Learning – real, informal, authentic and throughout learning – can “start” with almost anything.
In this way, it is obviously not an exhaustive list. Nor do I imply that it is the “best” starting points or that they would in any case be effective in your class. There are simply too many variables.
What I hope to accomplish with this post is to help you start to think about what causes learning – and more precisely, where and how it happens.
What causes learning?
In the real world, learning never stops, but it is not always clear that it happens.
Or at least we think about it differently that we think of class learning. Consider an observation or an event – a young child who looks at older children to practice a sport, for example. This modeling of physical behavior by older children serves both as motivation (the why) and information (how) to promote learning in young children.
Likewise, everything, from an “event” (touching a hot stove) to a conversation to think about something that has recently happened can act as a “starting point” for learning. Metaphorically and literally, failure is a wonderful starting point to learn correctly in the mind of the “failing” person.
To a granular lesson and a level of activity, the starting point is generally an academic standard which is used to form a lecture sometimes called target or learning objective. Collectively, these terms all work as planned Learning results.
See also What is a thematic unit?
In the “descending” approach focused on the above teachers, there is still significant flexibility. Such an approach can still be focused on students, differentiated, open and motivated (in part) by the students’ survey. That said, “bottom to the top” learning approaches such as autonomous learning, survey -based learning, personalized and (well done) learning, projects based on projects all offer new opportunities – new “starting points” for the learning process itself.
And with new starting points, there are new roles for all the “parties” of the learning process, including teachers, students, questions, assessment, learning comments, goal and the public, standard, quality standards, etc. For example, learning “often begins” with an activity created by a teacher based on a learning standard (itself integrated in an intentional sequence). At the beginning, the role of the student is passive because he receives a direction and tries to give meaning to the task or the activity given.
Depending on the conception of the lesson, they can then or not become more active and engaged in the learning process, but even if it occurs, they are often “ engaged ” to accomplish the task or activity “ well ”-that is to say, in the best of cases, and trying to do a “ good job ”.
If instead, the learning process began with an authentic problem that the student wanted to seriously solve but lacked knowledge or skills to do so, it is immediately clear how everything changes the roles of the teacher and the student to the design of activities, knowledge requests, procedural sequences, and more. Note, all the alternatives to traditional planning of the lessons below are not possible in each class or for each “lesson” or “unit”. Hope is to provide you with some ideas to start thinking about yourself on how you plan lessons and units and the way in which the design integrated into them is important-how even a simple starting point can affect everything.
In addition, the potential really opens when you consider the form of the way you plan in addition to the starting point of the learning process itself. For example, one of the starting points below can be used in a traditional lesson planning model. There is no need to use a survey learning in a learning model based on projects to promote personalized learning in an open and centered model. The starting point “with a question”, for example, can be used in a brainstorming session at the start of a lesson that helps students understand their understanding of concept-immigration factors, economic models, understanding of cognitive prejudices, etc.
Note, it is not because learning begins with a person or a place or a question that it cannot be used to promote control of academic content in the same way that project learning can lead to better academic results (rather than “nice projects”).
1. With a person
This can be a student – a personal need, for example. Something from the house or the class. This could also be an academic need – a deficit of knowledge or skills or the possibility of improving an existing gift or talent. But the learning that begins with a person does not have to be the student at all. It could be their friends or their families. This could also be a historical figure, a person of interest today, etc.
Learning that begins with a person – a specific person with specific knowledge and conditions of knowledge – is intrinsically human, centered on the student and authentic.
2. With a place
Everywhere is a place.
And at placeI don’t mean a big city or a famous monument. THE places I mean that are smaller on geography or topography and more on meaning and scale. It could be a stream with layoffs that need cleaning or a planned and planted garden.
Or it could be more a metaphorical place– physical locations but whose meaning depends on an experience or an event – a place where a husband and a woman met or where a baby took his first steps. Or it could be larger – a family home or a community with needs, opportunities, affections, stories, unique inheritances and a past, a present and a future.
See also What is the technique of training questions?
3. With a question
These can be academic or authentic, based on knowledge or based on wisdom (as age adapted), probably open by closing can be effective at times (see Types of questions for critical thinking), created by the teacher or created, important or trivial, etc.
4. With a circumstance (Historical, current, future possibility, etc.)
Any real or fictitious circumstance or scenario can provide an authentic starting point for learning. Examples? Climate change, population growth, spread of propaganda and war are all possibilities. It should also not be “negative” either. A circumstance could simply be a family with a new baby or a student who has just received their driving license and therefore has new knowledge and new needs.
5. With a family or a community
This one rides a little with the person and the place, but gives you the possibility of really emphasizing the family and / or the community – to become more granular in your brainstorming and your planning of lessons by considering the unique nature of specific families and communities and how learning can support them and how they can support and nourish learning in a child.
6. With a research study (its quotes, conclusions, premises, methodology, etc.)
Research is a wonderful starting point to learn if for any other reason than, as a product or corpus of knowledge, it has been initiated by a need to know or understand. A reason to study something formally with formal methodologies and unique premises and conclusions.
7. With a problem
It is the idea behind learning based on challenges which often manifests itself as a form of learning by project.
See also What are the types of learning by project?
8. With a model
Any thing can work as a model. A book, a building, a river, a person, a film, a game, an idea or a concept – these are all things with characteristics that are studied and learned from – Stolen of “in the sense that you can take ideas, lessons, characteristics, etc., from here and apply them there. I wrote a little more about it in The definition of combined learning.
To be clear, I don’t want to say anything close to plagiarism. In the same way that so many stories of modern heroes borrow or not – from Oddysey of Homer or the epic of Gilgamesh, a building or a rural landscape can be studied and used as inspiration to understand, know and do.
The birds were studied for their flight method and finally, the planes were invented. There were a lot of bad video games that had an interesting facet – a character or gameplay mechanic, for example, and often these “victories” were postponed as lessons and used “better” in future video games. The idea of pixels inspired Minecraft and so many Minecraft type games.
Concepts like the water cycle or the food chain or our animal classification system have ideas that are obviously effective and therefore make wonderful departure points for learning.
9. With technology
This is similar to number 8, but focuses more on specific technologies – solar panels or computer micropuits or iPads or power plants can be used as study models. In this way, students learn genius in everyone.
10. With previous work, projects, writings, ideas, etc.
A student can review past projects, writing, activities, etc., and use them – whether poor or sterling – like learning opportunities. Restart, revisit, refine, revise and improve.
11. With a specific deficit in skills or knowledge
If a student has a specific deficit in skills or knowledge – something he must know or be able to do – this is a very obvious and practical starting point for the learning process and is one of the most commonly used in education. It is also a catalyst for many informal learning. If a child wants to be able to cycle or hit baseball, they each start with skill deficits and are overcome thanks to the creation of new knowledge (acquisition of knowledge) and practice (acquisition of skills).
See also Correct the deficit in critical thinking
12. With a specific skill or talent or talent
Like number 11, the learning process here begins with a specific student, but instead of correct deficits, strength, talent or “gift” is used. This could / will often lead to the improvement of this force, but it may also require the application or transfer of this force. This could be a student who can sing using this gift to create art / music, serve a community (for example, sing to the elderly in a nursing home) or have new friends.
12 ways to start the 12 -seater learning process to start your planning 12 alternatives to start -up planning with a standard starting point to ensure authentic learning
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