Ocho vacas blancas comen pasto en el rancho.  Eight white cows eat grass in the field, that was the first sentence I learned to vocalize in Spanish.  Why does this stick in my mind, dual coding theory (DCT).  I did not know it at the time, but I can recognize how DCT helped me learn this sentence.  My first job out of undergrad was working as a petroleum engineer in Mexico, only minor detail was I did not speak Spanish.  I tried to pick it up from my coworkers but words in and of themselves are very abstract and difficult to gain meaning without context.  Here I was, one day in a field, and there were eight white cows eating grass.  One of the operators and I stood there looking and describing in words what the cows were doing.  We kept adding more detail to the sentence, because there was now context and visuals and not just words.   The abstract idea of words became concrete with the added visual.

Characteristics of Learning

Paivio (2006)suggests that for learning to occur, we as learners, need to be aware of both verbal and non-verbal components in the learning process.  Cognition is the interplay of these two systems and how they are used can create a rich learning environment, on in which all are capable of learning.  How must one design curriculum and instruction so that the two are always being used?  A combination of observation, classical conditioning, operant learning, and imitation (Paivio, 2006, p. 7), but how do all of these get effectively incorporated into learning?  Instruction needs to be designed using rich learning experiences full of imagery and the abstract to support the development of concrete language (Paivio, 2006, p. 10). 

Learning is active, social, and reflective.  When learning students need to be able to be a part of the learning and engaged.  When the student is able to do they are better able to incorporate it into a schema and learning shifts from just covering material to working with the idea/material.  Learning is also social.  Students need to be able to interact with others to make connections, communicate ideas to strengthen their own knowledge, and how it fits into their understanding of the world.  The saying you only get out of it what you put into it, I feel, sums up the reflective portion of learning.  A critical aspect of learning is to go back and review and revise what was learned, I feel many of my students, and the population at large, miss this aspect of learning because it takes time and they are in the mindset tell me what I need to know for this test and let me move on and forget.  Because they are moving on and forgetting they have not truly learned.

As the owner of how my students are taught and learn I need to embrace technology in the learning space to help students achieve their full potential.  Having taught chemistry for years, it feels to many as a mathematics class taught in a foreign language with its own alphabet and jargon.  Reflecting back, what is missing is the non-verbal component, the students need to be able to see what is happening to gain full understanding, unfortunately it is hard to see in the microscopic world.  Could technology and multimedia aided my students?  Mayer (Paivio, 2006, p. 11) suggests images need to accompany text instead of text alone, images and text need to share the same space, cut out extraneous details, and present text as speech within animations.  The use of Mayer’s suggestions alone is not enough to reach all but could be the  beginning of a learning revolution. 

Housing all the above on a learning platform allows for the student to begin and take control of their learning and acts as the foundation for blended learning, an environment in which the student to take stock of what they know, what they need to know, and how they are going to learn it (Hannafin, Hannafin, & Gabbitas, 2009, p. 768).  Using this process students need to worry less about grades and focus on the outcome of learning and the experiences gained (Hannafin, Hannafin, & Gabbitas, 2009, p. 775).  I have tried to implement this idea in my freshman engineering class with mixed success. I provide the majority of the learning tools via an LMS and control whether or not the student can advance to the next topic by creating a learning pathway with mastery.  Until mastery is achieved the student needs to continue working on the task at hand, for some mastery takes a long time and students begin to fall behind.  What I have yet to successfully achieve is creating all of the rich multimedia content to aid the learning process.  I know that the creation of and finding of the tech tools will be a dynamic process and I need to have patience.

This was implemented with moderate success.  Most times, the class was chaos with “some” organization.  Turning the reigns over to the students to take control gave me a different role in the class.  Everyone was working on something different at all times with me acting as moderator, problem solver, and project manager to name a few.  It allows me to monitor, observe, and offer real time feedback.  This real time feedback is crucial for success, because students are no longer waiting to know what they know, but now can learn and adjust on the fly.  While it is hard to relinquish control, it is even harder at times to convince 14 yr olds that they do not know everything ,  they need to stop and use the tools given to them, and they may need to ask for help and that is ok.  At the end of the day, with much guidance, student achievement and mastery increased and they began to realize failure is learning and does not mean the end of the world.

References

Hannafin, M., Hannafin, K., & Gabbitas, B. (2009). Re-examining cognition during student-centered, Web-based learning. Educational Communications and Technology, 768-785.

Paivio, A. (2006). Dual Coding Theory and Education. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan School of Education.