The Principles Of Learning by Robert Mills Gagne

ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT

Definition

"The learner is not a 'receptacle' of knowledge, but rather creates his or her learning actively and uniquely" (Ewell, 1997a, p.6). "This characterization of learning, of course, is quite at odds with our dominant instructional models" (Ewell, 1997b, p. 4), such as lecture.

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Participatory behavior (Ewell, 1997a, p.6): The student is active and responsive, and engages in activities.
2. Creative thinking (Ewell, 1997a, p.6): The student comes up with his/her own solutions/suggestions, brings new insights to the topic, and becomes able to relate what has been previously learned to new contexts.
3. Engaged learning (Ewell, 1997a, p.6): The student is able to apply a learning strategy for a given learning situation.
4. Construction of knowledge (Ewell, 1997a, p.6): Instead of passively receiving the information, the student is given tasks meant to lead him/her to understanding and learning.

Example

In a lesson for grades 1-6, elementary art students are actively involved in the process of learning about other cultures. Hands-on activities are a good means of learning information about specific areas of life in a particular culture.
For example, in a lesson on making a clay sarcophagus, learning occurs as students gather information about Egypt and watch slides about the Egyptian way of life, the pyramids and their purposes, and the sarcophagus (an inscribed stone coffin). Learning also occurs when students find out how to create a sarcophagus. As part of this process, they learn about the meaning of the hieroglyphics, the mummification process, and Egyptian gods. They also actively learn the rules of firing the clay, painting it, and carving hieroglyphics.
Other examples of active learning may include activities such as creating models of natural processes (ecosystems) and participating in a discussion.

PATTERN RECOGNITION AND CONNECTIVISM

Definition

This cognitive process "involves actively creating linkages among concepts, skill elements, people, and experiences" (Ewell, 1997b, p.7). For the individual learner, this will be about "'making meaning' by establishing and re-working patterns, relationships, and connections" (Ewell, 1997b, p.6). New biological research reveals that "connection-making" is the core of both mental activity and brain development (Ewell, 1997b, p.7).

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Flexible thinking (Ewell 1997b, p.6): The student is able to adapt to new learning contexts and tasks by connecting, organizing, and working previous skills and knowledge into new structures.
2. Critical thinking (Ewell,1997b, p.7): The student approaches a task comparing, refining, and selecting from what he or she knows to find the best solution to the problem.
3. Transfer (Woolfolk, 1998, p. 320): In backward-reaching transfer, the student makes connections to prior knowledge; in forward-reaching transfer the student makes connections to how the information will be used in the future.
4. Sense-making (Ewell, 1997a, p.6): Given a specific learning context, the student is able to use familiar patterns that are re-organized and extrapolated so that they become meaningful in a new situation.

Example

In a senior high English literature class, students create a production that combines the traditional script of Hamlet with original, contemporized monologues. In doing so, they will be applying the ideas and themes of the play to modern problems. Thus, critical thinking is applied to making connections between a fictional and a real world.
During this activity, several opportunities occur for students to apply knowledge acquired by means of classical literature, that is, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, to day-to-day life situations. The instructor organizes the class to work in groups and to select a scene from the play. As they interpret the scene, students will have to analyze it and connect it to a modern idea. One example is connecting Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy to the modern topic of teen suicide rate. This activity requires students to see patterns and make connections between the past and present, finding similarities between conditions then and now. The insights they gain will help them better understand the present through the past.

INFORMAL LEARNING

Definition

"Every student learns all the time, both with us and despite us" (Ewell, 1997a, p. 4). Informal learning is implicit learning, which means it is derived from "direct interaction . . . and a range of cues given by peers and [instructors] that go well beyond what is explicitly being 'taught'" (Ewell, 1997b, p.7).

