This blog is Part 1 of 3.
My goal is to unpack the concept of learning for you, offering some different angles through which we can think about it.
I’ll start that task here and continue it in Parts 2 and 3.
Introduction
The aim here is simple.
To answer the question ‘What is learning all about?’ by providing a series of answers, each possessing its own merit and each asking you to look at the concept from a different perspective.
First, we are seeking to develop a more nuanced, analytical understanding of what learning is.
Second, we are positing the idea that the question does not have a definitive answer; rather, a set of possible answers, all of which reveal certain truths.
Third, and arising from these two points, that becoming an outstanding early career teacher involves, in part, thinking critically about learning.
Both the learning of which we have experience and that which we seek to facilitate for our learners.
A General Answer
In general, learning is about development.
The development of our capacities, of our knowledge, of our understanding.
If learning has taken place, we should be more than we were prior to its happening.
If we are not, it is hard to say convincingly that learning really has occurred.
Dredge your memory in search of a bad learning experience from your past.
Perhaps it occurred at school, at university or while you were learning to drive.
- Why was the experience bad?
- What caused it to fail?
- Why did you not learn much from it, if anything, and how did that leave you feeling as a result?
Chances are that the memory evokes at least some sense of frustration or wastefulness.
You gave some of your time (willingly or not) and you knew that the intention behind the process was for you to learn.
Yet you didn’t.
You left the session or the lesson little changed from when you entered it.
This illustrates the general idea that learning provokes change and that this change is the central aim of all learning.
The change is occasionally profound or significant.
Invariably, though, it involves us knowing a little bit more, understanding a little better or being able to act in a manner that is slightly more skilful.
And this is another part of our general answer.
Learning is a cumulative process. It takes time, effort and repetition.
Or, to put it another way, practice.
While any learning experience will be predicated on a concept of growth, change or development, the wider experience of learning – over a series of lessons, or a course of study – marks a more tangible experience of these processes than is generally possible within a single instance.
Let us take learning to drive as an example.
In a single driving lesson, we will probably notice ourselves getting a bit better.
At the end, it is likely that, if we were asked to reflect, we would be able to identify the change in our abilities.
However, if we were to reflect on the growth of our skills, knowledge and understanding over the course of twenty driving lessons (if, indeed, we need that many), the situation would be rather different.
Our development would be clearer, greater and more significant.
In many ways this seems a banal point, but it is worth dwelling on for two reasons.
First, the unit through which teachers work is the lesson.
And this is generally a fairly brief period of time.
Therefore, learners are likely to struggle to identify the learning and progress they make unless we give them a helping hand.
Second, cumulative gains as a direct function of practice and effort are the driving force of learning over time.
If you don’t have experience or awareness of this (and sometimes, even if you do), making the requisite leap of faith required to persistently strive and drive yourself forwards can be a challenge.
Hence why it is incumbent on the teacher to support all learners in doing this.
Knowledge
Perhaps the most straightforward way in which learning can be identified is in terms of knowledge.
If we know more than was previously the case, we have learned.
Simple.
A learner enters a lesson, time passes, and they come out knowing more about the topic than they did when they entered.
Learning has thus taken place.
But what is knowledge, exactly?
And is it possible to accurately measure an individual’s possession of it?
Well, philosophers have long argued over the status of knowledge (the branch of the discipline dealing with the issue is called epistemology) and we do not have the space here to travel any distance into these debates.
Instead, let me offer a more classroom-focussed analysis, based on my experiences of teaching and learning.
Knowledge, I would argue, consists of the pieces of information we want learners to know about a given topic.
This extends to, but is not restricted to, the following:
- Facts
- Concepts
- Words
- Symbols
- Definitions
- Meanings
It is a brief list, not definitive, but designed to exemplify the point.
Put another way, knowledge is the content of the curriculum in its most basic form.
The blocks from which the curriculum is constructed, minus the elements of understanding and skills to which we attend below.
Thought of like this, knowledge connects closely to the idea of remembering, whereby learners are asked to memorise the information presented to them and the teacher confirms memorisation through testing – usually in the form of recall.
This aspect of learning is vitally important, but partial nonetheless.
It is crucial because, to know about a topic, you must be able to remember the important pieces of information related to that topic.
Similarly, you must be able to communicate about that topic in an effective manner – using the appropriate words and so on – not only to demonstrate the knowledge that has been learned, but also to reinforce, refine and develop that knowledge (with this taking place through the articulation of thought and the cognitive work that precedes and follows articulation).
It is partial because, to know something does not mean by necessity that you understand something.
I could memorise a series of equations to do with civil engineering, but it would not mean I understood those equations.
I may do, or I may not.
Either way, the understanding is not a direct function of the knowing.
With that said, understanding cannot come without knowledge, suggesting that the latter is a prerequisite for the former, even if its influence on whether the former develops is not guaranteed.
To further illustrate the idea that knowledge and understanding are bound up with each other, consider the fact that rote learning is useful in some situations (as when, for example, learners must know the meaning of a word or the result of an equation) but falls short of being a generally effective learning method.
This is because it asks only that something is remembered – not that it can be applied, analysed or evaluated.
To do any of that, a degree of understanding is required.
And this can only be achieved through methods that go beyond the initial, and limited, efficacy of rote learning.
Understanding
So perhaps learning is actually all about understanding.
Understanding involves more than just knowing.
It takes us into the realm of more complex cognitive processes.
These include application, analysis and evaluation, as well as explanation, comparison, critique and variations on these themes.
But let us try to broaden things out for a moment, such that we might say, in general, what understanding is.
Understanding means we can explain and use ideas, information and facts.
It means we know how to do things, as well as know things in and of themselves.
For me, it is with the idea of ‘use’ that understanding gains real traction.
As noted above, knowing something does not by itself confer the ability to do anything with that which we know, other than to recall it.
This indicates how memorisation has as its end the ability to bring to mind that which was memorised, not necessarily to do anything other with the thing in question.
For example, a child might rote learn their six times table.
This is good and important.
We ask them to recall the table for us and they do so, with complete accuracy.
But the utility of this learning only really comes about when we move forward, and the child begins to use their knowledge to do things.
It is in this doing that the child comes to develop an understanding of number beyond the bare facts of recall.
They might come to see links between different sums; be able to apply their knowledge of the six times table in various calculations; or identify patterns and relationships between figures, and shapes.
This illustrates both the limitations and importance of knowing things off-by-heart.
The knowing is not sufficient in itself, but it is necessary and vital for giving learners a sound basis from which to develop understanding.
Returning to our suggestion that understanding connects to being able to use the things we know, this idea can be further supported by looking at the understanding experts possess.
When we see an expert at work – whether this involves a purely intellectual activity such as debating or an activity of another type such as glass-blowing – what is clear is the expert’s ability to use their knowledge with great skill and precision.
To the extent that what might be highly complex can often appear simple or easy… until you try it yourself, that is.
This points to the fact that understanding is best thought of as a continuum, ranging from an origin at which no understanding is possessed to a far-off point of complete mastery.
Thinking in this way further highlights the contrast between knowing and understanding.
We can know things, know more things or even know all there is to know about highly specific things.
However, in all these instances it remains the case that our knowledge is essentially tied up with knowing – possessing bits of information.
Understanding, on the other hand, seems to exist in more dimensions.
We can come to understand something more deeply; we can understand things in greater depth, in more detail or with enhanced clarity.
And a new perspective can cause us to see what we thought we knew in a different light (a changed light having a much greater effect if the thing being lit is three-dimensional).
So knowledge and understanding are bound together, the latter being based, at least in part, on use of the former, with that use flowing along a continuum of mastery.
