Sociology Assignment: Educational Theories and Digital Age Reflection

This sociology assignment delves into the realm of educational theories, focusing on constructivism, humanism, and connectivism, and their relevance in the digital age. The report explores how these theories shape learning environments, particularly in the context of technological advancements. It examines the practical applications of these theories, providing insights into how educators can leverage them to enhance student learning experiences. The assignment also incorporates design thinking and mobile learning, illustrating how these approaches can be integrated to create engaging and effective lessons. Furthermore, the report analyzes the influence of technology on teaching practices, including the use of various tools and platforms. The report also presents the design of lessons incorporating mobile learning and digital resources like SurveyMonkey and Google Scholar to enhance learning outcomes. The assignment concludes by highlighting the advantages of mobile learning and the impact of technology on the teaching and learning process in sociology.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIOLOGY
Folio Task 1
A reflection on educational theories and their links to practice in a digital age
In this era of technological advancement, technologies play a highly crucial role in the life of
students. Students possess the potential to get access to the technology unlike our previous
generation. Thus it can be understood that proper integration of learning theories and
technological development possess the potential to create a more authentic learning environment.
In the following paragraph, I will discuss about the three of the major learning theories and how
the theories can be seen in educational context in this digital era (Bowe et al., 2017).
The term constructivism can be defined as an education al theory that is based on observation as
well as scientific study on how individual gains knowledge. According to the theory, individuals
contract their own knowledge as well as understanding of the world by experiencing things along
with reflecting on that experience. For instance, when we gain a new knowledge, we either
reconcile it with our previous idea as well as experience or discard the same as irrelevant.
Therefore we are creators of our own knowledge. Educators needs to include the mentioned
theory for encouraging student for using active techniques like experiments, real world problem
solving for gaining knowledge an reflecting on the same. As per my opinion, one of the best
educational practices that are being adopted by Constructivist educators includes the Warm up
questions. The mentioned practice is comprised of a set of five or six carefully constructed
questions which are thought provocation as well as open to interpretation. For these practices
technologies like projectors and computer are used for showing image or videos for providing a
context.

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When it comes to the Humanism theory, it can be defined as an educational approach that
believes learning as a personal act that is necessary for fulfilling an individual’s potential.
According to the theory, discovering knowledge or constructing meaning can be considered as
central of learning. Humanistic educators do not agree with routine testing since students are
taught memorization as opposed to meaningful learning. Some of the major practices associated
with the mentioned theory include incorporating practices that enhance the creativity and are
interactive in nation. A major example of educational practice that is associated with the
mentioned organization includes teaching through simulator. A simulation can be defined as
method of learning or evaluating learning of curricular content on the basis of an actual situation.
When it comes to the connectivism learning theory, it can be defined as a pedagogical approach
that explains how internet technologies have created new opportunities of individuals for
learning as well as sharing information across the World Wide Web as well as among
themselves. This theory explains effectively the way internet technologies have created new
opportunities for learning (Collins 2019). Some of the major technologies that are used by the
educators for connectivism theory include Web browsers, email, wikis, online discussion forums,
social networks, YouTube, and other tools that enable the users for learning as well as sharing
information from other individuals. One of the major examples of learning practices that are used
by educators on the basis of the connectivism theory includes survey money (Ballantine et al.,
2017). There present a good number of tools that helps students to gather information required
for their study. The survey monkey tool can be considered as one of these tools. It allows the
students to create a set of questions in a highly limited amount of time. This in turn helps the
students to analyse the results in a much organized and easier way.

3SOCIOLOGY
Part 2
The design thinking can be defined as a process for developing new ideas as well as for solving
issues. It can be considered as a series of designing specific cognitive activities that includes
empathising, synthesising, generating and judging idea prototyping, implementing as well as
techniques. In general, the usage of design thinking is considered as a problem solving process of
a student.
In order to design a lesson on humanity and sociology, the chief resource that I would need will
be the M learning application. Mobile learning can be considered as the principle of mobility that
possesses the potential to differentiate between computer and classroom work. M learning
supports continuous access to the learning process with the help of mobile devices (Lucas, S.R.
& Irwin, 2018). This can be performed with the help of using devices that includes phone, laptop
as well as tablets (Wexler, 2017). The first lesson that will be incorporated by me will include
asking the students to collect the photographs of child labour. I will then ask the students to
upload the pictures though their mobile to any one of the social media platforms and reflect on
the same all the students will be able to see each others’ post. Students will be encouraged to
reflect on the pictures posted by their pictures as well (Froehlich & Smith, 2017). This will not
only help me to facilitate an environment where both collective learning as well collaboration
can take place. This mobile based learning procedure will not only develop the idea about the
crucial sociological issues faced by both the nation as well as the world. Not only will this lesson
also enhance the scope of interaction and knowledge sharing between the students. Some f the
major advantages of mobile learning are as follows:

4SOCIOLOGY
1. Students can access to their lesson at any point of time and from anywhere.
2. The online learning techniques motivates to students to participate in the lesson. They
prefers to use their mobile devices like tablets for studying over traditional learning
materials
3. The students get access to different types of contents. They can add videos, audio files,
and images with mobile learning. These technologies help them to learn their lesson more
effective since visualizing and experiencing sociological aspects makes it easier to
remember things compared to other strategies (Lingard & Thompson, 2017)..
The second lesson that will follow the gathering of photographs includes gathering information
both primary and secondary, for the research questions, “what are impacts of child labour on the
society?” The chief two resources that will be used by the students include the survey monkey
tool as well as Google scholar. The Survey Monkey can be defined as an online survey
development cloud based software as a service organization. The organization provides
customisable, free surveys along with a suite paid back end programs which includes operations
like data analysis, bias elimination, sample selection as well as data representation tools. This
tool will be used by the mentioned origination to collect primary data. Students will develop a
questionnaire through which an online survey will be conducted by them. After gathering the
data, they will analyse the same in order to get an effective understanding of the data gathered.
The next tool that will be used by the students includes Google scholar. Google scholar can be
defined as free and accessible search engine which let the users look for both digital as well as
physical copies of articles. This online search engine will allow the mentioned organization to
searchers scholarly works for a good number of sources that includes academic publishers. This

5SOCIOLOGY
search engine will be used by the students for gathering information from academic articles.
Some of the major advantages of using googly scholar are as follows
1. The mentioned search engine is Fast as well as easy to use (Lucas & Irwin, 2018)
2. The search engine will allow student to use free authentic academic article that are
relevant to their studies.

6SOCIOLOGY
Reference list
Ballantine, J.H., Hammack, F.M. & Stuber, J., (2017). The sociology of education: A systematic
analysis. Routledge.
Bowe, R., Ball, S.J. & Gold, A., (2017). Reforming education and changing schools: Case
studies in policy sociology. Routledge.
Collins, R., (2019). The credential society: An historical sociology of education and
stratification. Columbia University Press.
Froehlich, H. & Smith, G.D., (2017). Sociology for music teachers: Practical applications.
Routledge.
Lingard, B. & Thompson, G., (2017). Doing time in the sociology of education.
Lucas, S.R. & Irwin, V., (2018). Race, Class, and Theories of Inequality in the Sociology of
Education. In Handbook of the Sociology of Education in the 21st Century (pp. 73-107).
Springer, Cham.
Wexler, P., 2017. Social analysis of education: After the new sociology. Routledge.