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Implicit learning (Ewell, 1997b, p.7): Learning can occur in any life situation; opportunities to learn often are not school-based. They may occur in addition to the content being taught. The student has the ability to recognize and to make sense out of a learning situation that is not necessarily conducted within a classroom.
2. Field trips (Bransford, Brown, & Cooking, 1999, pp.19-21): The student interacts with the environment with the purpose of exploring and learning.
3. Learning centers (Bransford et al., 1999, pp.19-21): At centers created within the community, students can apply and practice theoretical knowledge.
4. Apprenticeship (Ewell, 1997b, p.7): The student learns from exposure to and the supervision of a mentor, for example, in job shadowing and school-to-work programs.

Example

A popular learning center for early childhood classrooms is a housekeeping center. To create a housekeeping center, a teacher sets aside a certain area in the classroom to create a setting that may resemble students' home environment. The area is filled with familiar materials, furniture, and tools. Objects that are not so easily recognized may also be included. The students are given the opportunity to work in small groups in the space to learn to manipulate and properly use all of these tools. They will often use a trial-and-error method to complete their task until they are successful. In this setting, students informally learn how to interact socially and learn about the processes that occur in a household environment as well as the workings of household tools.

DIRECT EXPERIENCE

Definition

Direct experience refers to built-in opportunities for active engagement in a learning environment which "decisively shape individual understandings" (Ewell, 1997, p.7). When students have little or misconstrued knowledge of a certain topic, direct experience is required to gain that understanding and create, change, or refine a mental model. These views are not always accurate, but may be shaped by past experiences and may be “difficult to break out of even when they are demonstrably false” (Halpern & Associates, as cited in Ewell, 1997, p. 8).

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Learning in context (Ewell, 1997, p.8): The student experiences an environment that provides an opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills by directly observing the object or phenomenon to be studied.
2. Creating a mental model (Ewell, 1997, p.8): The student experiences repeatedly similar situations, thus making associations between causes and effects, through which humans make sense out of new situations.
3. Changing a mental model (Ewell, 1997, p.8): The student re-uses existing brain connections for new purposes and constructs new associations based on the previous patterns of expectations.

Example

In a lesson entitled “Popcorn Poetry,” students are asked to creatively use their sensorial experience to learn abstract concepts in poetry. They are given the opportunity to directly experience the concrete characteristics of popcorn such as its smell, taste, texture, and the sound of it popping. These experiences enable the students to compose a poem about popcorn. After the poems are completed, students will be able to tell how each of their senses contributed to identifying the popcorn characteristics. The students can also describe how they were able to transform their experiences with the popcorn into the creative and accurate words they used in their writing.

COMPELLING SITUATION

Definition

This learning component combines elements from direct experience and motivational readiness. "But it adds a new wrinkle in its implication that there is a careful balance of challenge and opportunity in any learning situation" (Ewell, 1997b, p.9).“Maximum learning tends to occur when people are confronted with specific, identifiable problems that they want to solve and that are within their capacity to do so” (Ewell, 1997a, p. 4). Student motivation and learning often occur best in the context of a complex and challenging problem that interests students because the solutions are perceived to have real consequences.

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Challenging problem (Ewell, 1997b, p.9): The situation is complex and motivating and yields emotion, attention, and effort in finding a solution.
2. Real situation (Ewell, 1997b, p.9): The context is connected to the outside world and not simulated.
3. Real consequences (Ewell, 1997b, p.9): The results of an actual problem have practical applicability to everyday life.

Example

In a class designed for sixth graders, compelling situations occur during a study of oceans. Using role playing, the instructor has the students analyze the ocean from the perspective of each of these four roles: geologist, marine biologist, environmental scientist, and oceanographer. In this way, the students experience the nature of the work for each of these specialists. The instructor is building up the learning opportunity in the form of a game. Using video clips from The Great Ocean Rescue simulation software from Tom Snyder Productions, Inc., the teacher sets up the compelling situation.

