Zull, James E. (2002). The art of changing the brain: enriching teaching by exploring the biology of learning. Sterling, Va.: Stylus Pub.

Self-reflection on the Chapter 6 and Chapter 7

In Chapter 6 and 7, Zull discussed how new knowledge can be constructed in a neurological perspective. Most importantly, based on the existing neuronal networks (which holds the prior knowledge), teachers should help learners to change their neuronal network via new neurons connections. The prior knowledge is essential for the new connections to be built up since the existing network is the start point of the new connections.

Existing network may not hold correct connection, what teachers should do is not to correct the wrong connection but to reinforce the correct connection; the wrong connection will be weaken by ignoring them.

There are few points made by Zull in these 2 chapters. Firstly of all, prior knowledge is important to learners as well as teachers. Secondly, prior knowledge is personal and complex and teachers can use them as the starting point to construct new knowledge.

Thinking back to the article: A learner-centered framework for e-learning, the principle 12 13 and 14 have addressed the importance of learners’ priori knowledge. In particular in the principle 14, setting up diagnostic assessment is to determine learners’ prior knowledge. This strategy has been employed by many fields in education. For instance, adaptive learning system provides an example of determine and use learners’ priori knowledge even though it might not be an appropriate way.

Personally, I think it is difficult to know what learners have already known, especially in online learning environment. Adaptive learning systems has its flexibility as a content provider and content management system, but still it leaves the challenge for teachers to figure out learners’ prior knowledge and make use of them to alter learners existing neuronal connection.

ShinYi Lin, S,. Y., & Overbaugh , R., O. (2007). The Effect of Student Choice of Online Discussion Format on Tiered Achievement and Student Satisfaction. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 35(4), 399-415

The study is trying to investigate if a media choice (chat and discussion forum) in the instructional design has effect on student’s course satisfaction as well as students’ cognitive achievement.

Some issues about the research method:

1 Learning Style Measurement: Introversion-Extroversion Index

Due to the synchronized nature, discussion forum provides students opportunities to think deeply before participate into the discussion. This tool seems to be beneficial for students who are real-thinkers. On the other hand, chat is a synchronized tool which may disadvantage such students. It make sense that this research picked Introversion-Extroversion Index to determine students learning style and try to find some relations with the media choice that students prefer. However, there are some issues. First of all, can we classify people as either academic introvert or academic extrovert? From the questionnaire, each question has two choices which are related to introvert and extrovert. But in reality, people are not extreme, very often, when answer such question, people may argue “it depends”.

2 Media Choice: Chat VS Discussion Forum

In the research paper, it has been stated that “all sections (F2F and Online) are essentially identical because the instructors use the same syllabus, identical readings, assignments and calendar”. What kind of role do instructors play in the online discussion and chat? There is no such description in the paper but it is important to know because instructors’ approaches may have impact on students ‘satisfaction as well as achievement.

Things I gain from this research paper:

1 This research found that when giving choice, students are more satisfied, however, there is no significant difference in overall course satisfaction between 2 groups (using chat and using discussion forum). This shows that in our teaching and instructional design, certain degree of flexibility is necessary in order to meet students’ individual need.

2 Student achieved similar level in both synchronous and asynchronous online discussion. This finding is consistent with other research which indicates that it is the teaching not the teaching tool that makes the difference.

3 Another finding from this research is that students do not always make their choice based on the way they learnt the best. For instance, some students chose the online discussion forum simply because they can not meet the time requirement for the chat room. This may be true for learning style as well since students, especially children and adolescents may not really know their own learning style and they chose the way that is the most convents for them. So this topic is back to the learning style and teaching style debate: should we teach the way that students think they learn the best. From this finding, it does not show positive result.