. On page 194, an actual model is displayed, which gives an idea of how educators should incorporate this type of learning. These were the most relevant categories of the article. 

The next few pages give more steps to take and back them up with statistics. I think this article is useful because it was well-researched, and it provides suggestions for how to put these theories into practice in the classroom, or -- in our case -- an e-Learning setting. 

Trif Muntean, L. (2013). Problem solving centered learning, a possible model for educational practice. Journal Plus Education/Educatia Plus, 11(2), 192-196. Retrieved from http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=93607914&scope=site

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