what is meaningful learning?

Meaningful learning refers to the concept that the learned knowledge is fully understood by the individual and that the individual knows how that specific fact relates to other stored facts.

What drives learning?

Ø It is the understanding of and effort , invested in completing a task or activity.

Ø It is the nature of the task that students . intend to perform that will best determine the nature of the learning that results.

Tasks that require. intentional,. active, constructive, cooperative, and authentic learning processes will result in more meaningful learning.

tests assess skills

Ø The testing process is individual, so students are enjoined from cooperating with others.

Ø The tests represent only a single form of knowledge representation, so students are not able to develop conceptual understanding, which requires representing what you know in multiple ways.

Simply stated, learning to take tests does not result in meaningful learning.

q In order for students to learn meaningfully, they must be willfully engaged in a meaningful task.

q In order for meaningful learning to occur, the task that students pursue should engage active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative activities.

Active (Manipulative/Observant)

v Learning is a natural, adaptive human process.

v Humans have survived and therefore evolved because they were able to learn about and adapt to their environment.

v humans interact with their environment and manipulate the objects in their environment.

Meaningful learning requires learners who are active-actively engaged by a meaningful task in which they manipulate objects and parameters of the environment they are working in and observing the results of their manipulations.

Constructive (Articulative/ Reflective)

Ø Activity is necessary but not sufficient for meaningful learning.

Ø It is essential that learners articulate what they have accomplished and reflect on their activity and observations-to learn the lessons that their activity has to teach.

Ø New experiences often provide a discrepancy between what learners observe and what they understand.

->The active and constructive parts of the meaning making process are symbiotic.
->They both rely on the other for meaning making to occur