Comments: Definition of Learning

Jill’s Comments

I believe learning occurs when connections are made relating newly acquired information to prior experience and knowledge, thus creating a new understanding.

I think Melanie's and Karen's examples are good ones b/c that is what children are doing when they first learn objects, colors and natural consequences.

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Hey Karen- I think that for assessment purposes we as educators truly want our students to learn and not just quickly learn some facts to pass the test. I remember from all of my psych. classes I took for one of my concentrations, ... when something is rehearsed and put into short term memory it can stay there for a while... when it is retrieved and used over and over ( and it then becomes stored in our long term memories if it is retrieved enough). Now, that would not be information just to pull out for a test, but information that has been stored, retrieved over and over again and used in meaning ways. I kind of lean to think that while memorizing is not the learning we desire of our students, it may be a basic form of learning because we are acquiring the information even if for a short while. it is then our choice to decide to make it meaningful and if it has value to us.
Thank you for your contributions. We are going figure this out :)
Jill

Don't apologize for what you believe. I think this has been good to really search the definition out. It is good to see all sides and see if we see things differently. I know what you mean about memorization getting more of a negative feeling. It should go against what we believe in our goals in teaching. I will try to compile "our definition" and see if you feel like it is reasonable.