Three Gems of Learning

Interested in creating activities in your class that teach students how to learn to learn at the same time you teach them content? This experience delves into three concepts underlying learning and setting tasks for students: Co-construction of Theory, Representing to Learn, and Reciprocal Relationship Between Documentation and Meta-cognition. You will experience them yourself and apply the ideas to your own courses to more efficiently build a community of inquiring learners.
Three hours needed.

The participants work in teams of two or three to construct their own understanding of how a common object works, e.g., bicycle pump, spray bottle. They record their work in an informal journal as they progress in their discussions and sketch their theory. After a work time a few of the groups present their work to the large group, which is documented for all to see. Together the participants define co-construction of theory and how representing to learn affects that process.

Then the groups combine to discuss how documentation in a journal, videotape and chart paper affected their understanding. Faculty experience the teacher’s role in (1) documenting student work and (2) assigning repeating cycles of experience and representation. These roles hold true for any discipline or vocational/technical area where a goal is to build inquiring, interdependent learners.

Then groups gather to discuss how these understandings can be applied in courses faculty are teaching. Finally, groups reflect on the activities and their plans for the future.