Micro learning experience-Reflection
I decided to learn to build a website. The first step was rather daunting. I began to do some research and came across Weebly, a platform that provides resources to build a website even with no technical background. It is a very intuitive tool. Through error and trials, I could figure out how to build my pages, populate and arrange them, upload and edit pictures, adjust font size, select my favorite theme, and even to include a google search engine. It was learning by doing. Now the website is accessible at the following link: Burkina Urban Resource Center Then, I shared the website with friends who provided some feedback and encouraged me to continue my endeavor. I was very much motivated to build the website during my fieldwork when I faced a huge challenge in accessing documentation on urban resources. After building and publishing the site, some researchers and students interested in urban research contacted me for further information pertaining to urban issues in west Africa. In hindsight, now that I am taking this course in instructional design, I realize behaviorism can help explain my approach to the website project. Indeed, I was urged by what I observed in my fieldwork, and as a result, I responded to the need by proposing a solution. I was satisfied both by my achievement as I realized that other researchers benefited from it and even sent me thank you emails (a kind of reward). Building on my personal motivation, I realize that in the face of any challenge, one can find a solution by thinking it through. Thus, cognitivism can also help me better understand the thought process that went into the project. The website project was meant to solve a real-life problem, and I had to think it through in terms of objectives, content, user-centered, and simplicity. I therefore see in this cognitivism because I had to think it through by freeing my creativity to come up with a solution. Learning is a creative process. It’s exercising my agency. Similarly, I realized that I also borrowed from constructivism. It was indeed based on my personal experience that I decided to build the website as a response to this scarcity of resources on urbanization during my fieldwork. It also connects to the main idea behind andragogy, which holds that experience is educative. And indeed, I learned from fieldwork experience the need to build a website. All these learning theories, behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism and andragogy, all combine to shape and guide my learning experience. In short, there is not one single learning theory that can answer the learner’s needs and goals. |