How People Learn

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How People Learn

• New research raises important questions about the
  design of learning environments

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• Please take a few minutes to
• reflect on your assumptions
• about learning and connect
• them to teaching and organizational strategies
  youve used in the classroom

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Community
Knowledge Centered
Learner Centered
AssessmentCentered
(HPL, p. 134)
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Learner Centered
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Key Finding

• Students come to the classroom with
• preconceptions about how the world
• works. If their initial understanding is
• not engaged, they may fail to grasp the
• new concepts and information that are taught, or
  they may learn them for purposes of a test but
  revert to their preconceptions outside the
  classroom. (HPL, p. 14-15)

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Implications for Teaching

• Teachers must draw out
• and work with the pre-existing understandings
  that their
• students bring with them.
• (HPL, p. 19)

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Question

• What strategies will you use
• to bring whats already inside learners heads
  out?

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Knowledge Centered
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Key Finding

• To develop competence in an area of inquiry,
  students must
• Have a deep foundation of factual knowledge
• Understand facts and ideas in the context of a
  conceptual framework, and
• Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate
  retrieval and application (HPL, p. 16)

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Implications for Teaching

• Teachers must teach some
• subject matter in depth, providing
• many examples in which the same
• concept is at work and providing a
• firm foundation of factual knowledge.
• (HPL, p. 20)

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Questions

• What should be taught?
• Why should it be taught?
• What does competence look like?

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AssessmentCentered
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Key Finding

• A metacognitive approach to
• instruction can help students learn
• to take control of their own
• learning by defining learning goals
• and monitoring their progress in
• achieving them. (HPL, p. 18)

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Implications for Teaching

• Formative assessments ongoing
• assessments designed to make
• students thinking visible to both
• teachers and students are
• essential. (HPL, p. 24)

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Question

• How do you provide students
• with opportunities to revise and
• improve their thinking?

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Community
Knowledge Centered
Learner Centered
AssessmentCentered
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Community-Centered Approach

• Requires the development of
• norms for the classroom and
• school, as well as connections
• to the outside world, that support
• core learning values. (HPL, p. 25)

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Questions

• How are you providing an environment where it is
  safe to ask questions and make mistakes?
• How are you going about building a sense of
  community?