learntolearn

Learn: what…why…how…you and…

Excerpts from How People Learn (3)

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, Committee on Development in the Science of Learning:

John D. Bransford Ann L. Brown and Rodney R. Cocking, Eds., National Academy Press, 2000Portals Door PP24

P.O.R.T.A.L.S:  A lesson planning format for Opening Doors to the World of Learning  Third in a series connecting frameworks to lesson planning.
PURPOSE
OPERATIONS
REMEMBERING

To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge [L], (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework [L], and (c) organize knowledge [O] in ways that facilitate retrieval and application [A].

TEAM WORK
ACTION
LAYING A FOUNDATION

“Kids come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works.  If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information they are taught, and they may learn them for purposes [P] of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.”*

SELF-MANAGEMENT

“A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals [P] and monitoring their progress in achieving them.”*

*3 Key Findings

To see the full text, use the links below.

Http://www.nap.edu/read/9853/chapter/1

Additional copies of this report are available from: National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418 Call 800–624–6242 or 202–334–3313 (in the Washington Metropolitan Area).

This volume is also available on line at http://www.nap.edu

Contents

Part I Introduction    
1   Learning: From Speculation to Science   3
Part II Learners and Learning    
2   How Experts Differ from Novices   31
3   Learning and Transfer   51
4   How Children Learn   79
5   Mind and Brain   114
Part III Teachers and Teaching    
6   The Design of Learning Environments   131
7   Effective Teaching: Examples in History, Mathematics, and Science   155
8   Teacher Learning   190
9   Technology to Support Learning   206

 

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Meta Learning Foundation 4: Know Me

Learning is most successful when I addresses both the strengths and challenges of individual learners.

Teaching is a very challenging profession. When faced with 25 (elementary) or 50+ (middle school) or 100+ (high school) students a day, we ask teachers to address individual differences, strengths and challenges. We need suggestions about how to do that, but we need to make those suggestions with humility and empathy. There are several frameworks that attempt to show ways to address individual differences in learners: Personalized Learning, Differentiated Instruction, Diagnostic Teaching, Zone of Proximal Development, Multiple Intelligences, and “Learning Style.”
But I’d like to recommend another way of addressing the individuality of learners. Listen to their stories. Sometimes they will call attention to their stories; sometimes they won’t, but they will have a story about who they are, what they care about, what they think, how they feel—about lots of things, including learning.
Here are some ways other educators have addressed student individuality through their stories:

Kids Telling Their Stories
http://main.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_key_language_storytelling
The Emergence of Story Telling During the First Three Years

By Susan Engel
Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont

Edited from the Zero to Three Journal, December 1996/January 1997. To browse or order the Zero to Three Journal, click here.
“My 2 1/2 year old son, Sam, eagerly begins to tell a story he has heard and told several times before. He tells it to one of his brothers, who already knows the story. “When I was a born baby? (voice goes up as if asking a question) Jake was carrying me down the stairs and he, and he, he… (he turns to me) Mom, you tell the rest.” At 2 1/2 Sam is already a budding raconteur, eager to share experiences from his past.”

You Matter by Angela Maier

Student Choices
http://dbassett.blogspot.com/2014/09/as-we-move-forward-trying-to-support.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ReflectionsOnMeta-cognition-ForEducatorsByEducators+%28Reflections+on+Meta-cognition+-+For+Educators+by+Educators%29
“As we move forward, trying to support each student as they move towards success, we need to think about building on interests – not only for engagement – but also due to the strategies students accomplish around their areas of interest. This is a great article. Enjoy. Courtesy of ASCD.”

Student choice helps educators differentiate instruction
Students’ interests can help educators develop differentiated learning experiences, education consultant John McCarthy writes in this blog post. He highlights the advantages of student choice, tools teachers can use to tap into student interests and tips to manage student-driven assignments. Edutopia.org/Differentiated Instruction blog (8/25)

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Meta Learning Foundations (2): Authentice Goals and Outcomes

Meta Learning Foundations
2. Learning is situated in particular contexts and is best when motivated by authentic goals and outcomes.
There are any number of “models of learning” that espouse this belief about learning. Here are some examples, starting with Jan Hennington’s Model titled: Authentic Learning.

Authentic Learning: Jan Herrington
http://authenticlearning.info/AuthenticLearning/Home.html
NINE ELEMENTS OF AUTHENTIC LEARNING:
1. 1.Provide authentic contexts that reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real life
2. 2.Provide authentic tasks and activities
3. 3.Provide access to expert performances and the modelling of processes
4. 4.Provide multiple roles and perspectives
5. 5.Support collaborative construction of knowledge
6. 6.Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed
7. 7.Promote articulation to enable tacit knowledge to be made explicit
8. 8.Provide coaching and scaffolding by the teacher at critical times
9. 9.Provide for authentic assessment of learning within the tasks.

