LS4ODFL/Teacher as a Learning Designer/How Learning Works
How Learning Works
Understanding how people learn best is key for our learning design practice. This topic 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.
- How students organise knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.
- Students’ motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn.
- To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.
- Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback enhances the quality of students’ learning.
- Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning.
- To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.
Watch the following 3 videos to get insight into the basic learning principles.
Part 1 [Watchtime: 5.11 mins]
by World Learning
Part 2 [Watchtime: 4.13 mins]
by World Learning
Cognitive Processes for Learning [Watchtime: 4.44 mins]
by Ruth Poproski
We have explored how learning works and what we can do to ensure learning environments are effective. When designing and teaching your course, as educators you must employ effective pedagogies together with learning and teaching theories so that learners reap the maximum benefit.
