Engaged Learning

During last Friday's class, Prof. Ashley demonstrated in class what was' engaged learning'. First, he gave us the definition of engaged learning. Thereafter, he tapped on our prior knowledge of what engaged learning was by allowing us to form in groups of 3 or 4 to share about our previous experiences. At that point of time, all of us weren't really clear what was the concept of 'engaged learning'. All we had were bits and pieces of knowledge and so we were given 15 minutes to do that. We then had to record it down on pbwiki. Ha. To me, this is like collaboration with others where Prof. Ashley defined our scope of discussion and we had to share our experiences. Pbwiki then allowed us to store our reflections. We then shared with the class what we had as a group, and oh! Prof Ashley used some mind mapping software that was quite cool in class. I was quite amazed.

Thereafter, we were to map down the features of our group's learning activity to the indicators of engaged learning. We then discussed again in our group what improvements can we make to the engaged learning experience that we had. Through this journey, 'meaning making with scaffolds' was applied as Prof Ashley comes up with various learning stages and gives us guiding questions to cover up the missing links that we have in our concepts.

The last part was an individual work where we discover the dimension of engaged learning and the roles of students, teachers and ict. Also, we did a case study to put into application on what we have learnt. This is a shift where it is no longer a group work but an individual one. Prof Ashley mentioned that this is due to the various learning methods of students. Some learn more in groups, while others learn better when individual.

So the above was a recap of last week's lesson. Ha. Quite alot of information downloading I feel.

Oh! And something mentioned in class that I learnt was that a video played is not considered ICT. This is because video only involves a one-way learning while it does not really involves interaction and it is not a two-way thing. Hope I get this right.

Anyway, I recalled an experience of engaged learning during this module called "Science of Music". We were actually asked to compose a midi while learning about the various concepts and techniques throughout the 4 months. It was very interesting as we put into application the things that we learnt. I was just wondering how to make the lessons interesting along the way as well such that students are able to maximize their learning experience.

I think online games can be a good way to make learning interesting. For example, word challenge in facebook have caused my vocabulary to increase. Ha. That game requires us to form words from the six-letters that were given. At the end of the game, they would show the words that can be formed from the six letters. If there are words that looks unfamiliar, we could click on it and it would direct us to the page where the meaning of the word is given. To me, that game was interesting and yet at the same time, helps to improve my vocabulary. Also, because our scores would be compared with our friends, so in a way, a competition setting is there to challenge us to do better.

For biology and mathematics, all I can think of is online quizzes. Maybe there are online games that makes them interesting which I haven't come across yet. Then again, not all students learn by this way. I think it's not easy to find a learning method that suits the whole class. How do I exactly find a balance in that and use technology to aid me? I guess along my journey, I will gradually find out more. Ha.

Anyways, I think technology is constantly improving at such a rapid pace, I wonder if I really would ever catch up with them given that I'm such a laggy person in IT. Ha.