Capturing the Educational Journey of a Lifelong Learner

What are my beliefs about learning in general?

​

Learning is a journey.  This journey must be booked by the traveler.  The learner will gain skills based on experiences.  Memorization tactics do not necessarily drive learning. For learning to occur, the environment must be safe and welcoming.  It is up to your tour guide to make sure the environment is satisfactory for the trip.  Forcing information upon the learner is counterproductive.  I believe that an educator must know how to fill the tour guide role. Learners will excel if the content is desired.  Connecting content to real-world situations will help to create this desire.  A journey is much better if it is fun.  Learning should be an enjoyable experience for it to be meaningful and long lasting.

​

What are my beliefs about the relationship between teaching and learning?

​

As I stated earlier, the teacher is a guide.  The teacher must help to create the environment and give some real-world problems that the learner can solve.  Teaching and learning are related but they are not the same. Learners and teachers are often different people.  Not always.  I believe that it is important for teachers to assist learners, but they must not have a goal of making a carbon copy of themselves.  Teaching should be suited and transformed for the benefit of the learner.  Using the same material for decades can be detrimental for the learner.  These actions are why we continuously spin our wheels and only make slight adjustments to our system.  We are too afraid to make the drastic changes needed.

​

What are my beliefs about myself as a learner?

​

I am an experiential learner.  I worked as a member of a rescue squad in my hometown before I had my EMT certification.  I did nothing more than carry the bag into calls and assist the EMT’s on scene.  When I took my EMT Basic class, I found much more success as I was able to tie content to the experiences that I had while in the field.  As a learner, I am responsible for knowing my why.  I must set my own goals and strive to reach them.  Teaching is an important part of my learning as I need to have targets to hit.  If given a clear target, I will strive to be on center every time.  Unclear targets create high anxiety and ridiculous frustrations.  I cannot even think straight and my work tends to suffer when the journey is full of detours.  This is where I must improve because the detours are part of the journey and often create the most meaningful experiences.

I am a learner who enjoys doing.  It is often hard for me to write a paper or sometimes even read a book!  Ask me to develop something and I will usually shine!  Take my current courses for example.  I have been trying to breakthrough my reading and writing deficiencies and continue to get knocked down.  My mental state is negatively affected drastically, however, when my design and layout in the e-portfolio that I am creating comes under attack, I dive headfirst into fixing it.  This is fun for me, as I enjoy creating.  I am learning so much more from the creation than I am from the endless papers, research, and reading.  Google search can answer any question with the typing of a simple question.  It is up to the searcher to determine facts vs. fiction.  Like it or not, this is the world we now live in.

​

What are my beliefs on the difference between a learning philosophy vs a teaching philosophy?

​

Teaching can be learning, but the difference in philosophies revolves around the person.  The teaching philosophy involves why I teach.  What values do I have that can contribute to the learning community?  The learning philosophy involves how I learn.  How do I make knowledge stick?  I also believe that everyone is both a teacher and a learner.  Your impact on the world is not tied to how many books you read; it is related more to the influences you provide to others.  Books can be good, and a lot can be learned from these historical documents, however we also must make decisions based on where we are now.  These decisions to make an impact should be true to the future not the now because by the time you deploy your “new” idea, the technology will have flown on by and the viscous catch-up cycle will continue.

​

Am I a Constructivist, Behaviorist, Cognitivist, or something else and why do you identify with this learning theory? Who is the main theorist of your identified theory?

​

Constructivism is a learning theory of Jerome Bruner.  Mr. Bruner suggested that connecting experiences to learning enhances and encourages deeper understanding.  I identify with this because, as I stated earlier, we must find ways to connect our learning to real-life situations that are relevant to the learner.  Coming in second place for me would be Jean-Paul-Sartre whose existentialism theory suggests that the learner is in the driver’s seat of their own learning.

​

Are there connections to one or more learning theories that support my position?

​

I chose my educational path.  Many mentors tried to get me to go towards an educational leadership degree, but I wanted something that would impact my classroom.  I believe that this choice identifies with both aforementioned theories.  I oversee my own learning and had made my own choice because I wanted real-life application.  I have faced some adversity on my journey.  I have spent countless hours paddling in the wrong directions.  All of this is good.  It has given me experiences that I can use to aid learners in the future.

 

How can I address how my learning philosophy impacted or influenced my innovation plan and my role as a change agent?

​

I feel very strongly about letting the students drive their education and I believe that tying their education into experiences is the key to success.  My innovation plan allows students the opportunity to explore concepts of their choosing.  They will hopefully reach proficiency in the career path of their choosing.  I am a guide along the waters of their journey.  It is not my goal to watch my students drown, but they do need to learn how to swim along the way.  It is my goal to help them to create their own tools that they will need to survive. 

​

Do I have a well-developed annotated bibliography to highlight the resources that you reviewed and which influenced your philosophy?

​

Hirsch Jr., E. D. (2016). Why knowledge matters: rescuing our children from failed                            educational theories. Harvard Education Press Cambridge, Massachusetts.

​

In the face of unfair scapegoating, teachers have understandably become demoralized by being constantly blamed for failures not their own. American teachers (along with their students) are, in short, the tragic victims of inadequate theories. They are being blamed for intellectual failings that permeate the system within which they must work. The real problem is idea quality, not teacher quality. The difficulty lies not with the inherent abilities of teachers but with the theories that have watered down their training, and created an intellectually chaotic school environment based on developmentalism, individualism, and the skills delusion

 

Kearsley, G., & Culatta, R. (2018, November 30). Constructivist theory (Jerome Bruner).             Instructional Design.org. Retrieved November 12, 2021 from                                                         http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist/.

​

Bruner (1966) states that a theory of instruction should address four major aspects: (1) predisposition towards learning, (2) the ways in which a body of knowledge can be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner, (3) the most effective sequences in which to present material, and (4) the nature and pacing of rewards and punishments. Good methods for structuring knowledge should result in simplifying, generating new propositions, and increasing the manipulation of information.

 

Suwarno, S. I. (2020, November 29). Existentialism and its implication in Education.                     Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar. Retrieved November 12, 2021, from                                           https://pgsd.binus.ac.id/2020/11/29/existentialism-and-its-implication-to-                           education/.

​

Jean-Paul Sartre was a prolific writer. He offers a defense of some of his ideas and, in the course of his defense, presents some central themes of his philosophical views. He claims that existentialism is humanistic and provides insight into human freedom and human responsibility. 

In the education perspective, existentialist believes that most philosophies of the past have asked out people to think deeply about thoughts and abstractions that had little or no relationship to everyday life.

​