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- Knowing how humans learn can help us integrate technology effectively into our teaching.
- Although human learning has been studied for centuries, our current understanding of learning has evolved within the last 40 years.
- Recent research on human learning has led to a number of insights that are directly relevant to classroom practices.
- The meaning of "knowing" has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it (Simon, 1996).
- Three key principles are important to understanding the issues of human learning:
- Recognizing the importance of pre-existing knowledge
- Learning with understanding
- Active Learning
- People build new knowledge and understanding on what they already know and believe.
- Learning can be enhanced when teachers pay attention to the learner's prior knowledge, use this as a starting point for instruction, and monitor the student's changing conception and understanding as instruction proceeds.
- Learning with understanding and developing knowledge that can be used to solve real-world problems requires more than memorizing a set of disconnected facts.
- A deep understanding of a subject matter transforms factual information into useful knowledge.
- To promote learning with understanding teachers must move away form superficial coverage of many topics in a subject area to a deeper coverage of fewer.
- Students should be allowed the time necessary to learn.
- Examining multiple examples of how a core concept can be applied in the real world helps students to "conditionalize" their knowledge.
- Knowledge that is not allowed to become conditionalized often remains "inert" because it is not activated by the learner even though it is relevant.
- The concept of "active learning" brings the learner more fully into the picture.
- Students can be taught to evaluate their own learning and determine whether they need more explanation or practice.
- Students can learn "metacognitive" strategies such as explaining concepts themselves, planning and predicting, activating their own background knowledge, creatively thinking of possible activities and directions of inquiry that will help their understanding.
- To fully develop these strategies, students must be taught to use them in connection with all the subjects they study.
- When students are taught with metacognitive approaches, they are better able to transfer their learning to new situations.
- Computers can be a help or a hindrance to learning, depending on how they are used.
- New technologies provide unique possibilities for learning if they are used appropriately.
- In the 1999 National Research Council review of scientific research on learning, on chapter was dedicated to research on technology and learning.
- The research found that new technologies benefited student learning in five ways: curricula based on real-world problems; scaffolds and tools to enhance learning; opportunities for assessment, feedback, reflection, and revision; local and global community building; and expanded opportunities for teacher learning.
- New research procedures and methodologies are emerging that are likely to alter current theoretical conceptions of learning.
- Computer technologies can be powerful tools for learning.
- Educators need more information about the applications of new technologies, and about research on human learning.
- As teachers become familiar with what is known about human learning, they can learn to integrate the new technologies into the classroom in productive ways.
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