Week Three: I'm trying to think but nothing happens

Okay. I'm feeling overwhelmed by this course.  On the one hand, the knowledge base (KB) assignment sounds really cool, but on the other hand it's scary.   If I just following the rubric I should be able to do it.

Philosophy. Theory. Strategy. Between IDE 621, 651 & 741, I've read these definitions and examples a billion times in the last three weeks, and yet my brain hurts whenever I think about the definitions for these terms.  Clearly I'm a constructivist/cognitivist, but my brain won't construct or cognate or epistemologize or .... To quote Curly from The Three Stooges, "I'm trying to think but nothing happens." 

So what did I observe in today's class....
Constructivism is a philosophy (I forgot that from last class).  That learning theory describes and can't be applied, but instructional design theory prescribes methods and strategies.  That my dog can't teach me anything.  I liked the terminology exercise we did in class.  I liked opening the definitions up for discussion in the class.  Hearing fellow classmates definitions and explanations helped bring me closer to an understanding of the terms we discussed.  Social learning?

We had three activities where we broke into groups to discuss.  It didn't seem that any of these three opportunities to discuss was a fruitful as discussions that were held in other groups seemed to be.  Especially the ice cream sundae exercise.  Our team barely go through the instructions for how to make the sundae.  We never got to create a instructional strategy with job aides, diagrams, practice, etc.  It was interesting how each group heard the assignment.  We focused on the steps, not the design of the instruction.  But I like this method of using us to generate examples of learning issues, of instructional issues, etc.