Page 128 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

116
The next phase of level 1 of the Learning Process is making meaning, which incorporates the processes of forming ideas and concepts, and developing them into a comprehensive understanding of the interest area they are investigating. Ideas are the application of their knowledge and questioning to a specific context. At this point we do not differentiate between ideas and concepts as these notions are complex and most of the learners will struggle with this language at this stage. The language we tend to use at this point is ‘making meaning’ from the knowledge they have discovered.
The Learning Process is now applied to their new and existing understanding, creatively to be innovative; developing new ideas and concepts. Again, we do not differentiate between innovation and ingenuity as being two different processes. The learners may create a product, system, environment or media, as a result of their innovative thinking or we may just leave the process at the making meaning stage. This is an educator decision. These phases will almost inevitably require the learner to return to building additional ‘knowledge stage’ many times and make new meaning as they seek to create solutions to, or applications of, their learning.
From a developmental perspective, the learner should be able to apply an
increasingly sophisticated Learning Process to their learning as they gain experience with how this can be successfully applied. Each learner develops new understanding(s) at different rates, and it is important that educators do not let their historical view of intelligence guide their expectations regarding a learner’s potential.
There are many factors that underpin the learner’s capability to apply the Learning Process successfully, and these include:
• explicitly developing the learner’s capability across the competencies
• increasingly transferring the agency for the learning to the learner
• making use of prompts to stimulate the Learning Process
• introducing a rich information, communication and research landscape
• developing a consistent learning language across the school
• introducing an ongoing and focused Professional Learning programme.
• The ability to apply their critical literacy skills appropriately
----------------------------------------
The following series of posters for the three levels of the Learning Process are designed to cover learning for the first 9–10 years of schooling, and indicate how the complexity of learning increases as the learners gain increasing experience. The posters can be downloaded (free) as PDF’s (they will scale up without losing quality) for use in schools. They are available from the web site:
http://www.MarkTreadwell.com.