Stephen Chew

Learning, You, and Dr. Chew

Misconceptions about learning:

  1. Learning is fast.

  2. Being good at something is due to inborn talent rather than hard work.

  3. Knowledge is composed of isolated facts.

  4. Multi-tasking is easy, so a person can do more than one thing at a time.

If those are misconceptions, what is true?

  1. Learning requires time, energy, and space to “reflect,” or “understanding the meaning of experience.”

Costa, Arthur, and Bena Kallick. “Learning Through Reflection.” Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108008/chapters/Learning-Through-Reflection.aspx

  1. Consider two types of mindsets:

  • Fixed: A person is born with innate talents.

  • Growth: A person develops skills through study and practice.

Richard, Michael Graham. “Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset: Which One Are You?”

http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset-which-one-are-you/

Morehead, James. “Stanford University’s Carol Dwek on the Growth Mindset and Education.” 19 Jun. 2012.

http://onedublin.org/2012/06/19/stanford-universitys-carol-dweck-on-the-growth-mindset-and-education/

  1. Knowledge is the foundation to understanding, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Armstrong, Patricia. “Bloom’s Taxonomy.”

http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

  1. Humans do not actually multi-task; instead, attention moves between tasks.

    1. Ona, Bernard Jonathan. “Test Your Awareness . . .”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D07neiB7HI

Moving up the Bloom’s pyramid

Elaboration: How does the concept relate to other concepts? Is it a story?

Distinctiveness: How is this concept different from other concepts?

Personal: How can I relate this concept to my own experience, something I already know?

Appropriate to Retrieval and Application: How am I expected to use this concept or information? How am I expected to apply this information?

Metacognition

  • Thinking about thinking.

  • The ability to gauge one’s own understanding.

.

Mental effort: The amount of concentration available to devote to tasks

Mental effort: A limited resource

Cognitive Load: The total amount of mental effort a task requires to complete it.

If cognitive load exceeds available mental effort, performance suffers.

According to Stephen Chew, the effort required for some activities exceeds that of others:

Planning

Revising

Translating 380

Composing

Notetaking

Chess

Reading a text 195

Intentional Learning 185

Incidental Learning 175

Reading sentences 150

Text copying 150

Chew, Stephen. “How to Get the Most out of Studying Video Series.” Samford University. N.d. Web. 18 Aug. 2015. http://www.samford.edu/departments/academic-success-center/how-to-study/>.

The content of this page is in the attached document.