Constructive 3C Tools for Effective Teaching and Meaningful Learning

Constructive Tools: 

Active learning

Authentic learning 

Deeper learning

Experiental learning

Learning cycles

Learning process

Students' self-assessment

Successful learning experiences

Teaching how to choose

Active learning

There is one important question to ask about any learning environment (virtual or traditional): Are students actively engaging in building their own knoweldge, or are they just passive recipients of information? 

There is a huge difference between those two learning environments! Learning is a process of internal development caused by acquiring new information and elaborating one’s own understanding of using it.  Active learning emphasizes learners’ engagement in their own learning process and making sense of the content. Students are subjects of their own learning. They have choices and learner agency is supported in the learning environment.

In the traditional views of learning, knowledge was something that the teacher gave to his/her students. The emphasis was on learning facts and concepts, and students were seen as passive receivers, whose duty was just to memorize the knowledge the teacher gave. This philosophy was very teacher centered and the role of student was unimportant. They were just the audience. 

Changes in epistemological beliefs allowed students to start constructing their own knowledge, which (of course) is a necessity, as everybody perceives and understands the taught subject matter in his or her own personal way.  The teacher’s role changed from being a lecturer to being a facilitator, into helping students understand instead of just memorize. 

Today we fortunately know that knowledge is dynamic of its nature and learning is a process that everyone goes through, each at his or her own rate. This active learning process is facilitated via concrete experience, as well as with reflection, analyzation, and re-construction of the extracted principles.  It is important for teachers to support transfer of learning and help students find real-life experiences and situations where the newly learned content is relevant. Teachers can help students to find connections by discussing for example the following:

• What is the context of the content, and can you relate it to other contexts? 
• In what situation is the new information useful?
•  How does the reading relate to what you have experienced in your work or life?
• In what situation could the newly learned information make a difference?
• How could you apply it in your life or learning?
• Attach new information to real life experiences  (ths is why experiental learning is so effective!)

Part of active learning approach is helping students to build a realistic academic self image. Please note that I am not talking about boosting anyone’s self-esteem, but having realistic self-image as a learner and a human being. Both our knowledge and our beliefs are references to the life we live.  Students’ learning depends on their academic self-concept, which consists their motivation (intrinsic and/or extrinsic) as well as engagement,  and also their own beliefs about their competence as learners. Understanding how students create their mindsets and beliefs about intelligence is important, and the research shows how ” there is more support for an effect of academic self-concept on achievement than vice versa” .[1]

Much of our academic success depends on what we believe about ourselves and education, and the interactions of the two. Do we believe in fixed (static intelligence and talent) or growth mindset (developing intelligence)? Researchers strongly recommend the latter one:  “Encouraging a malleable (growth) mindset may help to sustain children's intrinsic motivation, thereby enhancing both academic success and life-long learning”. [2]

The learning process always involves our thinking skills, so that we are able to organize and conceptualize learned things. And let me still emphasize this: children already possess these tools, every child has a deep inborn curiosity about the surrounding world, and tools to organize the information so that they can make sense of it. Human mind is interesting because it creates these connections automatically, and the very important part of teacher's job is to guide this meaning-making process and help students actively choose the optimal outcome.  We just need to provide them with more advanced tools to achieve higher level thinking and learning!

[1] Bossaert, G., Doumen, S., Buyse, E. &  Verschueren, K. (2011). Predicting children’s academic achievement after the transition to first grade: A two-year longitudinal study.  Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. 32, 47-57.

[2]Haimovitz, K., Wormington, S. V., & Corpus, J. H. (2011). Dangerous mindsets: How beliefs about intelligence predict motivational change. Learning and Individual Differences, 21(6), 747-752.

Active learning

There is one important question to ask about any learning environment (virtual or traditional): Are students actively engaging in building their own knoweldge, or are they just passive recipients of information? 

There is a huge difference between those two learning environments! Learning is a process of internal development caused by acquiring new information and elaborating one’s own understanding of using it.  Active learning emphasizes learners’ engagement in their own learning process and making sense of the content. Students are subjects of their own learning. They have choices and learner agency is supported in the learning environment.

In the traditional views of learning, knowledge was something that the teacher gave to his/her students. The emphasis was on learning facts and concepts, and students were seen as passive receivers, whose duty was just to memorize the knowledge the teacher gave. This philosophy was very teacher centered and the role of student was unimportant. They were just the audience. 

Changes in epistemological beliefs allowed students to start constructing their own knowledge, which (of course) is a necessity, as everybody perceives and understands the taught subject matter in his or her own personal way.  The teacher’s role changed from being a lecturer to being a facilitator, into helping students understand instead of just memorize. 

Today we fortunately know that knowledge is dynamic of its nature and learning is a process that everyone goes through, each at his or her own rate. This active learning process is facilitated via concrete experience, as well as with reflection, analyzation, and re-construction of the extracted principles.  It is important for teachers to support transfer of learning and help students find real-life experiences and situations where the newly learned content is relevant. Teachers can help students to find connections by discussing for example the following:

• What is the context of the content, and can you relate it to other contexts? 
• In what situation is the new information useful?
•  How does the reading relate to what you have experienced in your work or life?
• In what situation could the newly learned information make a difference?
• How could you apply it in your life or learning?
• Attach new information to real life experiences  (ths is why experiental learning is so effective!)

Part of active learning approach is helping students to build a realistic academic self image. Please note that I am not talking about boosting anyone’s self-esteem, but having realistic self-image as a learner and a human being. Both our knowledge and our beliefs are references to the life we live.  Students’ learning depends on their academic self-concept, which consists their motivation (intrinsic and/or extrinsic) as well as engagement,  and also their own beliefs about their competence as learners. Understanding how students create their mindsets and beliefs about intelligence is important, and the research shows how ” there is more support for an effect of academic self-concept on achievement than vice versa” .[1]

Much of our academic success depends on what we believe about ourselves and education, and the interactions of the two. Do we believe in fixed (static intelligence and talent) or growth mindset (developing intelligence)? Researchers strongly recommend the latter one:  “Encouraging a malleable (growth) mindset may help to sustain children's intrinsic motivation, thereby enhancing both academic success and life-long learning”. [2]

The learning process always involves our thinking skills, so that we are able to organize and conceptualize learned things. And let me still emphasize this: children already possess these tools, every child has a deep inborn curiosity about the surrounding world, and tools to organize the information so that they can make sense of it. Human mind is interesting because it creates these connections automatically, and the very important part of teacher's job is to guide this meaning-making process and help students actively choose the optimal outcome.  We just need to provide them with more advanced tools to achieve higher level thinking and learning!

[1] Bossaert, G., Doumen, S., Buyse, E. &  Verschueren, K. (2011). Predicting children’s academic achievement after the transition to first grade: A two-year longitudinal study.  Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. 32, 47-57.

[2]Haimovitz, K., Wormington, S. V., & Corpus, J. H. (2011). Dangerous mindsets: How beliefs about intelligence predict motivational change. Learning and Individual Differences, 21(6), 747-752.