Week 1

ACTIVE LEARNING AND LEARNING DIVERSITY

The Active Learning and Learning Diversity is a very interesting topic as I work in childcare and have worked with every age group from 6 weeks to 12 years and have over the years realised what really stimulates a child's brain when it comes to learning. I have found that in the preschool and kindy age groups the children are at a age stage in there development whereby the more hands on activities they can do the better there learning experience outcome. Therefore if everyday the group was involved in a activity as a whole where they are going to learn something that in the end will have a result which they have help produced only makes the children more engaged in the activity and more willing to participate. Most children these days don't have the time while at home to experience hands on activities such as a basic one of cooking (many families are to busy to allow there children to help cook even if it may be baking a cake) Cooking is a wonderful sensory activity for children to learn many new concepts within a variety of learning experiences, as they are not only learning what actually goes into foods to get a end result, but also the measurement concepts whereby mathematics comes in to play, as well as how a product is prepared and looks before it is place in a oven, on a stove or cooked on a BBQ. Children enjoyed being involved with mixing, pouring and preparing during a cooking activity even children as young as 15 months. Many children are unaware of many things in life even from a simple thing of where do fruit and vegetables come from? As a group discussion the answer is always the 'shops'. Children are missing out on the learning of the where, how and when of many things as parents are not spending the time to talk to there children in relations to many things as they most likely just think well they should know. Instead more and more children are fixated on TV, computers, ipods, Ds games etc and not as worried about the real things in life.

Therefore I find that with Active Learning it does increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the teaching and learning process. (www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/howdoes.htm)

INPUT!

Active Learning involves input from multiple sources through multiple senses (hearing, seeing, feeling, etc).

PROCESS!

Active Learning involves process, interacting with other people and materials, accessing related schemata in the brain, stimulating multiple areas of the brain to act.

OUTPUT!

Active Learning involves output, requiring students to produce a response or a solution or some evidence of the interActive Learning that is taking place.

These three processes in the Active Learning framework does work in many ways as children love being involved and there are many ways you as a learning manager or just as a parent could allow this to happen on a daily basis. I also find that the more involved the group is the less behavioural problems we have.



So for Input a great idea for children's involvements could be a simple task of volcano's, children are always interested in a topic where they may have only seen this on TV or a picture therefore being able to act this out for them is a excellent experience. Firstly once finding a topic which interests a child or group then find out information in regards to this which will allow you to extend more and more on the topic. Ask for the children's input on what they think, know, seen etc. You could also ask the parents for there contribution to the topic with getting information from home if the have anything on Volcano's this also helps with the children then continuing the discussion at home and seeing that there parents are interested in something they like.


Process is whereby you sit down and discuss the topic in more context allowing all children to ask a question, this gets the children involved and eager to learn more.


And lastly the best part of the end result of Output where by all research and discussion which have gone into the subject finally have had a purpose and now it's time for the making of a volcano and allowing it to erupt. This is a very exciting time for both the teacher and children as you never know what the outcome will completely be whether it be big or small eruption.


I have noticed that in Dale's Cone this also demonstrated through the Direct, Purposeful Experiences which is most effective as this is shown at the bottom of the cone. Therefore demonstrating what I have just discussed in believing that active learning is they way of teaching children of all ages.