Learning By Doing
APPLICATIONS AND APPROACHES
This section contains examples of traditional and innovative learning applications. We welcome descriptions and discussions of other innovative applications, including samples of your work.
A passive approach
A bell rings. The professor stands before a podium with a sheaf of lecture notes. Facing her is a roomful of banked seats filled with students, notebooks open, pens poised. An hour-long lecture on photosynthesis begins, during which the instructor delivers reams of facts and the students busily record them. The students learn these bits of information and recall them at exam time. The professor grades students on their ability to do this.
A more active approach
Students gather around a table. The professor begins class with a 5 minute discussion on plants. Then, the professor divides the class into groups of three and gives each group a plant. The students are challenged to design experiments that determine how plants get nutrition. The professor walks around the class, providing guidance to each group.
Our current educational system was developed at a time when assembly line workers were in demand. Today's workers need to be creative, agile thinkers who understand processes, not just facts. This requires a different set of skills. A number of current learning theories suggest ways to nurture the kinds of creativity and flexibility that enable people to thrive in the rapidly evolving work world.
LEARNING A HOBBY
Consider your favorite hobby. Perhaps you are a Pogo Stick enthusiast. It's unlikely you were born with the innate ability to jump around on a Pogo Stick. But somewhere along the line you mastered this art. How? By getting on your Pogo Stick and jumping...and falling off...and getting back on...and jumping...and falling off... (you get the picture).
Gradually, during this iterative process, your brain and your body (which are accustomed to negotiating the world on two legs) developed a sense of how to balance while bouncing around on a stick. Although you may not have been aware of it, you increased your Pogo Stick expertise by developing and testing theories about how to stay on the stick. You made countless mistakes. And you used each mistake to examine what made you fall off.
The dialogue in your head may have gone something like this:
Okay, if I wait too long to start jumping after mounting the stick, I fall off. So I've gotta start jumping right away.
Okay, now I've gotten the hang of jumping as soon as I get on the Pogo Stick. But if I lean too far to the left or the right, I lose my balance. So I need to stay centered.
It seems that if I push off from the ground with the same amount of force each time, I can develop a rhythm and build momentum. Hmmm....How can I do that?
What made this learning situation work?
- You were motivated. Pogo-sticking wasn't part of an established curriculum, but it was on your list of personal goals.
- You practiced in a safe environment. No one was testing or grading you, and it was okay to fail.
- You constructed your own knowledge about how to use a Pogo Stick.
- You learned how to use a Pogo Stick by pogo-sticking!
