T127 Reflection 1

Reflecting on the first few modules of the term, I find it interesting how interpretive learning theories are. Joining the data literacy program team, I am excited to work with various stakeholders to find the right blend of theories that’ll advance Harvard professionals’ understanding of data. The class activity revealed to me that strict adherence, or isolating oneself, to a specific learning theory is difficult to do and might limit the learner’s grasping of a concept. Although the tendency might be to default to a Cognitivist-Constructivist blended learning approach for adult learning, it will be interesting to see how the team formulates the right combination of theory considering the multitude of stakeholder engagements we have to conduct.

It will be interesting to see how fast we can move with the team considering the sheer size of the project and expectations of moving this beyond Harvard use. I’m most interested in creating a product for one (an Ideal Learner Profile), then building up from there. Further, I’m interested in employing some of the newer learning theories like Connectivism and seeing how well we can blend that into the platform/modules for the data literacy program. I’m excited to see how many edge cases we can embed into the program and also how open the faculty is to new ideas like using knowledge graphs for contextual learning. All in due time.