Do you know how you learn best? Do you even know how you learn, period?
Many decades of studies and experimentation around this question suggest that most people do not know the answer, especially when pressed to give tangible, measurable, visible answers. People have a better understanding at 50 than they do at 20 for certain, but even that is peppered by confirmation bias of assumptions regarding learning that often prove to be untrue when tested.
Yet, we know quite a bit about the process of learning. We have studies that have been replicated many, many times showing how large swaths of people take in information, make sense of it, contextualize it, and use it.
But as I have posted in this blog too many times to count, much of that science does not make its way into classrooms. Most teachers still teach based on what “feels” right to them, which is often really a replication of practices used during their own education. After all, if they are learned people and those methods were used for them, then most people reason that the methods employed were correct. Again, we see confirmation bias at work.
So, as this Quarantinote series is promoting, here is a small chunk of information about learning and thinking from talks I have given over the years. In it, I talk about what learning is and (importantly) what learning is not. I also discuss just how difficult it is for ALL human beings (not just students) to leverage learning so as to think (not just better, but at all). (Our brains actually counteract critical thought whenever possible…) And finally, I will try to demonstrate that learning and thinking are also disjointed from transference of any skill, framework, behavior, or context from one moment to the next. Human beings stink at transference, especially if they are younger than 35 or 40.
I hope you enjoy the next in this series. Stay safe and be well.
As always, good luck and good learning.