Mod 2: More Reflections! Assessment
Still feeling happy about online learning! I continue to be amazed by how much of a perfect fit it is for me: writing, editing, design, colors, and education - brain-based, even!
I put so much energy into my master's thesis and wrote so much from my heart that it is an ongoing theme in my life. Brain-based learning simply means to teach with as much student-centered fervor as possible! It only means to facilitate the kind of learning the brain likes best - visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. All children are kinesthetic learners - all humans really are! We all mostly like to learn by doing. I never like to hear a long outline about what I'm going to learn; I just like to plunge in and learn! Experiential learning. Hands-on learning. Learning with music playing in the background. If memory serves correctly, the best types of music to learn by are the 60 beats per minute variety - as in Bach and much of the Grateful Dead - that climbing movement that is relentlessly attuned to the rhythm and the melody of our own blood pumping, our own neurons firing on all cylinders. Multiple intelligence is a product of brain-based learning. We all have different approaches that work best to learn by - for some it's mathematical, others musical; for some interpersonal (social) and others intrapersonal (hermit). Some people like chaos around them while they are studying (aargh!); others prefer completely silence. How wonderful to find out how we like to learn best and then do it!
That's all brain-based learning is, learning that makes our hearts soar and our brains buzz, learning that is exciting - to us, personally and individually.
Online learning appears to have the same values. I just get more and more excited about this stuff because it is so encouraging of student-centered, curiosity-passionate-creative, lifelong love of learning.
My secret? I believe that LOVE really is at the bottom of all this: Love of learning, love of following a thread, love of self enough to explore within and find one's passion, love of courage to throw out fear when we're onto something new and potentially controversial but that just rings our bells! Love of communication, love of truth, love of our own unique selves and our students. Love infused into education can only work.
