How learning occurs and how it can be made more effective...
Teachers, parents, students and others who are involved in study support have found that it has stimulated their interest in how learning occurs and how it can be made more effective. There is a growing literature on the brain, and on the nature of intelligence and ability. The following seven theories illustrate how much and how little we know about how people learn.
1. 80% of what we know about learning has been discovered in the last 15 years. Much of what we know about learning has come from breakthroughs in neurological research during the last decade and a half. Sperry and Ornstein received their Nobel Prize in 1981 for research on left and right brain functions. Howard Gardner’s work in multiple intelligences came to the fore in the late eighties, while Goleman’s 1995 resumé of recent studies on emotional intelligence illustrates the range of contemporary discoveries about cognitive and affective learning, many of which have immense significance for both classroom practice and independent learning.
2. It is estimated that we use only a small fraction of our brain’s capacity. The potential of the brain for learning is, in neurological terms, limitless. It is estimated that there are approximately 2,000 billion brain cells each of which has tens of millions of possible connectors, or ‘hooks’ to other brain cells. In other words there are billions of learning pathways, only a few of which we use. The untravelled paths become ‘overgrown’ and eventually unusable. The capacity to learn throughout life depends on knowing how to keep learning alive and practising the techniques which make more use of the brain’s full potential.
3. Support for learning out of school (in particular parents and other family members) is a critical factor in learning. Students who learn best in school come from homes where their learning is ‘mediated’ by effective adults (Feuerstein 1967). Children behave better, pay attention better, and are more effective learners if their parents are themselves ‘emotionally adept’ and help their children cope with their emotional life (Hooven, Katz and Gottman 1995). Mentoring by adults or older students can be equally effective. Having opportunities to teach others, for example friends, parents, brothers or sisters is the best way to internalise and make sense of what you are learning (Bruner 1968).
4. When they are young, children have a repertoire of skills which they gradually learn not to use as they progress through school. Jerome Bruner, Howard Gardner and other leading child psychologists have demonstrated that some of the natural abilities that children are born with fall into disuse as they adapt to school learning, and as the curriculum (particularly in secondary school) narrows down the range of skills they are required to use. Gardner’s theory is that we all have multiple intelligences, not only a single attribute called ‘intelligence’. The question we should be asking, therefore, is not ‘how smart are you?’ but ‘how are you smart?’ Schools and study centres have the opportunity to help young people become smart in different ways and use their different intelligences toolkit.
5. Different people learn in different ways in different contexts and are at their best at different times of the day. Research is helping us to understand more about the wide range of individual differences in learning. For some students the competitive atmosphere of the classroom reduces motivation and the ability to learn (Kagan). But many students who do not learn well in classrooms can learn very effectively ‘in a more responsive environment’ (Edmonds and Kagan) such as a study centre. Most students are at their best when they can use knowledge and skills across ‘multiple social contexts’, for example, by applying their literacy or numeracy learning through a community project, newspaper or video production, work situation or team game (Wentzel).
6. People learn best when they have control over their own learning and are encouraged to learn for themselves. When students are given choice and control over the content and process of their own learning their interest and motivation increases (Mager and McCann, 1963). A Scottish study ‘Learning out of School’ found that young people were more able to handle homework and study when they chose their own place, style and time of day. About half the sample worked best to background music (MacBeath and Turner 1992). It is now well established that certain types of music, for example major key baroque, activate emotions and help long term memory (Tomatis).
7. What you believe about yourself determines your capacity to learn. How we think about our abilities and the words we use to describe ourselves are better predictors of success than IQ (Felsmann and Vaillant 1987). Some positive confidence-building words are as effective in changing behaviour as prescribed drugs because words activate specific response centres in the brain (Baxter, cited in Jensen 1994). Hope can fire a neuron in the brain, says David Bohm, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. He says that “thoughts are things”, citing scientific evidence to show that how we think and the language of our thoughts actually shape ability and behaviour. (John MacBeath, Learning to Achieve)
From: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ss_store/pdfs/MAK_WOK_module_5.pdf?version=1
