Learning Matters

The odds are good that if you are reading this blog, you agree with the title of this entry. But what is learning?  How do we do know if students are learning?  How do students know if they are learning?  And perhaps most important of all, how do we help students learn about learning?

An interesting phenomenon occurs in schools when students become familiarized with completing activities that do not challenge them to engage with complex tasks:  They can forget how to learn.  Students become accustomed to schoolwork being more practice-based and less learning-based.  They feel capable completing worksheets, responding to closed questions on an ipad, or performing simple tasks.  Then, when faced with scenarios that require more complex learning, helpless mindsets take hold.

I’ve seen this phenomenon in first grade classrooms as often as undergraduate and graduate-level classrooms.  Students shut down, display anger or frustration, and often feel lost when they are challenged to engage with a task that requires real learning. The first grader who cannot (yet) blend three sounds to form a word, the seventh grader who cannot (yet) solve a linear equation, the aspiring teacher candidate who cannot (yet) differentiate a reading lesson across four guided reading levels.  The helplessness, if left unchecked, impacts students’ response to the present learning opportunity as well as future learning opportunities.  As Dweck (2000) would say, helpless mindsets take root.  “I’m just not good at this.”  “I’ve never been a math person.”  “Maybe teaching isn’t for me.” 

Helping students understand mindsets assists them in understanding their thinking about learning. Helping students understand learning equips them with tools to manage their mindsets while on a learning journey.

To assist students in developing metacognitive awareness around the cycle of learning, James Nottingham (2017) developed an idea he refers to as “the learning challenge.” The learning challenge, or learning pit as it is often called, is a pictorial model of the phases one goes through when learning something new.  The steps identified by Nottingham include:  Concept, Question, Cognitive Conflict, Construct, and Consider (2017, p. 6).  The Learning Pit helps students understand that learning follows a fairly predictable pattern and inherently involves a degree of confusion, perplexity, and feeling lost.  It is in embracing the perplexity, identifying stuck places, and finding resources to help navigate one’s way through the pit, that learning takes place.

Learning Pit TiP Learning.jpg

Nottingham’s model is not all that different from John Dewey’s pattern of inquiry (Dewey, 1938).  Dewey, considered by many to be the father of experiential education, also believed that learning follows a predictable pattern.  In his model, a person begins with a state of perplexity about a particular topic, concept or question.  From there, s/he clarifies the problem, develops a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis, and reflects on the outcome.  The outcome of the inquiry cycle leads a person toward a depth of understanding that enables him/her to ask a more complex question about the topic/concept of focus.  In this sense, learning begets learning.

Both Dewey and Nottingham’s models point toward a common theme —> Learning is hard work.  This brings us to another challenge facing teaching and learning: As teachers it is often easy for us to forget what it feels like to really learn something new.  A model of schooling in which educators address the same content/concepts year after year can exacerbate this reality.  The more familiar we become with ideas at our grade level, the less patience we may have for learners as they work to negotiate the learning pit of adding with regrouping, writing a topic sentence, or negotiating peer dynamics on the playground. We forget how challenging it really is to learn these skills for the first time.

Perhaps one of the most important steps we can take as educators is to challenge ourselves to learn something new every year; really new, as in completely outside our wheelhouse. For me, this challenge has led to a ceramics studio, a marathon training program, and rowing on Lake Superior (to name a few).  Each time, despite everything I knew about mindsets and the pattern of inquiry I repeatedly found myself in the depths of the learning pit.  I wanted to drop out of the ceramics class; I was convinced the clay could sense my incompetence.  I wished I’d only signed up for the half-marathon; fewer miles, same free grub at the end. I was certain the 8-person shell would crush my vertebrae and that my arms would never acquire the strength, skill and stamina necessary to row in sync with the rest of my team.  Each time I subjected myself to real learning I was reminded of the visceral response our minds and bodies have to learning.  Sometimes we simply have to shut down, regroup, and try again another day.  Other times, a deep breath and short break are sufficient fuel for another try.  Most importantly, when we finally get it — we finally learn — the pride and sense of accomplishment are second to none.

If we want students to learn — no matter what the skill or the setting — perhaps one of the most important steps we can take with them is to explore the nature of learning:

·      What is learning?

·      How do I tell if I’m learning?

·      What do I do if I’m not learning?

·      What are different ways of learning? 

·      When is one way more valuable than another, and why? 

Whether the pattern of inquiry, the learning pit, growth mindsets, or some other model, what will you do to support your students’ understanding of learning and themselves as learners as the new school year begins?

What will you do to support your students’ learning about learning?

Interested in learning more? Check out the new book available from TiP Learning:

 
 


Resources:

 

Citations:

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & education.  NY:  Touchstone Press.

Dweck, D. (2000).  Self Theories:  Their role in motivation, personality, and development. NY:  Psychology Press.

Nottingham, J. (2017). The learning challenge: How to guide your students through the learning pit to achieve deeper understanding. Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publishing. 

 

 

 
learner qualities, learning pitMaggie Hoodylearning pit, learner qualities3 Comments