My very first project was a chest of drawers. The chest was on a curb with a free sign on it so, I threw it in my truck. I decided to see if I could fix it up on my own, meaning figure out how to fix it up without instruction. It was free so I felt ok about using it as a guinea pig. Working on my chest of drawers, I was engaged in discovery learning; no one showed me what to do, I was constructing my own knowledge as I experimented. This method worked pretty well, but the chest did not really require specialized knowledge. Using that experience, I plowed ahead with my other projects using the same method of discovery. As such, I have made a lot of easily avoidable mistakes. As Cognitive Load Theory states: instruction must be explicit when one is learning complex skills. Teaching myself, without much prior knowledge was fine for a simple project, but it failed to be effective once things increased in complexity. 

Upon realizing that I needed some assistance in order to proceed, I sought out some instructional videos. However, I found that Ask This Old House and various YouTube carpenters overwhelmed me and left me feeling discouraged. The presenters seemed to be speaking a language that I did not understand and to possess tacit knowledge that I lacked. If I go back to Cognitive Load Theory, I can see that I did not have the appropriate schemata with which to organize the information. Everything that I was doing was new to me; I was starting from zero and they were already at ten. My working memory was overwhelmed because the presenters were moving too fast, were too advanced, and presumed a certain amount of basic understanding. 

Moving forward, I need to seek out assistance. My armoire has a big crack and a big wobble. I think that online videos are a good place to look to find help. However, I think I need to watch and absorb some foundational explainers before moving to videos that address my specific problems explicitly. If I look to Gagne’s Theory of Instruction, I find an appropriate methodology for teaching myself new information. I should begin by gaining some foundational knowledge and building up. That foundational knowledge will allow me to form a hierarchy of information. Once I have some prior knowledge and new schemata, I can use them to complete more complex tasks.  

I have a student in my Extended Care program who highly dislikes writing. She was supposed to write about what she did over the 3 day weekend. She had a difficult time brainstorming ideas and settled on what her teacher started to write about (which was the pumpkin patch). She struggled with creating a web and understanding that this stage in the writing process is just coming up with ideas. 

My analysis of this situation and event is that my student was not motivated and lacked engagement in the activity. The reason I believe this is because she was assigned a personal narrative in which she had to think about when she helped someone or when someone helped her. She chose a time when her friend helped her win a game. In this particular writing she was able to create a brainstorming page and write a full five sentence paragraph. 

My proposal then is that students who dislike a subject or an assignment need a reason to connect to it. If they do not connect with the assignment they tend to struggle getting the assignment done.