so now in my learning theories class we are on meaningful learning. I like Ausubel's theory. I remember one of his quotes that went something like this "The most important thing to know about students is what they already know....learn that and teach accordingly." Or something like that. I think it is a very truthful statement. Connecting new material to already known material is always a good thing. Using analogies to already known material is helpful. So for example if I am trying to teach the game of cricket to an American, I might use the analogy of baseball since some of the facets of the game are similar. Students can learn what is different and similar between the games. That will help the new information to be better remembered and also make it so that less information needs to be learned.
Now Ausubel based his whole theory on studies of verbal learning....so learning how things are rather than how to do things or solve problems. But the principles can be applied to procedures or problem-solving also. So the big six could be compared to the scientific method for example.
The most important thing to remember as an instructional technologist learning about learning theories is that the greatest value of learning theories is that they help explain that if you have X learning situation and use strategy Y, then learning is likely to occur. They help ground the creation of instruction in knowledge of how people learn. After all what use is theory if it cannot help us refine practice? Locked up in an ivory tower theory does no one any good, but when applied they can do a world of good.
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A couple thoughts came to mind as I read this post. First with regards to analogies; I think analogies are a great application of Meaningful Learning Theory. I have seen and experienced the frustration of trying to teach or explain something to someone and becoming frustrated (teacher & student) when things weren’t making sense. Then the teacher, sometimes in desperation, says something like, well it’s like…, and after all the explaining a simple analogy is enough to make the connection and sense of things. You used a sports analogy in your example. I have found sports analogies very effective at making meaningful links to new concepts or information. Also, music and music theory connections seem to be generally effective.
ReplyDeleteThe second thought I had was about a possible relationship between Meaningful Learning and last week’s discussion on Cognitive Information Processing. It seems to me that if you can make a meaningful link to what students already know (long-term memory) and new information or concepts, this will aid the encoding process of the new content.
Above comment posted by Brian Allred
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comments of both Brians in this week's posts. Another good analogy for Canadians learning soccer would be linking it to the rules and objectives of hockey. I to find myself using these meaningful learning techniques a lot in any sort of instruction that I'm doing in life whether it's with my co-workers teaching them new technology, or if it's with teaching my peers at church (Brian Allred . . . I'm sure you do this a bunch at the seminary).
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me . . . in high school, I had an LDS seminary teacher who loved doing object lessons to teach a given principle, lo-and-behold it was those lessons that I remember most, and seemed to be most engaging for the class. I believe those object lessons were great ways of linking previous experiences to what we were learning at the time.
Above Comment was posted by Tom Johnson
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