This month's columns include:

• Series: The Learning Process Methodology
• Step 3: Prerequisites
• Something to Think About: We Shape Each Other's World
• Monthly Self-Growth Tip: Getting Past Harsh Self-Judgment
• Contextualizing Learning Skills: Identifying Key Ideas
• Unmet Needs and Effective Learning

We know from the research that has been done on brain-based learning that when references can be made to what is already known, the brain automatically utilizes those dendrites and synapses that have already been created. By making such connections for learners, we are actually facilitating brain growth as well as learning.

In The Learning Process Methodology: A Universal Model of the Learning Process and Activity Design, educator and author Matthew Watts explains the importance of this step:

Prerequisites identify the transferable knowledge needed to perform strongly in the learning experience. The paradigm of learning as a “successive transition between knowledge states” is well known from classic cognitive research (Dochy, 1995). The hierarchical nature of knowledge within a content area is well supported, e.g., in Mathematics the learning of higher-level rules is dependent on the mastery of lower-level rules (Gagne, 1970). By incorporating a component that asks the question “What do you already know?” a learning activity takes advantage of knowledge from prior courses or life experiences and relates it to the new learning. These questions that draw on previous knowledge and the discovery activity prepare the learner for the reading and models that follow. This component goes with Merrill’s second principle of instruction – Activation, and Gagne’s third event of instruction – stimulate the recall of prior learning. Ultimately, the richest resource for adult learners may be the relating and interpreting of personal experiences (Lindeman, 1926).

• Dochy, F., & Alexander, P. (1995). Mapping prior knowledge: A framework for discussion among researchers. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 10(3), 225-242
• Gagne, Robert M. (1970). The conditions of learning. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Lindeman, E. (1926). The meaning of adult education. New York, NY: New Republic, Inc.

As Watts notes (see highlighting), there are different ways to share or even check prerequisite knowledge and skills. Following are examples from Pacific Crest curricula:

Foundations of Chemistry provides a listing of which activities the student must be able to successfully complete prior to the current one.

Solving Real Problems with Chemistry offers a list of the performances the student should have already mastered before starting the current activity.

Foundations of Organic Chemistry lists the performances the student should have already mastered, but with YES/NO options and what to do in case of a NO answer.

Foundations of Mathematics Activity Book offers a preparation inventory with three options; the intention is for the instructor to review student responses before continuing with the activity.

Quantitative Reasoning and Problem Solving offers two different sections, both of which depend on prerequisites: What Do You Already Know? lists questions the student should be able to answer before starting the current activity and Are You Ready? is a listing of performances the student should have mastered with check boxes with a “OR here’s my question” alternative in case the student doubts the security of their mastery of prerequisites.

image licensed from Stadtarchiv Kiel, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons

Monthly Self-Growth Tip:

Getting Past Harsh Self-Judgment

To deal effectively with this impediment to living a quality life and continuing to grow, there are 3 skills we need to hone and a strategy we need to put in place:

• LEARNING SKILL Controlling judgmental self-talk: confronting and changing negative inner messages



• GROWTH SKILL Valuing growth: appreciating opportunities for increasing your capacity   

• MENTORING SKILL Being non-judgmental: withholding or avoiding using one’s personal standards or opinions  

• STRATEGY Develop self-assessment performance expertise. Do this by first identifying instances of self-judgment and intentionally replacing it with self-assessment. Then assess your self-assessments as if they were the work of someone else who you deeply care about

A further word on that strategy:

Most people find it more difficult to self-assess than to assess someone else.

You might expect that because you know yourself better than anyone else does, you’d be the best person to assess yourself. But performing an assessment requires some degree of objectivity—you must be able to see the performance as a thing that stands separate from your feelings about your performance. That’s not easy but the ability to remain objective while performing an assessment is one hallmark of a strong assessor.

Here’s an example to help clarify things:

Suppose you are asked to look at a photograph of a landscape, and then let the photographer know the strengths of the picture and what the photographer could do to improve the next photo (areas for improvement). What would you look at? On a basic technical level, you might notice if the picture is in focus or if the photographer’s thumb is covering part of the picture. Now suppose the photo is of you! The basic tendency when looking at the second photo is to focus upon yourself and how YOU look. It is a challenge to keep what you think and feel about how you look in the photo out of your assessment of the photo itself—in other words, to remain objective. It is difficult work but some of the most rewarding you can do when it comes to continuing your own improvement and growth!



