Nate Cannon EDTECH 597 Spring 2013 According to Csiksentmihalyi (1991) the edutainment theory of Flow is described as,

attention is freely invested to achieve a persons goals because there is no disorder to strengthen out or no threat for the self to defend against. When a person can organize his or her consciousness so as to experience flow as often as possible When I read this, I compared this moment to being in the zone. When you are in the zone, nothing seems to bother you and things go your way. Everything clicks and you are able to efficiently complete whatever it is you are working on. Herrington and Olivers (1995) stated that Situated Learning was, designed to bridge the gap between the theoretical learning in the formal instruction of the classroom and the real-life application of the knowledge in the work environment. As a high sch ool mathematics teacher, the idea of situated learning comes up a lot. There are many times the students ask, When will I ever use this? Finding out, or already knowing, what the student wants to do with their life after high school can help me bridge the gap and show them how what they are learning is authentic and relevant to what they want to do. The Constructivist pedagogies are talked about by Dangel, Guyton & McIntyre (2004) as, knowledge resides in the learner. Selley (1999) adds to it by saying, emphasis on the meaning and significance of what the child learns, and the childs active participation in constructing this meaning. What might come as a surprise to some educators, students are not always interested in the subject that you are teaching. However, the students do have interests! With this constructivist approach we can use our expertise in our subject area to help show them the connections that exist and help the student guide their own learning. According to Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy (1999), Activity Theory says that, conscious learning emerges from activity (performance), not as a precursor to it. With the activity theory, you are actually doing something with the guide of tools (physical and mental), rules and division of labor (either other people or of your own resources.) There are connections between all three of these activities (subject, community and object), but the ultimate way to figure out if you, or your team, have been successful is by looking at the final goal and seeing if you achieved it. Keller (2008) states that for us to have Motivational theory and motivated students, their curiosity must be aroused and sustained. There are other conditions that need to be met, but to me this is the greatest condition that needs to be met. If the students can see

relevance to what they are doing to something in their life or to fill a need that they have at this moment, then they should be motivated to learn. Once they have this desire to learn, they should be able to receive some form of satisfaction after that motivated learning moment is completed in whatever form.

Of all the theories that we read about, the three that stood out to me were constructivist pedagogies, situated learning and motivational theory. I created this drawing with my SMARTBoard software because it showed how closely related constructivist pedagogies and situated learning can sometimes be. That is why I created some openings in the drawings for both learning theories to interact with each other. From the readings, I noticed that both theories wanted authentic and purposeful interactions between everyone. With constructivist pedagogies, there is a belief that the students bring their own unique learning style as well as what they have already learned to the classroom. Because of this, the learners who want to learn more about the same topic will find each other and work together. However, in situated learning, the theory says that students want situations that relate to their instruction. The students do not just want to see a worksheet type problem because in the world outside of the classroom there are no worksheet type problems out there! The world is changing and you need to have the skills and experience needed to locate what the problem is and solve it. This again goes back to how constructivists want to work together but with situated learning, you need an expert to be there to help guide you through all the potential troubles.

With all that being said, I believe that a main underlying theory that relates to everything is motivation. I broke down the four motivation principles of Keller (1979) into the best sides of the drawing as I thought they best fit. However, depending on the situation or topic, I left a space open for the motivational principles to be move around. If these four motivational principles are not met extrinsically and intrinsically with learner, then any theory that is present to any student would have a hard time of being successful. I am not sure where I picked up this phrase in my teaching travels but it fits nicely for th is situation. Were *teachers+ not in it for the income; were in it for the outcome. If we have motivated individuals or can get those people to want to learn and better themselves, then the outcome potential is limitless as to what our students can do and that is exciting.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: HarperPerennial.(Book Review) Dangel, J. R., Guyton, E., & McIntyre, C. B. (2004). Constructivist pedagogy in primary classrooms: Learning from teachers and their classrooms. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 24 (4), 237-245. Herrington, J. and Oliver, R. (1995). Critical Characteristics of Situated Learning: Implications for the Instructional Design of Multimedia. in Pearce, J. Ellis A. (ed) ASCILITE95 Conference Proceedings (253-262). Melbourne: University of Melbourne Jonassen, D. H. & Rohrer-Murphy, L. (1999). Activity theory as a framework for designing constructivist learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(1), 62-79. Keller, J.M. (1979). Motivation and instructional design: A theoretical perspective. Journal of Instructional Development, 2(4), 2634. Keller, J. (2008). First principles of motivation to learn and e3-learning. Distance Education, 29 (2), 175-185. Selley, N. (1999). The art of constructivist teaching in the primary school. London, UK: David Fulton.