NSIN Research Matters: Effective Learning

Abbott, J (1994) defines learning as a “reflective activity which enables the learner to draw upon previous experience to understand and evaluate the present, so as to shape future action and formulate new knowledge”.

Dennison and Kirk (1990), Kolb (1984) worked on the learning cycle (Do, Review, Learn, Apply).

Biggs and Moore (1993) wrote of learning as a two way process and noted 6 elements:

1. Learner Characteristics

1. Ideally is conscious of incompetence
2. Learner’s ideas of learning affects how learning takes place
3. Ideally improving over proving
4. Learning styles: identify strengths and develop weak styles (activist, reflector, theorist, pragmatist)

2. Teaching

1. Learning facilitation or Knowledge transfer

3. Activities

1. Instruction: “she taught me…”
2. Construction: “I made sense of…”
3. Co-construction: “We worked out that…”
4. The five elements in reaching the goals of teaching activities change depending on which of those 3 ways you look at learning.

i. Tasks
1. input output tasks
2. tasks for processing and understanding
3. tasks for generating knowledge

ii. Social structure
1. teacher to many
2. individuals, pairs, groups
3. changing groups, networks, linkages

iii. Resources
1. teacher chooses
2. student experience is seen as a resource
3. access to world of resources and experiences

iv. Role
1. Teacher as teller, organiser and judge
2. teacher an enquirer
3. teacher as learner too

v. Time and pacing
1. teacher controls: pace seen as key
2. Longer time blocks, student paced
3. Time seen as less relevant

4. Outcomes

1. Knowledge
2. Skills
3. Action
4. Feeling
5. Strategies and love of learning
6. Sense of self, others and community

5. Classroom context

1. The classroom is a unique context, requiring certain skills to work within it.

6. Wider context

1. Learning outside school is a different, less structured context.

For effective learning to take place, context and goals must be specified. Focus must be on knowledge generation with others and on ‘meta learning’.

There are 4 processes that feed into effective learning, ideally at all 4 stages of the learning cycle.

-Active learning
-Collaborative learning
-Responsibility for own learning
-Meta-learning

Do [AL = tasks designed for learner activity, CL = tasks in small groups who feed into a larger group, RL = learner chooses and plans approach, ML = learners notice aspects of learning]

Review [AL = learners stop to notice what happened, CL = Learners review group operations, RL = learners monitor their own progress, ML = learners describe and review their learning]

Learn [AL = Understandings made explicit, CL = Explanation of topic and group, LR = Identify factors influencing progress and develop appropriate strategies, ML = Further reflective inquiry encouraged]

Apply [AL = Plan further actions including other situations, CL = Include group and community learning in the plans, LR = Revise plans due to recent learning, ML = Plan to notice and experiment.]