How Children Learn

The study of how young children learn is an inherently fascinating field. Most of us have interacted with an infant or toddler and wondered just what they were thinking. As it turns out they were thinking a great deal more then many of us have ever imagined. It has long been known that children are not simply blank slates waiting to be inscribed. However, the extent to which children are natural problem solvers and information seekers is stunning (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). This is of course great news for teachers, every teacher can attest to the difficulty of teaching. It is comforting to know that every child is at a very early age, wired to learn. The more we know about the “wiring” the better we can work with the child to foster learning.

While new discoveries are made everyday, the truth is we already know a lot about how students learn. There are so many well-tested learning and instructional theories that any teacher should be able to have access to one that suits their needs. My interest in the subject of ‘how children learn’ lies in the area of the development of intelligence. Gardner proposed that there are up to eight largely separate types of intelligence (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). Gardner (1989) was concerned that formal schooling nearly exclusively focused on the development and measurement of only two forms of intelligence, linguistic and logical-mathematical. If as a society we were to measure and value the other forms of intelligence an entirely new view of intelligence may arise.

This becomes particularly intriguing when you consider we live in (or strive to live in) a meritocracy. Those who have the highest “merit” gain status and our view of intelligence influences the concept of merit strongly. One has to look no further then what is measured on the SAT’s to see this in practice. As educators this leads to a damning “chicken and egg” dilemma. Should we prepare children for a culture that largely values a limited view of intelligence or should we attempt to utilize the full spectrum of intelligence and hope that culture will follow the science?

Research shows that certain “domains” of knowledge or intelligence seem to be privileged (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). Young children are developing schemas for linguistics and rudimentary mathematical thinking at a surprisingly young age. These schemas give students a “jump start” in these domains. Surprisingly, these “privileged domains” align almost perfectly with Gardner’s “preferred” intelligences. Is there a biological correlation to the subjects and domains we stress in schools? Or are there cultural and methodological limitations to how we study learning in the young? These are questions that cannot be answered in this short space, however they do illustrate the sublime complexity of the types of issues teachers must tackle on a daily basis.

Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn : brain, mind, experience, and school. (Expanded ed.). Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.

Gardner, H. & Hatch, T. (1989). Multiple intelligences go to school: Educational implications of the theory of multiple intelligences. Educational Researcher, 18(8), 4–10.

Transfer in Real Life

“When am I going to have to use this in real life.”

Almost every teacher has been asked this question at one time or another. Unfortunately, not every teacher has had a good answer. Perhaps, teachers would be less annoyed by the question if they realized that it actually was a valid pedagogical query. “How will this knowledge transfer to my future learning?” On second thought, that probably would not lessen the annoyance.

Teachers of every subject are actually teaching for and hoping that the knowledge they seek to impart will eventually transfer. We hope that the students we have in geometry will go on to utilize that knowledge in trigonometry. We hope that our English comp students will be able to write a coherent office memo in the future. These are implied goals to the curriculum. The more immediate goals (even if they go unwritten) are more direct. I hope this knowledge “transfers” to the test at the end of the week. Or even more importantly, I hope this knowledge transfers to the standardized testing we have to administer in a few months. Of course neither of these are truly ‘transfer objectives’ these are instructional objectives, or at most the application of simple active transfer. (Bransford et al., 2000)

Of course the curricular model most concerned with transfer is Constructivism. To constructivist, meaningful learning is the active creation of knowledge structures from personal experience. (Snowman et al., 2009) I am lucky enough to teach in one of the few fields that whole-heartedly embraces constructivism, technology education. Within the field of technology education we hope to impart “technological literacy” which will allow students to solve unique technological problems in their personal, professional, civic and academic life. (Dugger Jr, 2000)

As you may have expected teaching a constructivist curriculum with the explicit goal of “far transfer”, as per my experience, does not adequately answer the question “When am I going to have to use this in real life,” in the minds of a student. (Snowman et al., 2009)Indeed, I have found that students often resist when presented with a problem-based project that is somewhat open ended in nature. The reasons for this reaction are undoubtedly multi-faceted and differ from school to school and from population to population. Still, it is apparent that it is difficult to teach constructivism in a vacuum. Students who have never been expected to extensively build upon their prior knowledge succeed in school lack the framework to do so. Indeed studies of classroom activity found that only 7 percent of tasks require students to use prior knowledge. (Snowman et al., 2009)

I feel that as educators we have to, at an early age, begin to encourage and build the metacognative skills needed to achieve both low road and high road transfer. Constructivism is not the magic pill; indeed metacognative approaches to instruction often blur the line between traditional learning theories. (Snowman et al., 2009)Technology may help, but I am convinced that the culture of schools must be addressed before any true transformation can occur.

