Extended Activity 1b - How Learning Works

 

How Learning Works

The module is based primarily on the excellent book by Susan Ambrose and colleagues, How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (2010). Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

The seven principles are:

  • Students’ prior knowledge can help or hinder learning.
    • recognize what students may already know and how that impacts on their learning
  • How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.
    • recognize how students already organize their learning / understanding of things 
  • Students’ motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn.
    • recognize the importance of student motivation in the design of learning
  • To achieve mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.
    • design instruction so that it promotes / encourages mastery 
  • Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback enhances the quality of students’ learning.
    • ensure focus 
    • ensure formative assessment 
  • Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning.
    • ensure to include what we know about our learner .. in the design of a course's tone .. to improve its impact
  • To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.
    • ensure that we promote learner autonomy 

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