The first online journal that I reviewed is the Phi Delta Kapplan. I found a very interesting article in this online journal when searching on the brain and learning, "A Fresh Look at Brain-Based Education" (Jenson, 2008). According to Jensen, educators need to start using research on the brain in educational design. "I will show how the synergy of [neuro]biology, cognitive science, and education can support better education with direct application to schools." I think that this article is very relevant to instructional design. Jensen argues that pedagogy must take into consideration understanding how the brain works so teachers know why each teaching strategy works and be able to employ the best strategies for learning in different situations and for different learners. Jensen states that, "Schools present countless opportunities to affect students' brains. Such issues as stress, exercise, nutrition, and social conditions are all relevant, brain-based issues that affect cognition, attention, classroom discipline, attendance, and memory. Our new understanding is that every school day changes the student's brain in some way. Once we make those connections, we can make choices in how we prioritize policies and strategies." Besides this very informative article on the brain and learning, Phi Delta Kappan offers access to many back issues that address all kinds of different issues facing educators. I found this online journal to be a very beneficial resource to all educators.
My next search was on information processing theory. The specific article I was directed to was: "Information Processing Theory" (Schraw & McCrudden, date unknown). I found this article to be very informative. In addition to reinforcing the readings we had this week, the last topic of the article dealt with implications for instruction. This section gave very explicit ideas on the implications of information processing for instructional designers. From this article, there are multiple links to other relevant theories in educational design and other current articles on educational topics. The home web site is Education.com. This home page is very logically organized, so you can easily navigate to areas of interest. You can browse articles by topic, grade, or age. There is a magazine archive link that includes an easy-to-use search engine. The home page also includes a link to a blog site where you can post or make comments. Frankly, I did not think much of the blog page. The topics were not relevant to an educator and seemed to be random postings about anything. However, there was another page, Education A-Z, that included an organized page for links to topics. I find this site to be a good source for information, but not a good source for communication.
Our final topic for this assignment is problem-solving methods during the learning process. The article that I found was: "Young Children's Awareness of Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) (Hwang & Gorrell, 2001). The article described how young children were or were not aware of the SRL of effective and ineffective model problem solvers. Most of the children that were aware of the models' SRL were the children that were able to complete the project correctly before seeing the demonstrations. On the other hand, the children that were unsuccessful in completing the project were more likely not to understand the SRL of the models. The web site from which I found this topic (and many, many, more) is Ed Psyc Central. I highly recommend this web site for educators. There are links to topics in education, psychology, research, teacher education, professional development, theory-research-practice, and many more. In addition there are search engines and journals. From this one web site, educators can find a link to almost any topic they want to explore. The only drawback is that some of the web sites are defunct.
Hwang, Y. S. & Gorrell, J. (2001). Young Children's Awareness of Self-Regulated Learning (SRL). Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association (Seattle, WA, April 10-14, 2001).
Jenson, E. P. (2008). A Fresh Look at Brain-Based Education. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(6), 408-417. Retrieved from http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v89/k0802jen.htm on July 8, 2010.
Schraw, G. & McCrudden, M. (Date unknown). Information Processing Theory. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/reference/article/information-processing-theory/ on July 8, 2010.
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