Learning is Tough -- For Both of Us!

With September down the block I've been putting on my game face for this tussle called learning. Not teaching, mind you, but learning. Teaching is where I'm the "sage on the stage." I do my thing and, hopefully, you learn something, perhaps even in spite of me. No, I'm talking LEARNING; changing who you are, what you know, how valuable you are to your employers

Some have proposed a knowledge development matrix that has a learning sequence--the learning steps--on the Y axis and a continuum of learning as the X axis. The goal is for the student to move from the top left to the lower right. The steps are:

• Prior knowledge activation -- connecting what you know to what you are about to learn
• Information preview -- objectives, imagining the final goal, dealing with questions
• Motivation -- enough said
• Information acquisition -- student engagement with the information (you might call this homework)
• Practice and feedback -- this is where you test your understanding, assignments, if you will, but even more
• Closure -- learner reflection on what has been accomplished

A variation on the steps: engage, explore, explain, extend, evaluate.

The continuum moves from awareness of the information, to understanding it, to applying it, to analyzing it, to synthesizing it, to evaluating it in the light of additional information. You might think of these steps as recall facts, explain facts, use this understanding in a new situation, manipulate the information (tear apart or put together) to form some new understandings, and finally match criteria of this information to a specific situation as a first step to starting the continuum all over again. Think of the continuum as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. For those of you whose brains are swelling just remember awareness, recall, application, and mastery. (There are similar notions for the development of affective objectives.)

The message here is that we--both oif us--need to work the matrix if anything is going to happen. My job, more or less, is to set the table and pull or push you as much as I can. Your job is to have a passion for getting from the top left to lower right. Are you ready?