Approaches to learning (and teaching and supervising )

1. Department of Science Education Approaches to learning (and teaching and supervising) Aim of session: Understanding of howones perception of learningcaninfluencehowonesees supervision

2. Department of Science Education What is learning? • Individually: Reflect on what you mean by ‘learning’. When has someone learned something? (brainstorm 2-3 minutes) 2. Exchange your reflections in groups 3. Try to arrange your different conceptions of learning in a hierarchy with the most simple in the bottom and the most advanced at top.

3. Six conceptions of learning Students say that learning is … 1. A quantitative increase of knowledge 2. Memorising 3. The acquisition of facts and procedures for later use 4. The abstraction of meaning 5. An interpretative process for understanding reality 6. Changing as a person The outcomes of learning The processes of learning Therearestrongconnectionsbetween a person’sconceptions of learning and the person’schoice of studystrategies: The conceptions of learningco-determine the learningoutcome!

4. Surface vs. Deep approach towards learning Deep approach Students focus their attention on the overall meaning or message in a class session, text or situation. They attempt to relate ideas together and construct their own meaning, possibly in relation to their own experience. Surface approach Students focus their attention on the details and information in a class session or text. They are trying to memorise these individual details in the form they appear in the class or text or to list the features of the situation in order to pass the examinations.

5. Constructivist learning Pedagogy The learner What has to be learned Existing knowledge New information New phenomenon interpret modify New knowledge Individual process? Social process?

6. Department of Science Education Constructivism versus Transfer Constructivism: learning is determined by the individual’s development, and the individual must him- or herself construct the knowledge - it cannot be transferred • Activate the student – it is he or her that are going to do the work! • don’t always tell the ‘solution’, what’s ‘right’ • give time and space for the students’ own knowledge construction • relate to earlier knowledge and give examples and metaphors