The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice

Abstract

Michael Schneider and Elsbeth Stern place acquisition at the very heart of the learning process, albeit that the quality of the is as necessary as the quantity and that knowledge should be understood much more broadly than (but including) knowing facts. They summarise the cognitive perspective through ten cornerstones. Learning: i) is essentially carried out by the learner; ii) should take prior importantly into account; iii) requires the integration of structures; iv) balances the acquisition of concepts, skills and meta-cognitive competence; v) builds complex structures by hierarchically organising more basic pieces of knowledge; vi) can valuably use structures in the external world for organising structures in the mind; vii) is constrained by the capacity limitations of human information-processing; viii) results from a dynamic interplay of emotion, motivation and cognition; ix) should develop transferable structures; x) requires time and effort.