Learning Is A Verb: The Psychology Of Teaching And Learning

Learning Is A Verb: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING offers readers a new way of thinking about teaching and learning that will help them understand children and give them a new and helpful perspective on education.

In this period of tremendous educational change and turmoil, most of us are aware that students are not the same and that old educational practices are not working. This is not an illusion. In many ways we do not live in the same world that we once did, and schools and teaching must evolve to accommodate this transformation. There exist many ideas about teaching and learning that, although not yet completely accepted into mainstream thought, do hold promise for the kind of changes that need to be made. The purpose of this book is to integrate these ideas about perception, learning, and thinking and relate them to educational settings.

Learning Is A Verb provides an orientation or a way of thinking about the psychological dimensions of teaching and learning. Ideas about teaching and learning are presented in the context of cultural shifts that influenced all fields of study as the view of the universe shifted from that of a static, mechanistic environment to a complex system of dynamic relationships. In psychology and education, this change is reflected in the work of Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, and others, as a shift from a mechanical view of learning to a view of learning as dynamic transformation.

Learning Is A Verb presents learning as an active process, and its engaging, conversational style encourages reader response. The author believes that people best understand complex ideas when they can relate these ideas to themselves and to the everyday life around them. The text's many examples, observations, and text-embedded questions and suggestions lead readers from reflections on their own experiences to a deeper understanding of the text's ideas.

The book features 2-minute journal" entries that encourage readers to take time to consider the material they have just read, relate it to their own experience, and incorporate new ideas into prior knowledge and "Experiments/Experience" actitivites that provide hands-on opportunities to work with children and to observe and interact with their learning processes

Chapters 1 and 2 provide a brief review of the cultural shifts that have occurred and are occurring in the way we think about learning. This creates a context for the remaining chapters. Chapter 3 is about our sensory connections to the world and the ways these processors form and are formed by thought. Chapter 4 explores the various ways we relate to knowledge and information. It also examines the construction of understanding and the relationship between action and understanding. Chapter 5 discussions the social nature of ideas and the evolution of the mind. Chapter 6 addresses the challenges of schooling. It explores some of the conditions that help to nurture children's thought, including ways to help children learn appropriate forms of social interaction.

The book concludes that in teaching and learning we need a balance between conveying what is known and preparing children to generate new knowledge. Our schools should no longer strive to create obedient assembly-line workers, but rather to nurture the growth of the next generation of thoughtful, creative, caring adults.