Teaching Learning Theories

    In the chapter about foundations for instructional design it talked about many different theories that are found. In the explanation of the theories it talked about what the state consist of and what tools are best to help learning in that state. In the question at the end of the chapter it asked how would you teach learners how to calculate and compare items that are of various sizes and brands of the same product. In order to figure out the question that I was having to ask my students I had to think of a product that I could use so I knew how to answer the question of describing how I would teach it. So I chose to use pop as my product. Students would focus on Coke products, Pepsi products and store brand products in the sizes of 12 oz., 20 oz. and a 2 liter size.
    For the cognitive information processing theory it mentioned that children need to learn and use attention, encoding and retrieval. I would have products in each size and from the three different brands as a visual so students could see them and know what we were talking about. I would not tell them the name brands or the sizes of the items. I would then have children get into groups with a partner and talk about what they already know about each of the bottles (sizes, brands, where they have seen them, have they tried them etc.). Also I would have them compare and group up bottles with similar sizes so that they can see the similarities and differences. I would then have the class come back as a whole group and make a chart about what we already know about the bottles and brands based on their small group discussions. I would also give feedback of items that they didn't mention or to correct a response about the sizes and ounces amount. I would have children think about math skills that we have used in the past and that we have learned and have them get into their small groups again to think how can we figure out the price per ounce of a 12 oz. bottle of coke that cost $1.50 at the store. After they brainstormed the ideas I would then meet whole group again and we would try them out and see which ones worked and which didn't.
    Another theory that I read about was the Schema Theory and Cognitive Load. In this part of the article it talked about how these learners need work examples,partial work problems and diagrams. If I were teaching students using this type of theory I would do a whole group brainstorming event. I would give the class the category of pop and ask them to name all the brands that they can think of and the sizes. Then we would limit it down to three sizes and three brands. I would then tell the students that we need to figure out how we would find the price per ounce for each brand and size. I would show the children work examples of how to complete the process and I would work through one in front of the whole class so they could see the results. I would then have children get back into their small groups to work on some problems. I would give each group a paper that has partial problems on it and they can work together to finish them. After they were finished we would come back together and go through the problems as a whole group to find the answers. I would then graph the results on a bar graph so the students are able to see the differences and similarities.