Learning Theories

This week our discussion on learning theories really go tme thinking. After careful deliberation I have decided that I am mostly a social constructivist although some behavioral aaspects are also present in my theory of learning. I feel that I am a social constructivist because as much as possible I like to allow my students to actively participate in discussions about the topics that we are covering. I allow ample group work and feel the need to let my students discuss what they are participating. By having them learn in this way they are able to develop upon the questions that they have and expand on thei rown thinking habits. I feel that my behaviorist style mostly is introduced through the materials that the schools require us to use in our classroom. Most of them require rote memorization of isolated skills. I try to expand on these whenever possible. When using technology I try to allow my students access to the information available on the internet tohelp them answer questions that they have as we move through a lesson. I encourage them to discuss these questions with the classmates which gets the whole class more involved. Recently we did a unit on space and I was able to use technology in several fashions. I used Powerpoint to enhance many of my lesson by showing how the planets orbit around the sun and I even developed a unique Solar System model for the students to look at. Each student was put with a partner and they had to perform research on a particular planet. Telling me information that they found interesting about their planet as well as its location within the solar system, information on it's moons and how far away from Earth it was. We ended up spending an additional week on this project because the students were so interested. Thye found websites with great information and some really cool images of their planets. It was really fun.