When I reeled off 24 pages of print for the Novak reading alone, I was discouraged. I thought I would never truly comprehend that much academic writing and I wasn't sure I wanted to. I was wrong. It is really quite fascinating. I'm not claiming bragging rights for understanding every single word, but by and large, it validates what years of teaching experience and being a parent has taught me. It's very nice to see these ideas in print, written by someone with greater education than myself.
To answer the question, "What is learning?" I would paraphrase that to "What is meaningful learning?" There is no question that for learning to be meaningful, it has to be connected to prior learning. I have often told my students that education is like a big staircase: it builds on itself. I specifically use this idea when I am teaching English and I have to teach grammar. Even though it is high school grammar, I start with nouns, as though the student has never been taught any grammar at all. Of course I am painfully aware that grammar is not the most interesting subject in the world. So I try to take it one step at a time and build on prior learning. (It helps to have a set of worksheets written by one of the most talented and intelligent teachers I have ever known.)
The idea of concept maps is vital to meaningful learning. They create a framework to hang knowledge on, and organize it in a coherent manner. I'm going to get a little personal here to illustrate what I mean. I have a son who is not a typical learner. He is enormously intelligent. All the tests and teachers use the words like gifted, talented, advanced, etc. But he didn't come with the ability to organize his abilities or any kind of a framework. One teacher called his brain "random and abstract", and "low-achieving gifted". (How's that for an oxymoron?) Now this is a kid who by the 6th grade, took over teaching the math curriculum for the rest of his class.
I had to work intensively with him, first to understand how he thought, then to create a framework, a concept map, so that he could access his native intelligence. He would be presented with a problem or focus question. Then he would come up with the answer, but I had no idea how he got that answer, and usually, neither did he. Sometimes he couldn't replicate it. So we would draw out a concept map, charting the path from question to answer, tying the new knowledge to prior learning. Really, he always came up with the answer by extending and extrapolating his prior knowledge, but sometimes the jump from old to new was so big, neither he nor I could quite figure it out until we did a concept map. Just so you know, he is now 22, studying to become a CPA, and doing very well. But once in a while, I still will have to remind him to organize his thinking. He has had to learn about how he learns (and doesn't learn) which is a form of metacognition.
What this, and Novak, taught me is that people can be very intelligent, but if they can't organize the intelligence (concept mapping), make connections to prior learning (subsumption), classify the learning into groups (superordinate learning), and compare and contrast what is the same and what is different (integrative reconciliation), they can't access what they do know and meaningful learning becomes difficult. I tell my students that even the human brain needs a search engine.
I also like Novak's ideas about the student choosing to learn. His statement "...only the learner can choose to learn meaningfully ..." (p. 557) is so true. Every teacher in the world is nodding a big "YES" to that statement. As the saying goes, you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
However, the teacher can sweeten the water and make it more attractive for the "horse" to drink. How can learning best be effectuated by the teacher? To a degree, make the learning more attractive. Connect it to every day living. Explain why they need this knowledge. Make it relevant. I know this isn't always easy, but in my fields, history and English, I usually can do this.
For those who struggle, help them with their cognitive skills. Do the concept maps with the students, either individually or as a class. Make it an assignment with the map drawn out, but filled in by the students. It is definitely easier said than done, especially with time limitations and our 40+ kids a class, but worth it. If we can give our students the keys to their own brains, we make their lives infinitely better.
