Learning by Making Connections

How People Learn - Ch. 3

• infants habituate - they stop responding to repetition
• children learn language through speech and action combined
• children do learn even when there is no reward other than self-satisfaction
• although born with no language, children can develop most of the basics of story telling in the first three years of life
• adults help children make connections between new and familiar situations

Put Understanding First - Wiggins and McTighe, 2008

• the mission of high school is not to cover content but to become thoughtful about and productive with content
• often, schools cover lots of content before they allow students to apply the content
• rather, schools should teach content and application simultaneously
• "purposeful and effective use of content is the ever-present goal"

Thoughts:

In class we talked about using formative vs. summative assessment.  I thought it was interesting that not only does formative assessment determine the student's level of understanding, but it also encourages student feedback.  I think that formative assessment can be very helpful for making students excited about learning, just because it encourages student involvement.  Students are not only able to improve their work, but they can reflect on what they learned.  In this way, students can better connect with their teachers in order to make more connections with their learning.

In Ch. 3 of How People Learn, it says that adults help children make connections between new and familiar situations.  Even before schooling begins, children are learning by making connections with physical objects or with language.  Children learn language skills through speech combined with actions.  It struck me that in all the examples, it seemed that infants were learning actively and applying their learning to other situations.  This active learning is also what high schoolers want.  In Wiggins' and McTighe's article, high school students wanted learning to be interesting.  This article argues once again for learning with understanding - rather than just feeding students the learning content, teachers should make connections and applications with the content.

It seems that students want to make connections to their teachers and peers for feedback, so that they can grow and learn from mistakes, resulting in non-boring learning.  Students also want to be taught content along with application.  Ever since  these students were infants, they have been  learning with application, such as when learning to talk, they associate words with physical objects and situations.  By enabling students and children to make more connections when learning, teachers better enable their students to make more connections in the real world - I thought such an interesting connection was hearing McDonigal talk about applying gamers' skills to the real world.  (By the way, McDonigal seems like a virtuoso to me - she applies her expert knowledge of video games and gamers to come up with new, creative, and useful ways of using that knowledge.)