Week 1 Essay: Learning, Understanding and Conceptual Change Essay

Contributing to the development of young children is one of the most fascinating things in life in my opinion.  When given the opportunity to openly explore and experience the learning process in a nurturing environment, children approach learning with admirable positivity and curiosity.  I find that while they often readily accept and absorb information in naive ways, they are also eager to be active learners.  They express their curiosities and doubts to openly challenge learning, enriching the process for themselves and others.  In my experience, children are creative and flexible with transferring their knowledge to make sense of the world.  Their unconventional connections can prompt new ideas and paths of learning to consider (even for the adults with whom they interact).  This type of inquisitive, exploratory nature that most children exhibit in their early years is what makes each and every day for me both fulfilling and inspiring.

An important question to consider is how can we as educators take advantage of the learning potential of children at an early age?  Furthermore, how can we create the best environments to ensure that as children mature they continue to embrace their inherent quality of curious, positive energy and use it to deepen their knowledge and understanding for real-world application?  In the first chapter of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School, the authors help us explore these questions.  “Overall, the new science of learning is beginning to provide knowledge to improve significantly people’s abilities to become active learners who seek to understand complex subject matter and are better prepared to transfer what they have learned to new problems and settings” (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 2000, p.13).  Updates in research on the brain and learning continue to help us examine our understanding of learning and the important characteristics of productive learning environments.  “The emerging science of learning underscores the importance of rethinking what is taught, how it is taught, and how learning is assessed” (Bransford et al., 2000, p.13).

For our young generation of students, learning has a taken on a completely different look in comparison to what most adults recall of their school experiences.  I hear from parents regularly how impressed they are with not just what their children are learning but importantly the way in which they are learning.  Of course these differences in experience also can lead to parents questioning current ways of teaching and learning.  The activities of an elementary school classroom are sometimes misinterpreted by those not familiar with current best practices.  For example, some parents lack an understanding of an exploratory-based or play-based environment and therefore underestimate the powerful learning that is taking place.  They find it difficult to disconnect from their prior experiences of traditional classroom settings and struggle to see that children’s attitudes, beliefs and understandings are being shaped for lifelong use.  Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) explain that “because learning involves transfer from previous experiences, one’s existing knowledge can also make it difficult to learn new information” (p. 70).  This supports why it is important that institutions of learning also make an effort to communicate with and educate their parent body to create a mutual understanding of learning and teaching.

I am fortunate to be a part of a teaching and learning community that strives to embody the design characteristics that Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) suggest for creating an optimal learning environment.  The authors state that there are “four interrelated attributes of learning  environments that need cultivation” in schools (p. 23).  Schools should be learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered (Bransford et al., 2000, pp. 23-25).  Achieving this type of interrelated learning environment has become increasingly more tangible with the advent of new technology.  However, just as there is a wide variety of teaching and learning strategies to choose from, it is also important to be thoughtful in the way that we choose to integrate technology.  It can be a powerful tool to support learning and engage a variety of learning styles, yet knowing how to choose and use technology thoughtfully is a complex and evolving discussion which brings us back to the importance of understanding learning.  “A benefit of focusing on how people learn is that it helps bring order to a seeming cacophony of choices” (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 21).

References

Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind,  Experience and School (Expanded Edition). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368