Jason’s “How People Learn” Reading Log

Posted by on March 1, 2010 
Filed under Reading logs

After reading the introduction, conclusion, and my two assigned chapters from How People learn, I feel that I have in fact learned a lot.  Some of the themes from the reading we have already discussed in class, for example, that students bring with them a world view and existing knowledge into the classroom.  The introduction gives the great example of thinking that the world is flat and being told that it is round.  This leads the new learner to picture a pancake with people standing on it, which is a sort of compromise of the existing belief with the new information.   In my personal experience, especially in intro courses, after a few semesters you begin to expect and prepare for common misinterpretations.

The example of the cat learning to pull the string to get out of the cage was also a great example.  As educators we don’t just want the cat to be able to pull the string we wont the cat to understand why the string works.  We should not be anywhere near satisfied with students that can check the right box.  We should be striving to go beyond memorization to deeper understanding.

I personally read chapters 5 and 6 along with the intro and conclusion and I would like to briefly outline those chapters here.  First chapter five illustrates how the brain develops through interaction with certain environments.  As a sociologist this is not a surprise to me as my discipline has always focused on the importance of nurture in the nature vs. nurture debate.  However this chapter illustrates just how unproductive that debate is.  The brain requires essential information from the environment to develop.  Meaning that your environment effects the physical structures of the brain, or in my understanding, nurture (social environment) effects your nature (biology, genetics).

So if we know exactly how important our environment is to our brain’s development, how do we go about creating the best environment?  And how does this affect our understanding of college teaching?  The chapter outlines learner centered environments, knowledge centered environments, assessment centered environments, and community centered environments.  Classrooms need to be thought of as learning environments where everything fits together. The teacher considers preexisting beliefs, allows students to grapple with new information, provides insightful and useful knowledge to assist that grapple, delivers assessments that fit the course, offers productive feedback, and strives to understand the classroom as part of the larger communities culture.

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