This feature is from the International Academy of Process Educators.

For more fun and useful content, consider joining the Academy!

Identifying key ideas: determining the important components of a message

It’s important to use restating or rephrasing to show that you can focus on what is important when they communicate (modeling). Ask them to do the same!



Having students learn to analyze different types of messages (and to appreciate that messages can be found in various media) helps with this skill.



As in the arts, exposing learners to messages in a variety of forms will help hone this skill, as they will appreciate the idea of a message that transcends any single form or problem. When that skill is in place, having students create problems for others and then solve them can strengthen the ability to identify important information in a message (problem).



Then the others get to say what they found important about the day. The differences in perspective should be honored and appreciated…and will likely lead to some laughter, especially if family member ages and interests are very different.



Unmet Needs and Effective Learning

All Maslow quotes are from A Theory of Human Motivation, by A. H. Maslow (1943), published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm

Maslow’s Heirarchy describes five levels of needs, the first/lowest four termed “deficiency needs”. Maslow described these as needs, that when unmet, result in negative repercussions, either physiologically or psychologically. These levels of deficiency needs are, from lowest to highest,

• Physiological (air, food, water, sleep, etc.)
• Safety (security, health, resources, employment, etc.)
• Love/belonging (friendship, family, etc.)
• Esteem (self-esteem, confidence, respect of and by others)

Higher level needs only come into play and receive focus when the levels below them are met. Maslow explains:

These basic goals are related to each other, being arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency. This means that the most prepotent goal will monopolize consciousness and will tend of itself to organize the recruitment of the various capacities of the organism. The less prepotent needs are minimized, even forgotten or denied. But when a need is fairly well satisfied, the next prepotent (‘higher’) need emerges, in turn to dominate the conscious life and to serve as the center of organization of behavior, since gratified needs are not active motivators.

One implication on which we’d like to focus is that realization of the highest level (Self-Actualization) in any sustained and focused way (as a primary goal or motivator) requires that each of the deficiency needs are met first.

In Maslow’s own words:

It (the term self-actualization) refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions. It is not necessarily a creative urge although in people who have any capacities for creation it will take this form.

The clear emergence of these needs rests upon prior satisfaction of the physiological, safety, love and esteem needs. We shall call people who are satisfied in these needs, basically satisfied people, and it is from these that we may expect the fullest (and healthiest) creativeness. Since, in our society, basically satisfied people are the exception, we do not know much about self-actualization, either experimentally or clinically. It remains a challenging problem for research.

Assuming then that the vast majority of students are not basically satisfied people, to what degree must educators focus on helping them meet their deficiency needs before meaningful learning can take place? At one end of the spectrum (or level of need) is the case of young homeless children. That is very clear-cut example of deficiency needs not being met and the subsequent impact this can have on learning. These young students must have food, shelter, and some degree of safety before they can even begin to focus on learning things like reading or math. (It is nice to note that more school districts are beginning to find ways to meet those needs so that students in this unfortunate situation are still able to learn. There are many resources available on this topic; http://www.serve.org/nche/ is one such site.)

But what of college-level students? At one time, college was seen as part of the pursuit of self-actualization…it was not necessary to obtain a college degree to “live the good life.” But things have changed in such a way that attaining a college degree is now seen as a basic prerequisite for the majority of jobs that pay more than minimum wage. More concerning, something as basic as life expectancy is positively affected by having a college degree. As such, attending college is not the luxury it once was and may actually qualify, in many cases, as an attempt to meet needs at the level of Physiological and Safety.

If this is the case, we have to wonder: To what degree do deficiency needs at the level of Security, Belonging, or Esteem affect or even make impossible meaningful teaching within our classrooms? We think this likely enough that we’d like to put forward the notion that the Classification of Learning Skills, especially the Social and Affective Domains, might well hold the key for helping students meet their deficiency needs even as opportunities for some degree of self-actualization are realized. Not only will helping students build learning skills such as Persisting (continuing on a reasonable path despite low mood or mounting difficulties), Adapting (changing direction when feedback to do so is reasonable and trusted), and Seeking help (accepting that you need outside assistance and asking for it) literally help them be more effective learners; helping students build those skills will help them do what they can to meet their deficiency needs.