Learning How to Learn
WELCOME TO “LEARNING HOW TO LEARN”!!!
Today, you’ll create a visual note on two strategies for learning and complete a questionnaire about what you have learned.
What is learning?
Learning is “a process that leads to change” (Ambrose et al, 2010, p. 3). The change in the learner may happen at the level of knowledge, attitude, or behaviour. It is a permanent change in long-term memory.
Learning occurs when we are able to:
- Gain a mental or physical grasp of the subject.
- Make sense of a subject, event or feeling by interpreting it into our own words or actions.
- Use our newly acquired ability or knowledge in conjunction with skills and understanding we already possess.
- Do something with the new knowledge or skill and take ownership of it.
Examples include:
- learning to ride a bike
- learning to skate
- learning to read the words on the page of a book
- learning to make inferences from the actions of the character, the action, and the conflict
- learning what numbers mean
- learning to follow a recipe
- learning to conduct a science experiment and draw conclusions.
What is retrieval practice?
The act of recalling learned information from memory (with little or no support) and every time that information is retrieved, or an answer is generated, it changes the original memory to make it stronger.
Retrieval practice is a study method that encourages students to engage with the material in an active way (teaching, annotating, completing practice tests) rather than passive learning (re-reading or highlighting).
Retrieval practice makes learning effortful and challenging. Because retrieving information requires mental effort, we often think we are doing poorly if we can’t remember something. We may feel like progress is slow, but that’s when our best learning takes place. The more difficult the retrieval practice, the better it is for long-term learning.
What is spaced practice?
Spaced practice is the exact opposite of cramming. When you cram, you study for a long, intense period of time close to an exam. When you space your learning, you take that same amount of study time, and spread it out across a much longer period of time. Doing it this way, that same amount of study time will produce more long-lasting learning. For example, five hours spread out over two weeks is better than the same five hours right before the exam.
Struggling to learn – through the act of practicing what you know and recalling information – is much more effective than re-reading, taking notes, or listening to lectures. Slower, effortful SPACED RETRIEVAL practice leads to long-term learning. In contrast, fast, easy strategies like rereading, cramming, and highlighting only lead to short-term learning.
So, two REALLY good learning strategies => SPACED RETRIEVAL PRACTICE.
After you complete your note, move on to the session questionnaire.
You will find the questionnaire here: http://bit.ly/whslearn2021
BOOKMARKS!!
CHECK OUT QUIZLET……TERRIFIC RETRIEVAL TOOL.
You’ve got six years…I have less than three. And I’ve been having almost the exact same thoughts and questions running through my brain as well. The stats on the kids in our districts are very similar; the vast majority go to college right after graduation. The idea that there would be any other path for kids who have the grades to go to college is unheard of. (Tess is still getting grief about not taking the PSATs as a sophomore this year.) But my kids have known for a long time that they will have options, even though they may not be as “clear” as college. And I don’t mean vocational paths (though those are fine, too.) I mean different paths to professional success and accreditation.
But here’s the thing: are our schools preparing kids to forge their own path? To be “entrepreneurial learners” as John Seely Brown calls them, kids who are “Constantly looking around them, all the time, for new ways and new resources to learn new things”? Because if college is only one path, the other ones are forged by self-direction, organization, wonder, creation, sharing, inquiry…all those things that you and I need in order to be successful learners in our lives. Kids who don’t go to college to get a degree need to be able to design their own learning since they won’t get a course list and syllabus handed to them. They need to have skills and literacies that will allow them to learn what they need to learn, create art (as Seth Godin says) with that learning, share that learning, and “earn their influence” (as Stephen Downes says). We teaching them how to do that?
So, there’s always been that “third path” somewhere between getting a job and going to college, but now, I think it’s going to start to scale in some interesting ways. That’s why I really don’t care if my kids are “college ready” when they leave high school as long as they are “learning ready,” able to put together their own path to success.