Throughout my MET journey (and upon reflecting on that journey as I built this portfolio) I have gained a deeper understanding of various educational technologies and how they can be applied in different learning contexts. I have also developed a more intentional and theoretically consistent approach to designing learning experiences, starting with learning theories in mind.

In keeping with my metaphor of opposing forces, I learned that there is a lot of give and take when it comes to theory and application. For the majority of my artifacts, these were the opposing forces that I identified. I started out in the MET program as more of an application-based person. I went with my gut and designed learning experiences more from a logistics perspective. Over time, I learned that I was lacking in consistency and even in preparation from a theoretical perspective. I couldn’t tell you what educational theories my lessons were rooted in (although it turns out they were rooted in some). As I leaned into a more theoretical approach, I also learned that it was not beneficial to lean too far that way. Too much theory and one loses sight of how things work when the rubber hits the road. Educators have to continue to consider things like how long it will take students to read a passage or how much time they need to find a partner for an activity. The question then is what is the right balance between theory and application? 

Using what I have learned (past) and stepping out into the unknown (future), my belief is that the balance between theory and application has to be fluid. Now, this sounds like a good way of avoiding answering a tough question, but this is the conclusion I have come to and will carry forward into my future work as an educator. I think a good educator should have a strong grasp of a variety of learning theories before they start building and teaching. If they have this, they have a toolkit for all kinds of learning scenarios and learner needs. Equipped with the knowledge of learning theories, the educator starts off on the right foot and can tune their energy toward application and logistics, all the while being aware of the opportunities to apply whatever learning theory works best. This could manifest itself in a lot of ways. For example, they could be at the initial stages of planning a lesson on a Shakespearean play and immediately gravitate toward a constructivist activity that allows learners to read the play out loud and construct meaning for themselves simply by hearing the language of the play unfold. Alternatively, a teacher might be in the middle of delivering a lesson and decide to pivot from constructivism to social constructivism because they feel in this moment that students would benefit from co-constructing some socially-mediated knowledge due to the nature of the content or simply due to a lack of enthusiasm from the class with the particular activity they are engaged in. I think that educators who have a strong foundation in learning theory will almost unconsciously insert those theories into their learning contexts. If they can do this, they can be extremely flexible and constantly change to meet the needs of their learners.

I am not convinced this would work so well if an educator sat down and said, “Okay, this lesson is going to be grounded in social cognitive theory” before they designed it. This may work for some, but for me personally, I feel like the lesson structure would be too rigid and sometimes feel forced or manufactured. I think it would ignore the natural nuance and fluidity that learning experience requires in order to be effective. As such, I would caution educators from being too theory-based.

Looking at this from the other perspective, I think it is more than obvious that a learning experience based purely on logistics and application (with no theory in mind) does not work well either. Of course, I am thinking about teachers that have not already reached this point of unconsciously embedding learning theory into their activities. A logistics based lesson would certainly finish on time and ensure that all the required tasks were completed, but I do not believe it would perform well if we considered learning outcomes like critical thinking or engagement or even student satisfaction. To me, this seems more in line with rote teaching styles that were popular in previous generations.

Overall, my thinking about the future of educational technology has become more informed and nuanced, with a focus on intentional and theoretically grounded design. As I have mentioned repeatedly, the key to doing anything successfully in life is knowing what the opposing forces at play are, where the borders and boundaries are, and more importantly, knowing when and how to move back and forth between them.