Defining Learning Blog Post

My current definition of learning is the process of adding to and adapting schema.  It's gaining knowledge, but it's also figuring out what reality is.  Babies have a very poor concept of reality and very little knowledge and as they grow they start to understand so much more.  As a teacher, it is our job to add to and adjust student's schema so that can better understand themselves and the world around them.

Lately, I feel like I've been learning a lot about learning.  I was recently was studying for the Praxis Exam and getting frustrated with my knowledge on social studies topics.  Even though I was spending hours a day reading or watching videos I didn't feel like I was absorbing anything.  When I thought about what I had learned I couldn't bring anything up.  That was until someone brought up a historical, political, psychological, or economic topic in conversation and I found myself explaining it clearly to them.  Turns out I was absorbing a lot more than I thought, I just couldn't access it without a trigger.  What this taught me is that we are always learning whether we are trying to or not.  You never know what sort of things will stick in your brain.

I believe that people learn in a number of ways and that everyone has a unique learning style.  However, universally I believe that people learn better if they are learning about something that peaks their interest (hence why absorbed much more about Medieval European history than I did Islam world history) and if they are not bored.  I believe that everyone learns a lot better if they are active participants in their learning and not passive participants in their learning.  Lastly, I believe that everyone learns better if they believe that the knowledge is accessible.

In many ways I'm still trying to figure out how learning will look in my class and I honestly might not have it completely figured out until I have taught for five to ten years.  My first instinct is to teach students the way that I learn, but I know that won't work for a majority of them.  I am an individual with a unique learning style, and so are all of them.  So, my goal is to learn many different ways to teach so I can hit as many learning styles as possible.