What does learning look like?
As I said in the previous post…
I have been gathering ideas for a coming post about what people think learning looks like. I’ve asked my colleagues, students and educators worldwide. Some took it very seriously and considered their answers carefully. Others called an image to mind very quickly. Some could sum it up in a word or phrase. Others felt the 140 characters on Twitter was too limiting. I’ve looked at lots of images to see how learning might appear in its various forms too. Much of what I read every day deals directly or indirectly with this very question. I’ve seen wonderful examples of what learning looks like on teacher and student blogs. Ian in Sheffield is planning to give cameras to students for them to photograph what they think learning looks like. If you haven’t already shared … what do YOU think learning looks like?
And here it is…
Real nice and interesting initiative. Congratulations!
Two observations:
a) The question is wide – What does learning look like? – but answers are framed within the school system, thus reflecting the strong association between learning and schooling. Maybe the question should be rephrased as “What does learning in school look like?”. Out-of-school learning, in its wide diversity (in real life, at home, in the community, playing, conversing, reading, writing, etc.), looks evidently very different.
b) These ideas on (school) learning do not represent realities worldwide. Educational/teaching-learning realities differ considerably across countries, cultures and social groups. Acknowledging this would is important in order to avoid overgeneralizations, especially in relation to countries in the South.
Regards, from Ecuador-Latin America.
Rosa Maria Torres
Thanks for the thought provoking comments, Rosa. My question was just ‘What does learning look like?’ in broad terms. I guess because I am a teacher and my network tends to consist of fellow educators, the responses related mainly to school learning. I realise, of course, that these examples do not reflect school learning worldwide and my intention was not to generalise nor to pass judgement. I need to think more about what you wrote and reflect on my slideshare in relation to the points you raised…. It might require a whole post to respond! Thanks again.
Hmmm Rosa, you really got me thinking further on what learning looks like.
My first response to the question, was I have to say, within athe school context… but then I started to think if learning looked the same outside.
I thought that learning looks like “the teacher listening carefully to conversations and provoking and unpacking and exploring these conversations. ”
Then after reading your post I wondered about the listener, outside of school… does the listener and provoker have to be the teacher?
Well , I listenened to my own thinking as I learned, and decided that learning still looks like that but the listener can and should be ourselves. The critical voice, the reflective thinker who says … what evidence do I have for this.. are there other points of view.
Maybe it is when we LEARN to listen to our own learning conversations that we learn best
Not too sure about the cultural context.. but will think further.
I think the presentation depicts learning very well. While the images are school based the comments apply to learning in any context. I disagree with the comment that learning looks different Out-of-school. Many schools incorporate real world context, play based, inquiry and collaborating. Learning goes beyond the classroom and IN the classroom. I love this quote from the 2009 Horizon Report about the learning environment is no longer being limited to a physical space, the ‘notion of a “classroom” includes experiences, experts, collaborators, peers, and resources located all over the globe and available twenty-four hours a day.
Both the comments and the pictures focus on SCHOOL learning, that is, structured learning organized by and around the school system (a visit to the zoo or to a museum, for example, if part of an organized curriculum, is still school-related learning).
OUT OF SCHOOL learning is informal, non-structured learning, taking place in daily life as part of the human and social experience. Often it has nothing to do with classrooms or even with closed spaces, specific furniture, and so on. We learn all day long, also on weekends, “from the womb to the tomb”, prior to and far beyond the school system.
True that we may find schools that try to incorporate learners’ daily experiences and contexts, and try to build bridges with other learning institutions beyond the “education sector” narrowly conceived. This is, at least to me, an indicator of good school practice.
The strong bias towards SCHOOL learning is perfectly understandable, given the traditional association between learning and formal education. All I am saying is that it is important to acknowledge this while acknowledging the existence of a broad and varied learning experience that is not related to school and is not depicted in these comments and images.
Regards,
Rosa Maria Torres
Rosa’s comments got me thinking further… See follow up post here http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/thinking-about-learning-still/
I commend you for taking on this type of initiative and project. The reality is that it might be an impossible question to answer depending on what angle people choose to perceive your question. My feeling on learning is that it is always organic and free-flowing. I know when I learn things but not until after I have learned them, which means that I rarely sit down and say “I’m going to learn this” and have it make a meaningful impact in my life. I think that too often we confuse “learning” with “memorization”. Developing skills and abilities constitutes real learning especially if you can transfer that learning to another platform(http://bit.ly/daOfIr). Sitting and memorizing factoids may be viewed as learning, but I also tend to believe that learning should constitute some long-term value as well. More often than not, factoids don’t do this. With regards to the setting, it doesn’t matter where a person is physically located. Learning takes place in all environments.
Great thought-provoking post!
Aaron Eyler
http://synthesizingeducation.com
Love the presentation. It is really spot on and should be a tremendous resource!
I love this Edna. This would have been great to show as a resource at the Pyp conference