Who Am I as a Learner From the Beginning to Now?

Having an education in Vietnam, a country that has “a strong emphasis on book learning, academic and theoretical engagement with subject matter and examinations, ” I grew up being a reading and writing learner during primary and early high school (Phelps et al. , 2012). This is a type of learner based on VARK learning modalities (Prithishkumar & Michael, 2014). This learning style is influenced by one of the Confucian principles that value fondness for learning and respect which is shaped by the elements and events in my bioecological system (Te, 1987). However, I also adopted active participation and collaboration in my learning later in my mid-high school years. In this reflection, I will be using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of development and Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences to analyse who I am as a learner. A microsystem is made up of elements that interact directly with the child in their immediate surroundings, based on Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of development (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2012). Because I spent most of my time with teachers and friends, they were the most important members of my microsystem. Teachers in class instruct students to read and take notes from a textbook, which had an impact on how I prefer to learn independently with text-based material. Moreover, the interaction between my classmates and teachers fostered an environment that reinforced my reading and writing skills — this is referred to as a mesosystem, which is defined as the interactions between elements in a microsystem (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2012). Because of the competitive nature of Vietnamese courses, high-level instruction learning has its own set of advantages, such as supporting students with limited abilities in closing the accomplishment gap, driving teachers to shift students' learning styles towards learning through textbooks (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2012). With the high-level instruction teaching style and the competition within a classroom that is facilitated by teachers and peers, this influenced in my early learning style. Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2007) describe the exosystem as a social context in which a child is not directly involved but has an indirect impact on the child's development. To provide a suitable learning environment for students, school policies should be strictly enforced. School policies involving parental engagement at school and home, in my experience, supported me in being held to the same standard in my learning at home. Epstein (1984) reported that involving parents in a programme helps the child's learning because the parents were able to understand their child’s learning activities at school. This has a direct impact on the parent-teacher interaction in the mesosystem; the policy encourages parents to create a learning environment that is comparable to that at school. As a result, the exosystem assisted in the reinforcement of my learning habit. Cultural belief falls under the macrosystem according to Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2007) which they define as the culture or community that defines the systems' structures and interactions. Marginson (2011) elaborates on Confucian education, explaining that “an educated child brings honour to the family and better protects continuity with the ancestors, ” hence, Confucian principles govern the way my society approaches education as a "household funding" rather than a "private providing" commodity (pp. 597-598). As a result, I was pushed to do private tutoring, which I did for roughly 2-4 hours every day. My parents were influenced by the macrosystem to invest in my education, which was given by my teachers who shared similar beliefs. These lessons were structured similarly to those at school, fostering my reading and writing learning style. However, private tutoring tends to focus on preparing students for tests and ranking at school, consequently, it creates rote-memorisation-based learning in students (Marginson, 2011); this explains my tendency to rely on rote memorisation to absorb content. The final system that influences a child’s development is called the chronosystem which they describe as all environmental changes that have an impact on development of a child, like major life changes and historical events (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2012). When I was in Vietnam, my studying habit was fully developed; however, when I travelled to Australia during my high school years, I found that the western teaching style disrupted the way I learned. Western cultures, according to Phelps et al. (2012), favour learning through active participation and collaboration over high-level instruction. This helped me realise how my learning style at the time prevented me from questioning the reason behind what was being taught to me and prevented me from understanding a topic in a multitude of ways. This is reinforced by Duggan (2001) who reported that high-level instruction pedagogy leads to a lack of creativity and problem-solving ability in students. Reflecting on my own experience, I realised that to be proactive in the classroom, I must adopt an active learning style, therefore. I merged reading and writing study habits with active participation and collaboration as my current preference. My environmental context shapes who I am as a learner alongside my linguistic intelligence. Woolfolk and Margetts (2012) describe Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences as “eight separate intelligences: logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist” (p. 169). My preference for reading and writing learning style was reinforced by the bioecological system. To elaborate, I learned more words by reading textbooks and taking notes; moreover, I memorised better by listening to teachers' instructions and following textbook examples. People with linguistic intelligence, according to Hali (2017) “are often good spellers and easy to remember steps of procedures, places and names” and “reading a lot of books, newspapers, magazines, articles on internet” (p. 44). I was also able to compose and express my thoughts fluently because of active engagement and collaboration. This is supported by Hali (2017) who reported that communication in a child’s development has “a big influence on the ability of a child’s brain, which in turn, will affect the skill in processing words and speaking” (p. 45). Based on the analysis, environmental context and intelligence did influence my learning development. I am a learner who likes to read textbooks and take notes. I also like to learn through active participation and collaboration. These skills were built and reinforced to nurture my linguistic intelligence through the interaction in my bioecological system. Confucianism was an overriding influence that structured the interaction around me. My early education in Vietnam laid the groundwork for my learning through text-based content and note-taking while my later education in Australia taught me to learn with active participation and collaboration. Therefore, by using Bronfenbrenner’s and Gardner’s theories, I was able to analyse how I learned reflectively.