EdLeadership & How People Learn Chapter 3

Educational Leadership
The Educational Leadership piece "Put Understanding First" by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe was a concise article that discussed how important it is that when students learn, that they actually understand what they're learning.  The authors list three academic goals for curriculum and instructor to aid in the process of understanding: "helping students (1) acquire important information and skills, (2) make meaning of that content, and (3) effectively transfer  their learning to new situations both within school and beyond it."  Ways that instructors can help learners complete thie process of learning for understanding are through direct instruction, facilitating and coaching.  The article discusses research in congnitive psychology that says that students don't necessarily need to learn all of the facts and basic skills before dealing with concepts or applying the skills in authentic ways.  This is a problem that plagues lower acheiving students.  The article also suggests that curricula need a new sequence for  learning - a meaningful process that helps students really understand what they are learning that involves meaning, acquisition and transfer.  The statement that "we must recognize that the purposeful and effective use of content is the ever-present goal, and we must design all instruction with that goal in mind" is a reflection of what we must do when assisting students in their learning process.

This article was a great discussion of how schools are disconnected from students' experience with what they will encounter in the real world.  Learning rote knowledge and regurgitating it back to a teacher does not necessarily help students learn - they need to be able to connect it with something they will need or perceive they will need to use in the fugure.  I hadn't really thought about the idea of students not needing skills prior to application of a process, but I like it.  It feels more useful and "real" than doing worksheets to identify facts.  It seems this is very relatable to the idea of job training.  When going into a new job, I've always had basic communication skills, but not necessisarily the skills needed to run a database full of relevant information I'll use every day.  But, I can learn this through on the job training because it's applicable to the work I'm doing to do.  The company didn't need to hire someone with all of the skills they were looking for, but rather basic skills that they could build upon during training.  In a school setting, this suggests that students could learn "on the job" once having a foundation of knowledge.  They could learn science vocabulary better after having seen it a few times and then applying it in the lab.  Just one thought/example of how this relates to the real world which students enter after they're done with school.  :)

 How People Learn Chapter 3
The "How People Learn" chapter on transfer was great in-depth supplemental reading to the Educational Leadership article.  The idea of initial learning being necessary for transfer sounds obvious but is a good starting point for understanding transfer.  The discussion of initial learning, abstract representations of knowledge, and prior knowledge was important for my understanding of how transfer is effective.  Ideas of mastering the original subject, taking the appropriate amount of time to learn something, deliberately practicing, engaging in a feedback process, understanding motivation, and contexualizing the learning are critical to transfer of information.

When the chapter discusses that learning should be done in multiple ways and allow for a flexible representation of knowledge makes a good deal of sense.  Psychology tells us that people learn in different ways, and putting knowledge into a context that is applicable to student's understanding seems a simple way to do this.  However, schools are not tying information learned in schools to what students already know or will need to use in the their lives.  The section on previous experience was fairly eye-opening: thinking about how to activate knowledge and interpreting it in a way that is meaningful through using tools, group problem solving and abstract knowledge are all things I know I've used in the real world but never really thought about in terms of schooling.  But John Dewey's quote on page 77 really says it all - students should be taught life preparation in school.  Facts are important and a good foundation for knowledge but they don't help problem solving and day-to-day interaction.

It's clear that our students are not being taught things that they feel are useful - some students are becoming less and less engaged in school because it doesn't use the tools or technology they use in their everyday lives.  This is one area where librarians can help - we can work with people's previous knowledge and help them discover what they can do with that knowledge either through articles, books, or community resources.  I see this as a place we can really help people understand what they're learning.