Other models include:
Deeper Learning
Cognitive Apprenticeship
Collaborative Learning
Problem Based Learning

In addition to these broad based models, many content based approaches to teaching/learning espouse a “make it real” principle.
6. Make it real. Another part of the engagement puzzle is connecting learning to life outside of the classroom. First grade teacher Jeanne Wright explains how she encourages students to see math in everyday life. We get to see how this strategy takes shape in high school as Peggy Brookins and Raymond James help students apply their knowledge of trigonometry to real-life scenarios. It’s great to get a glimpse into how to develop a culture that supports passionate and engaged mathematicians.
https:/ /www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2014/01/16/routines-to-support-mathematical-thinking/?utm_source=Teaching+Channel+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6ac570c4dc-Newsletter_September_06_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_23c3feb22a-6ac570c4dc-292469605

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Learning Is Most Successful When…

Are the Common Core State Standards for all students? Do they address individual difference? the needs of students who don’t “sit still and follow instructions”? Are the standards sensitive to students’ goals and passions?

Here is one perspective-from the Alliance for Excellent Education:

Core of the Matter: If New Designs in Teaching and Learning Come to Pass, Vulnerable Learners Win with the Common Core (#CoreMatters)

http://all4ed.org/core-of-the-matter-if-new-designs-in-teaching-and-learning-come-to-pass-vulnerable-learners-win-with-the-common-core-corematters/#more-21359

“…..In fact, preceding generations of standards asked nothing new of teachers and required few if any changes in curriculum. The premise now is that the deep learning outcomes that the common core standards suggest cannot be attained absent corresponding qualitative improvements in curriculum and instruction. Before, our teaching strategies rewarded students who could sit still and follow instructions. Now, teachers must engage students in their own learning, create time and support for analysis and reflection, foster discussion and make explicit connections to the lives their students lead. These new pedagogies, if they come to pass, should work wonders for the new diverse majority of students in our schools, students who have in many ways been denied access to these rich learning opportunities…..”
[bold italics mine]

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Taking a New Meta Road: Kids’ Voices

Some questions:

What role is there for Kids’ Voices in Learning to Learn?

What if we focused on them as learners–in their own words?  What would we learn?

Would we learn about…

how they see themselves as learners

how they believe they learn best

what they believe is worth learning

what they do when they get struck on a learning problem

what frustrates them

what they think about their choices…of goals, assignments, homework, feedback, grades, time/timing, how we teach, how we talking about teaching/leaning

Let’s see what we can find out about what they think!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Out There looking for a focus on learners and learning

I have been spending a lot of time searching for and curating sites that address Meta Learning:  that is, how we help learners to take ownership of their learning.  I’ve put them on my “Metacognition” Scoopit site.  I’m looking for sites that take a “guiding,” “mentoring,” “teaching” approach rather than a “sink or swim” approach to ownership.

Here’s a post that got a lot of commenting about the role of the learner in making choices about what to learn.  Thought you might be interested, especially if your  use Understanding by Design, Problem Based Learning or Design Thinking as a framework for what you think the Purpose of learning should be.

http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2012/08/whats-the-difference-between-pbl-and-design-thinking.html

I will post other sites/links from time to time, especially those by classroom teachers…the ultimate authorities.   To curate these links I use the following search terms:  metacognition, meta learning, executive functions, learning to learn, self-directed learning.

If you have any sites to add, I’d be more than happy to include them on Scoopit.

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Learning Journey

I’m going to begin a new series of posts based on my wiki (Explorience1–Learning to Learn)*.  The wiki and the posts are focused on helping middle schoolers become more successful (self-directed, life-long) learners.  The framework is based on a set of 7 learning-to-learn skills:  Purpose, Operations, Remembering, Teamwork, Action, Laying a Foundation (of content), and Self-Management.  P.O.R.T.A.L.S. was designed to help middle school kids open pathways to learning, particularly as they face learning challenges.

 

Hope you will follow the blog as I explore where these skills came from, why they are important, and how to help kids learn them.

* http://tinyurl.com/Exploriece-Learningtolearn

 

 

 

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Themes

I will be sharing information and ideas on the following Topics on my “Learn to Learn” blog.

  1. What does it mean to learn?
  2. What is worth learning?
  3. Learner Stories
  4. Frameworks/Approaches (Historic and Contemporary)
  5. Learning Process(es)
  6. The role of Context
  7. Research

 

 

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