"You are the owners and operators of your own brain, but it came without an instruction book. We need to learn how we learn."—Sue Donovan
Sue Donovan closed the 2006 Conference on Teaching and Learning with insights from How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom, a report from the National Academies. Donovan centered her talk on the three principle findings of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (National Academies Press, 1999) and how to apply them to the teaching of K–12 curricula.
Conceptual Engagement
The first principle finding notes, "New knowledge is built on a foundation of existing knowledge and experience. However," adds Donovan, "everyday conceptions are resilient and must be actively engaged." If students' initial understandings are not engaged, they may fail to grasp new concepts and information, or they may learn them for a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.
So, if students have a background of knowledge that doesn't support the new information you're trying to teach, what do you do? Donovan says you can dislodge preconceptions by actively engaging students in powerful discrepant events. Through narrative accounts and illustrative experiments, you can engage what students already know while displacing preconceptions.
Organizing Knowledge
Next, Donovan advised that, to develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. This principle finding from How People Learn has implications on the classroom debate on teaching facts versus "big ideas." Knowledge of facts and knowledge of organizing ideas are mutually supportive, Donovan asserted. Concepts organize information and improve students' abilities to retrieve and apply factual knowledge. For example, physical attributes of organisms are more readily recalled and understood when taught within the conceptual framework of adaptation.
Metacognition
Last, Donovan touched on a major finding that supports a metacognitive approach to teaching. That means students take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them. Teachers, Donovan shared, can give students opportunities to actively test and explain what they're learning through experimental situations and class discussions. She added that teachers can maximize the effectiveness of metacognition by also teaching students the disciplinary standards for proof in each subject area.
For example, formal proof is necessary in math; science requires a mix of formal proof, empirical observations, and experimental data; and history uses multiple sources, with attention to author perspective and purpose.
Throughout her presentation, Donovan unpacked these three main principles and put them into real classroom situations. For further examples, see the ASCD blog post "Donovan Dishes on How Students Learn" or purchase the full recorded conference session at www.iplaybackascd.com.