What is "learning"?
"In its broadest sense, learning can be defined as a process of progressive change from ignorance to knowledge, from inability to competence, and from indifference to understanding....In much the same manner, instruction-or education-can be defined as the means by which we systematize the situations, conditions, tasks materials, and opportunities by which learners acquire new or different ways of thinking, feeling, and doing."
Cameron Fincher, "Learning Theory and Research," in Teaching and Learning in the College Classroom, edited by Kenneth A. Feldman and Michael Paulson, Ashe Reader Series, Needham, MA: Ginn Press, 1994.
"Most models [of learning] assume that the purpose of learning is to incorporate new information or skills into the learner's existing knowledge structure and to make that knowledge accessible. . . . Learning begins with the need for some motivation, an intention to learn. The learner must then concentrate attention on the important aspects of what is to be learned and differentiate them from noise in the environment. While those important aspects are being identified, the learner accesses the prior knowledge that already exists in memory, because a key to learning is connecting what is known to what is being learned. New information must be processed, structured, and connected in such a way as to be accessible in the future; this process is known as encoding. The deeper the processing of the information in terms of its underlying organization, the better the learning and later retrieval of that information. This processing requires active involvement . The learner must verify an understanding of the structure by receiving feedback, from the internal and external environments, on the encoding choices made.
Marilla Svinicki, Anastasia Hagen and Debra Meyer, "How Research on Learning Strengthens Instruction," in Teaching on Solid Ground, Robert Menges and Maryellen Weimer, Jossey-Bass, 1996.
"Learning is a social process that occurs through interpersonal interaction within a cooperative context. Individuals, working together, construct shared understandings and knowledge."
David Johnson, Roger Johnson and Karl Smith, Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom, Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co., 1991.
"Where I grew up, learning was a collective activity. But when I got to school and tried to share learning with other students that was called cheating. The curriculum sent the clear message to me that learning was a highly individualistic, almost secretive, endeavor. My working class experience . . . was disparaged."
Henry A Giroux, Border Crossings, NY: Routledge, 1992.
"There is no difference between living and learning . . . it is impossible and misleading and harmful to think of them as being separate. Teaching is human communication and like all communication, elusive and difficult...we must be wary of the feeling that we know what we are doing in class. When we are most sure of what we are doing, we may be closest to being a bore."
John Holt, What Do I Do Monday? NY: Dutton, 1970.
"Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilization of knowledge. This an art very difficult to impart. We must beware of what I will call "inert ideas" that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized or tested or thrown into fresh combinations."
Alfred North Whitehead, Aims of Education and other Essays, NY: MacMillan, 1924.
"I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer...[a conception of] education as the practice of freedom.... education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created."
Bell Hooks, Teaching to Transgress, NY: Routledge, 1994.
"Learning is not so much an additive process, with new learning simply piling up on top of existing knowledge, as it is an active, dynamic process in which the connections are constantly changing and the structure reformatted."
K. Patricia Cross
I think we need to train up a new kind of educational leader [who] will need fundamental preparation in the humanities of education, those studies of history, philosophy and literature that will enable him to develop a clear and compelling vision of education and of its relation to American life. These latter studies have been under something of a cloud in recent decades because their immediate utility is difficult to demonstrate. But it is their ultimate utility, that really matters, for only as educators begin to think deeply about the ends of learning will the politics of popular education go beyond mere competition for dollars and cents and become what Plato realized it must ideally be--a constant reaching for the good society.
Cremin
Since there is no single set of abilities running throughout human nature, there is no single curriculum which all should undergo. Rather, the schools should teach everything that anyone is interested in learning.
John Dewey
Learning from programmed information always hides reality behind a screen.
Ivan Illich
Memorization is what we resort to when what we are learning makes no sense.
Anonymous
It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.
Claude Bernard
Sometimes the last thing learners need is for their preferred learning style to be affirmed. Agreeing to let people learn only in a way that feels comfortable and familiar can restrict seriously their chance for development.
Steven Brookfield
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.
Thomas Szasz, 1973
"Students learn what they care about . . .," Stanford Ericksen has said, but Goethe knew something else: "In all things we learn only from those we love." Add to that Emerson's declaration: "the secret of education lies in respecting the pupil." and we have a formula something like this: "Students learn what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them . . ."
Barbara Harrell Carson, 1996, Thiry Years of Stories
The lasting measure of good teaching is what the individual student learns and carries away.
Barbara Harrell Carson, 1996, Thiry Years of Stories
