• What is one idea from the readings or videos that you disagree with, and why?
  • Share a story about your best learning experience (could be a formal course or something more personal). Why did you enjoy it?

In a video titled Kahn Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos, speaker Veritasium discusses how he/she is skeptical about the use of academic videos for teaching purposes. Veritasium states he/she is skeptical of this because with science videos, typically students already have concrete ideas regarding a topic, and those ideas are hard to erase. Although I do understand his/her argument, I would have to say I disagree with this. I feel that I am a very visual learner and typically these videos aid me when I am confused from a class. For me, hearing the same thing stated over and over again helps with my learning experience (we also see in the video The Backwards Brain Bicycle- Smarter Every Day 133 that practicing the same thing over and over again is beneficial). I also feel that some students may not have concrete ideas about a specific topic yet; and therefore, videos would be beneficial for them.

One of the best learning experiences I had was in an English course I took in my first year. The professor I had was super personable and did not mind sharing stories about her family life. Initially, I was very nervous going into her class, as English was not my favorite subject, but I think I will remember her class forever. She showed the class fun videos and was super understanding of my health (this was a big contrast to other professors I had and probably why I remember her so well). On the last day of classes she had brought everyone a sweet treat, and because of my dietary restrictions, she brought me some fruit! I would say that this learning experience mostly followed a Behaviourism view as I feel the treat at the end symbolized a reinforcement for each of us.

Check out this blog! The writer is very clear with their ideas., and this was a post that I found similar to my ideas described above:

Post #1 – Learning Theory