The videos are scenarios that depict a control center for ocean research. Due to inclement weather, the control center has lost contact with several of its vessels. Students play the role of researchers in the ocean control center. In another sequence of the lesson, students use clues from the video and their new knowledge of ocean characteristics as they work in groups to form an opinion about where the lost ocean vessel may be located and about which tests (if any) should be conducted prior to launching a rescue mission. Then the entire class must reach consensus about the assumed location and any tests that should be conducted so that the control center can send out a rescue mission. In this way, students are stimulated to translate their work into a real-world situation. Another part of the situation that makes it compelling for students is that they are required to calculate the costs of each test conducted to help determine the location of the lost vessel and to figure out the most feasible plan.

FREQUENT FEEDBACK

Definition

Frequent feedback provides opportunities for students to practice what they have previously learned. Research tells us that the “brain’s flexibility allows the neural networks that were constructed to address such problems to be quickly reworked to deal with more pressing matters” (Kotulak, as cited in Ewell, 1997, p. 9). Because the brain wants to deal with the most pressing matters, it is necessary to practice those things that we wish to retain and to receive feedback that includes “explicit cues about how to do better, such as that provided deliberately (or unconsciously)” by a teacher or peer (Seely, Brown, & Duguid, as cited in Ewell, 1997, p. 9). This influences learning by virtue of the frequency (i.e., number of interactions with a particular environmental stimulus such as a person or a task) and by the quality of the feedback the learner receives. Quality feedback would reveal “specific, readily-correctable, mistakes or discrepancies in current practices, or in the 'mental models' that lie behind them” (Ewell, 1997, p. 9). Without frequent feedback and opportunities for practice, particularly in areas like mathematics and foreign language, “even well-learned abilities go away (though recovery is not as difficult as initial acquisition)” (Ewell, 1997, p. 9).

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Practice (Ewell, 1997, p.9): Students exercise with the purpose of enhancing knowledge and skills.
2. Teacher feedback (Ewell, 1997, p.9): The instructor gives students verbal or written input.
3. Peer feedback (Ewell, 1997, p.9): Peers provide verbal or written input.
4. Cues about how to improve (Ewell, 1997, p.9): The learner gets information back that includes suggestions on how to do better.
5. Corrective feedback (Ewell, 1997, p.9): This input is meant to help improve performance.
6. Supportive feedback (Ewell, 1997, p.9): A mentor or peer provides encouragement.

Example

A kindergarten teacher asks her students to each draw a picture of the vehicle of their choice. The drawings will later be incorporated into a PowerPoint slide show that will be combined with the students’ voices to form a computerized class book. As the students work, the teacher provides them with frequent feedback. She circulates around the classroom to make sure that each student is addressed. The feedback she provides is unique and very specific to each individual student’s work. The comments are meant to help the students make their drawings more clear to an audience, as well as to encourage the students by letting them know that they are doing a wonderful job. It is evident that the teacher is sincere in what she says to each student and very interested in what they are drawing.

ENJOYABLE SETTING

Definition

“New insights into the ways traditional cultures gain and transmit knowledge (drawn from sociobiology and anthropology) remind us that effective learning is social and interactive” (Ewell, 1997a, p.5). An enjoyable learning setting is a cultural and interpersonal context that provides interactions, considerable levels of individual personal support, and creates learning opportunities (Ewell, 1997b, p.10). Most learning of this kind is group-oriented and oral (Ewell, 1997b, p.10).

Checklist of Observable Behaviors

1. Personal interaction (Ewell, 1997b, p.10): This situation favors enjoyable communication among individuals.
2. Social effects on learning (Ewell,1997b, p.10): Learning takes place through activities that involve harmonious interaction and trust, such as play.
3. Personal support for manageable risk-taking (Ewell,1997b, p.10): The encouragement and support shown through interactions within an enjoyable learning context act as an incentive for students, especially those who feel challenged, to take risks and manage them.

Example

An elementary student who has difficulty with written language works with a resource teacher to create a “living book,” which includes text, pictures, and sound. The student is immersed in several risk-taking situations as a part of this activity, which requires the personal support of the resource teacher. The student composes and sends an e-mail message to an author asking for information about his or her ideas for creating a book. The student is also taking a risk when classmates are shown the book. (The encouragement and support of the teacher enhance the enjoyable setting.)