Principles of Instruction and Learning

This was another favorite course of mine that I completed for this program. My greatest takeaways involve everything that I learned about learning itself. Understanding how learning is defined under Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Social Learning and seeing how they influence instructional design aided not only in my development of instructional materials in both practice and implementation, but also my own understanding of learning. Particularly, learning about Cognitivism and the concepts of mental schema, connecting nodes of information to develop better relationships and recall of information, distributed and deep-level learning, and even the concept of the dual-store model with working memory and the process of filtering sensory information into the short term and long term memory was extremely useful for my personal development.

I employed these techniques the following semester after taking this course in my learning of lignocellulosic chemistry, and found that when I practiced these techniques such as associating new information with my mental schema at the time, I had a deeper understanding and recollection of the information compared to when I crammed information towards the end of the semester to pass one of the exams. I enjoyed this subject so much so that I incorporated learning theory and instructional design informed by these learning theories into the lifelong learning course that I teach my undergraduate students in their professional engineering course series. Many seniors approached me when I initially shared learning theory with them and they were frustrated that they hadn't known about learning theory and proper learning strategies when they were freshmen. They felt this information and these techniques helped them learn throughout the rest of their senior year.

While it was required to choose a single learning theory in the course product for this class, I have incorporated aspects of all three learning theories into my work and life. I found myself utilizing Gagne's Conditions of Learning/Nine Principles from Cognitivism when making lesson plans in my classes, and considering the Zone of Proximal Development from Cognitivism and Social Learning when working with students to figure out where they are, what they can accomplish on their own, and how I can help them accomplish more in their work and life. This is the course product I reference the most in my work, even years after it was made. I also provide it as a reference for my students when they are learning about learning. This was a fundamental course in my program and my understanding of instructional design and development, which I consider a core aspect of my degree program.