The pedagogical challenges to collaborative technologies

Response 1 Insights gained The first insight I recognized about adults and learning is adults need to relate to the new information or knowledge (Merriam et al, 2007). They need to understand why its important to know the new information. In nursing education there is a huge amount of information for nursing students to shift through and come to understand what is a must to know and what is a nice to know. This process takes students a bit of time to understand. As an instructor I try to work with students on what is important to know and how they can relate to that new information. My own increased understanding I have gained from this class will facilitate my work with my own students. The second insight has been the international ways of learning. I have lived in rural Montana my whole life and I have not had much experience with students from far away places. When I started my Masters and Doctoral degree programs, I was for the first time connected with people who lived outside the United States. In this class I have gained increased insight from my reading about how other students learn differently. Merriam et al (2007) discussed other cultural aspects of students and how it impacts learning. I feel that will help me to understand the need to be more open with my own non-traditional students. I work with Native American students from different tribes and they are not the same. Each tribe has its own traditions, beliefs, and cultural identity. My goal is to ask more questions and be as sensitive as I can to other cultural differences in my students. The third insight I have gained is the adult learning theories. I did not know about any others than the Knowles Adult Learning theory which is very insightful. The other theory that I really related to was McCLusky’s Theory of Margin (Merriam et al., 2007). The theory posits that people have load and power in their lives. The load is the daily responsibilities we carry and power is the motivation we have, and the support we receive. We need a balance of the two in order to be able to accomplish our goals and dreams. I will take this new knowledge into my own life as I try to balance this PhD goal with my life. I also want to take this to my work setting as I work with students and seek understanding of what they are going through and what they need to balance in their lives to be successful in nursing school. Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass. Response 2 Our daily lives are all about learning. The evolution of how far we have come as humans in the process of improving all lives has been a consequence of learning. Knowledge and learning have given us the opportunity of globalization, which has been possible mostly with communications technology. An analogy of lifelong learning is the fact that the human brain will never stop growing and learning. To be an educator today, we have to be fully conscious of our role in the ever-changing world of knowledge and learning. Teaching has shifted from transmission of knowledge to facilitation of learning (Laurillard, 2009). The role of educators in self-directed learning “is to act as facilitators, or guides as opposed to content experts” (Caffarella, 1993, p. 26). Today, the students are not relying or depending on the teacher to know everything as they can find an unlimited amount of information on the web. However, that does not mean that the instructor’s job is obsolete. It is as we are the vessel to enlighten our students on how they can guide themselves. The best part of being a teacher is that I get to understand myself better and learn more by engaging with my students. I have always been a good motivator but I have learned many new things to adopt in my work environment by studying the adult learning theories. !) Self-evaluating the way that I communicate to my students. 2) Encouraging my students to make difficult decisions regarding their future. 3) Showing more patience toward the students who lack the knowledge and motivation to succeed. The five theories are behaviorist, humanist, cognitivist, social cognitivist, and constructivist. All these theories hold a respected view on learning but I have a bit of implicit bias towards constructivism and social cognitivism. There is a plutonic idea that all learning is memory. Constructivism is the theory that learning occurs as a manifestation of meaning by experience. The best learners are ones who have a good memory and learn from their mistakes. Unfortunately, our memories fail us far more than we want them to. Bandura (1986) believed that behavior was a function of the interaction of the person with the environment. He believed that there is reciprocal triangle between learning, the person and the environment. Due to the fact that we are social creatures, the social cognitivism theory speaks the loudest to me. We learn our roles by observing and imitating others. As educators we have to be the best models that we can be. Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1986(23-28). Caffarella, R. S. (1993). Self-directed learning. New directions for adult and continuing education, 57, 25-35. Laurillard, D. (2009). The pedagogical challenges to collaborative technologies. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(1), 5-20.

ANSWER. PAPER DETAILS
Academic Level	Masters
Subject Area	Nursing
Paper Type	Discussion Post
Number of Pages	2 Page(s)/550 words
Sources	3
Format	APA
Spacing	Double Spacing

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