Richard’s Educational Technology Blog

Most people who go into education do so because of some great teacher who inspired them, and in so doing made them want to do the same for others. I ended up in education because, after 12 years of hating just about every minute of it, I finally said “I can do better than this!” Now, as I try to find ways to make the educational experience better for others, I look at why I had such a negative experience. I think it comes down to the fact that certain characteristics, necessary for learning, were missing from my education.

What are the characteristics of real learning? This was precisely the question that I was asked just this past Sunday by Dr. Allen, a retired (and very well respected) BYU professor. While my answer to him included the need for active involvement and participation from the students, this week I’ve found a better answer - perhaps the best I’ve found yet. According to Cognitive Scientist Jeremy Roschelle, 4 fundamental characteristics must be present for effective learning to take place.

• active engagement
• participation in groups
• frequent interaction and feedback
• connections to real-world contexts

Not so ironically, I can’t think of a single class of mine that had all four of those characteristics. The most lacking, perhaps, was the idea of connecting classroom content to real-world contexts. To this day I cannot figure out why I had to “learn” chemistry (learning is in parenthesis, because I’m not sure what I did with chemistry should be considered learning). How is it possible that in an entire year of a course I could not figure out how any of what I had been studying had anything to do with my life?

I challenge all educators to be careful with the use of the word “learning”. Using it only in appropriate contexts, such as when these characteristics are present, will help us to avoid creating then environment that I had while I was in school.

For more information, take a look at Roschelle’s article, Changing how and what children learn in school with computer-based technologies

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2004 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Teaching and Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.