Archive | July, 2019

Learning Strategies – part 2

31 Jul

Metacognitive skills are important for deeper learning. Simply put, metacognition is our knowledge of our own learning and cognitive processes, and also how to use those processes to help us learn better[1].  Therefore, knowing several learning strategies and being able to teach students how to use different strategies is essential for being a good teacher.

Discussing learning strategies with students is an important part of teaching! 

Learning to learn is an important topic to cover throughout formal education. It shouldn’t be a subject of it’s own, but those learning skills must be embedded into everyday instruction. The funny thing is, that while we as teachers know about learning strategies, we don’t always apply that knowledge to our own learning. I have very funny discussions about this with my own students (teachers pursuing their M.Ed. degrees) when I get to remind them about the learning strategies they remind their own students about. 🙂 I think we all just need reminders of how to best help ourselves to learn different things. The chosen learning strategy must match with the learning task! That’s why we need to know many different strategies!

Most deep learning processes benefit from using several different learning strategies! 

Helping students to become self-sufficient and autonomous learners is a crucially important part of contemporary education. We cannot think that learning would end with high school diploma or degree certificate, most workplaces today require ongoing learning engagement.

I have grouped the learning strategies on Nina’s Notes as the following:

  • ways to pace your learning
  • strategies to memorize and recall
  • strategies to make connections, and
  • strategies that aim for deeper learning

Memorization strategies work quite similarly as learning categories on the first level of Bloom’s taxonomy: recognizing and recalling [2]. Therefore I am seldom recommending flashcards as a primary learning strategy – they detach the concept from the context. However, if you really need to recognize and recall something, then very focused use of flashcards may be useful. Please do remember to continue your learning from remembering to understanding, applying and analyzing!

Very focused use of flashcards may be helpful in certain situations. Remember to practice recalling, too! 

While discussing and using different learning strategies it is important to remember the difference of perceving learning as a process and learning as a product.

Learning as a product refers to meeting the external objective(s) of instruction with a measurable change in behavior. This view emphasizes the importance of instruction and information delivery. Students are the object of instruction. Their choices and learner agency are very limited.

Learning as a process refers to the internal development caused by acquiring new information and elaborating one’s own understanding of using it. There is a triadic This view emphasizes learners’ active engagement in their own learning process and making sense of the content. Students are subjects of their own learning. They have choices and learner agency is supported in the learning environment.

I hope the Learning Strategies – series are useful for you and your students!

🙂

Nina

 

[1] Ormrod, J. E. (1999). Human learning: Principles, theories, and educational applications. 3rd. ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill Publishing Co.

[2] Krathwohl, D. R., & Anderson, L. W. (2009). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.

 

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Learning Strategies – part 1

22 Jul

One important part of Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge is the skill of supporting students’ individual learning processes. For Learning and Development this means fostering each student’s individual learning through knowledge of human development, information processing, attributions and other theories that relate to how we learn. For Dispositions it means understanding how perceptions of self, others, values and beliefs affect learning process.

Remember, these are our professional competencies! Sometimes we forget that our students don’t have the same knowledge and insight into learning as we do. This is why we must explicitely teach appropriate and effective learning strategies to our students.

While the strategies themselves – ways to pace learning, to memorize and recall, make connections and aim for deeper learning – remain pretty much the same throughout our educational experiences, the way we use them is directly related to our subjective learning needs.  These needs depend on our personal preferences, developmental age, knowledge structure, and the perception of why we are learning. Discussing learning strategies and helping students to choose the best ones for the purpose is an easy way to make the everyday learning experiences more personal.

Today there are various initiatives to personalize learning, ranging from software programs to truly learner-centered design for instruction. Teaching students about different learning strategies is an excellent way to make learning more personal and help students have more ownership over their own learning process.

Personalized learning is tailoring learning for each student’s strengths, needs and interests — including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when and where they learn — to provide flexibility and support to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible.[1]

I am always a little worried with the -ized ending in the words when we discuss education because it often implies someone (or something) else than the student to make decisions about their learning. My biggest take-away from the quote is the increased student voice and choice, because it IS their learning experience we are talking about.  Experience is such a subjective phenomenon that it can’t be standardized. What we can do as teachers, is to empower, help and support the learning process, and provide more choices and more tools for our students. Learning is a personal endeavour. The strategies we recommend to our students should reflect that fact!

Emphasizing personal learning approach is not a new fad. APA has emphasized the importance of personal learning since 1990 by highlighting the learner-centered approach and 2015 updating the approach to Top 20 principles for PreK-12 education. I wish every teacher had a copy of that document!

The Learner-Centered Principles apply to all learners, in and outside of school, young and old.  Learner-centered is also related to the beliefs, characteristics, dispositions, and practices of teachers – practices primarily created by the teacher.When teachers and their practices function from an understanding of the knowledge base delineated in the Principles, they:

(a) include learners in decisions about how and what they learn and how that learning is assessed

(b) value each learner’s unique perspectives

(c) respect and accommodate individual differences in learners’ backgrounds, interests, abilities, and experiences, and

(d) treat learners as co-creators and partners in the teaching and learning process.

Changing the focus from universal delivery of information (i.e. traditional teacher-centered educational model) to learner-centered or personal learning approach (i.e. learning facilitation) is the first step.  Then, changing assessment and grading to reflect students’ learning process and engaging in non-punitive assessment model is the second step.

This is the beginning of Learning Strategies blog posts. I hope these learning strategies will help you to help your students.

 

🙂

Nina

 

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[1] Patrick, S., Kennedy, K., & Powell, A. (2013). Mean what you say: Defining and integrating personalized, blended and competency education. Report, October.

[2] https://www.apa.org/ed/governance/bea/learner-centered.pdf and http://www.jodypaul.com/LCT/LCT.PsychPrinc.html

 

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