Course Reflection: "Learning Theories and Instruction"

I had a prior knowledge about Learning Theories that I studied during my undergraduate degree of Mediated Content Development. Honestly, I started this course while understanding that, there are three learning styles existing in this world. As I was taught in 2014 that learners are either Auditory, Visual or Kinesthetic. Auditory are those who learn by hearing, Visual are all who learn by seeing and kinesthetic are all who learn by doing. Through this course I got some challenges in this aspect like, how can somebody learn just by doing without seeing or hearing? But at this stage I have been in clear understanding about these confusing terminologies. I was so much interested with the way I have used to learn the learning theories.

It has not been the first time to learn about these theories but I have just learned in a different simpler way. Surprisingly, is that people do not rely in one theory to learn. Cognitivism deals much with what enters into the head, behaviorism connects both cognitivism with the changes according to the environment. Such example gave me the understanding that, there is a link between all the theories and for a learning process to be more successful, it has to pass in two or more of these learning theories.

I once declared that I was learning through different methods depending on the nature of the program, environment or nature of the instructor. I have come to be aware of the way I have been learning. I am a person who likes very much to study through real-world fields. In that essence I cannot say that I am constructivist, behaviorist or connectivist, but the learning theory that I apply in my learning may rely on what I want to learn at that time. Overall, I can say that, I depend on multiple theories on my learning process.

A good thing I have come to know is the difference between learning styles, learning strategies and learning theories. They are definitely confusing terms but at the end we have come to realize that the learning styles whether kinesthetic, auditory or visual, they all do not exist. But also, there has been a good connection between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation. In each learning theory, there are learning styles, applied technologies and motivation aspect within.

For instance, in Connectivism, A learner may hear, discover or see new information from the network through various technologies like social media, computer-based trainings, web resources and others. A learner under connectivism theory may be motivated with the nature of connections available. It is known that connectivism is highly technology facilitated that most of us use to get different learning resources from other connected sources.

I have learned a lot to apply in my Instruction Design career. The course of Learning Theories and Instruction has impacted me with new understanding about how people learn. And so, the contents that I will be designing will address all the barriers that I was not considering them before just because I was not aware of them. By understanding the learning theories, as an Instructional designer, I have been in a good status of designing instructions that effectively address specific objectives for specific audience. The Learning theories will further help me as a designer to identify and categorize my audience according to their diversities as children or adult learner while aligning my contents with best learning activities.