(2000). How people learn : brain, mind, experience, and school (Expanded ed ed.). Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.

Dugger Jr, W. E. (2000). Standards for Technological Literacy. Content for the Study of Technology. Technology Teacher, 59(5), 8-13.

Snowman, J., McCown, R. R., & Biehler, R. F. (2009). Psychology applied to teaching (12th ed ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Teaching For Expertise

There has been a lot of attention paid to the way in which experts differ from novices. This attention is not limited to the academic arena. Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink chronicles the way in which experts can often make important decisions quickly and instinctively. There do seem to be, by all accounts, fundamental differences between the ways experts and novices approach problems. Furthermore, we seem to be able to identify many of the strategies an expert uses to solve such a problem. The question then becomes, how can we use what we know about experts to better education.  

Currently, most would agree, American schools do not teach with the goal of expertise in mind. This would seem reasonable, no one expects every member of a Physical Education class to be an expert volleyball player, or every high school graduate to be an expert at writing prose. However, I wonder if we as educators should begin to teach the skills of expertise during high school or even earlier.  

Not to overuse some common symbolism, but much the curriculum in America’s public schools is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” We now know that this is the exact opposite of the way in which experts construct their knowledge. Experts tend to organize their knowledge around “big ideas” within their domain. This conceptual top down thinking is the opposite of many classrooms’ focus on seemingly isolated facts and figures.  

While there are many curriculum and instructional strategies built around concept mastery, such methods are becoming less popular due to state and federal regulations. Of course what I speak of is the increased use of standardized testing throughout the year. With the mandatory use of more and more tests, schools naturally are gravitating towards methods of instruction that best ensure positive test scores. The tests seldom measure conceptual knowledge.  

So while no one expects American school’s to graduate experts out of high school, it would seem a laudable goal to produce graduates ready to pursue expertise. Of course, the top down conceptualized thinking I described earlier is only one tenant of expertise. Many of the other characteristics described in the reading seem to mirror good pedagogy.  

Pattern recognition has long been a staple of instruction. Experts notice meaningful patterns not identified by novices. Perhaps more emphasis could be placed on recognizing patterns in fields such as biology. Experts also tend to “chunk” data in order to organize it. This is also a basic tool of good teaching. However, students should also be trained to organize and chunk data on their own.  

There are many more lessons we can take from the study of experts. However, as educators we should not forget to apply these lessons when reflecting on our own practice. What is our goal as an educator? How can we best meet those goals? Those are big questions, and they will take some big ideas to answer.

McLuhan's Realization

I wonder if Marshall McLuhan would have been pleased or terrorized to find so many of his predictions come true. The “Global Village” he described is getting smaller every day, and the trends described in the Horizon Report certainly do not reverse this movement. The Horizon Report shows us how the “network” is continuing to infiltrate more of our academic and personal life and intertwining them. As I will discuss in this post, this trend has both great befits and serious cautions to be considered.

The Horizon report once again emphasizes the importance of the “web” in our everyday life. However, this is hardly news to anyone living in the modern world. To me the more important meta-trend of the document is the increased importance and power given to the individual. The new technologies extend the capabilities of an individual to heights not imagined only a few short years ago. Portable devices connected to the mobile network create armies of reporters able to report on events to blogs and Twitter feeds faster then any multi-million dollar media outlet. Collaboration webs allow for equitable contribution from even the most junior team member working on an important project. In the most basic level this new technology extends our voice, just as a soapbox may have in Town Square centuries ago. We now have a soapbox that extends around the world.  

In the eyes of McLuhan no extension can be had without a similar redaction of capabilities. In this case I believe that these technological trends will result in a loss of our physical voice or rather the loss of the social skills to interact with the people around us. In a world where relationships and collaborations are built entirely within the network, what need is there to deal with the surly fellow the next office over. With so much free data, free data analysis and “mashup” tools available an individual can complete research it may have taken an entire team to do just a few years ago. We no longer have to forge alliances with people of differing backgrounds or philosophical views, because a like-minded colleague is always only a click away. Eventually, our very ability to be locally social creatures will begin to atrophy.
Of course this increased power has secondary benefits. When people can gain fame simply from the number of friends on their Myspace page or from a “grassroot” video placed on YouTube a certain sense of entrepreneurship is revived. In the past the barriers of entrepreneurial success seemed daunting. The startup money, the limits of your audience, and other obstacles all worked to stifle such dreaming. Now a new generation knows that with an Internet connection and an inexpensive computer anything is possible.

Of course mankind will begin to miss what it has made obsolete. With “Social Operating Systems” drawing webs of people across the global village we will begin to loose connection to our actual village. I predict that people will yearn for actual community in the face of this Internet ghettoization.