Dr Chris Jernstedt from Dartmouth on Learning and the Brain synthesized something that I’ve been trying to apply for a while, now. He breaks the goals of learning down into four areas: knowing (facts), applying (classroom learning to life situations), recognizing (what classroom things are related to a given “life” situation), and extrapolating. If all this student does is sit in class and “soak it in,” I think he/she will have tremendous difficulty doing anything but knowing (if that). Yet, it seems most students seldom progress past the “knowing” stage.
Levels of Understanding
There’s much research on brains and learning and such available now.
My colleague, Pete, has this interesting poster in his classroom. He made it, I think. It’s small. He gives a copy to students each year.
He’s been working on a revision.
Then, we need to work on making this all authentic.
It’s at that point that students will buy in, and that’s the most important piece.
And that’s my current quest. Ideas?
[…] opinion around the validity of learning styles. Nonetheless, at the encouragement of a colleague (this colleague) during some collaborative course design work, I pulled out the learning styles inventory* again […]