Today's class was focused around the topic of how students learn best. It was very interesting to me that when Professor Kruse asked us to define learning, it was very hard for me to do that without using the word "learn." I finally came up with my definition of learning: "Using available resources to develop new skills to your best ability." Learning is something that people do from the day we are born until the day we die, so the fact that I had difficulty describing exactly what it meant to learn someting was a hard concept for me to grasp at first. How have I been learning my whole life if I didn't even really know what learning was?
I thought that the video we watched in class had a really good point. One of the women interviewed said, "People think that if teachers teach then students will learn." This is not the case however. Just because a teacher or professor teaches you a concept doesn't mean that you fully grasp that concept. For example, I took astronomy last semester yet I could not explain why the moon went through the phases it did until we did the in class activity.
The fact that I couldn't explain the reason for the moon's phases really made me realize that the Developmental Learning Theory (DLT) is, as far as I can tell, the best way to teach students. In my astronomy class we were shown diagrams, pictures, and expected to read the text book to understand the moon's phases. Yet we were never shown a model of the moon orbiting the Earth. I'm sure that our professor thought that as college students we should already know such a simple concept, yet as Professor Kruse proved today barely any of us were actually able to describe why the moon goes through the phases that it does. After seeing the model, however, I know that I understand the material a lot better and I'm sure most of you do, too.
One example that I can remember from high school where a teacher used the Developmental Learning Theory was my freshman year when my English teacher had a model of the Globe Theater. We were then expected to know the sections of the stage, etc. I feel that this technique was very useful because it actually allowed us to see and understand the set up of the stage.
I plan to teach English and/or journalism, which Professor Kruse said is very hard to teach in concrete terms. I liked his idea of showing a video before reading the story though. When I was a senior I had to read Beowulf and the teacher (the same teacher that I had as a freshman who used the DLT) suggested that we watch the movie prior to reading the story so that we would be better able to visualize the characters and scenes while reading. As an English teacher I plan to teach in a similar way, because I feel it is pointless for students to memorize material and much more important for the students to understand and be able to remember the material I am teaching long after they leave my class. I feel that the teachers I learned the most from through out the years are those teachers who taught me concepts that I still remember to this day, which was probably done through the DLT, I just didn't realize it.
Prior to writing this post I spent a lot of time trying to find a definition of the Developmental Learning Theory. I realize now, however, that the definition of the DLT is much less important than practicing it. DLT can be described in many ways, but it's more important to understand the concept of the DLT than to know it's definition.
