Modes of Learning

Specifically, within my classroom, these modes are apparent in my student's learning. Students come to me with certain knowledge already in place, and during lessons, I build on that knowledge to create new understandings. For concepts like writing, most 5th graders start the year knowing how to write a sentence. From there, I teach and fine-tune their understanding, while then building on their schema and begin working on the concepts of writing a paragraph. Some students already understand the concept of writing a paragraph, so they progress through the tuning mode of learning and take their knowledge on that topic and adjust it through more practice. Other students still need help with their understanding of writing a paragraph so, "when existing memory structures are not adequate to account for new knowledge, then new structures are required, either by erecting new schemata specifically designed for the troublesome information or by modifying (tuning) old ones" (Rumelhart et al, 1978, p. 14). Then finally, others might not have existing knowledge on how to write a paragraph in the correct format, so then accretion is their main mode of learning since they need the addition of new knowledge in order to understand the overall concept. Therefore within the classroom, all three modes of learning are present and could be apparent to one student throughout the year. As Norman stated in the text Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, "learning a complex topic has neither a definite starting point nor a definite ending point" (Lesgold, 2012).