Learning is a complex thing, in terms of both the chemistry of what happens in our brains, and the multitude of reasons why learning may successfully happen, or fail to happen, for each one of us. This complexity is one reason why whole books are regularly written about it; it is a very important topic.
So it is tempting to think we should leave discussion of this vast and complex topic to the learning scientists, but that would be a mistake because a good understanding of how we learn and how we may learn better is a very useful thing for everyone – but especially for everyone involved in education.
The effort made to explain learning in the simplest possible terms is also worth it because the use of simple language significantly increases the likelihood of a positive impact on our students.
My one-sentence description of the essence of ‘learning’: All that ‘learning’ is can be summed up as knowledge, and knowledge applied. Put another way: knowing that, and knowing how – I know that the earth moves around the sun and that half of 94 is 47; I know how to play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on the piano and how to punctuate a sentence; two sides of the same coin.
So, learning can be defined as knowledge and knowledge applied. But this simple definition raises questions, some of which are:
What is ‘knowledge’? Is it identical to ‘learning’? And is talking about ‘knowing how…’ the same as talking about ‘skills’? The word ‘skills’ appears to be fairly comfortably used by everyone, and some educationalists regard helping students to acquire skills as more important than helping them to acquire knowledge, presumably based on the belief that of the two, skills are the more valuable – that view is based on a misunderstanding, I think, alongside other red herrings about learning such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, Gardener’s multiple intelligences, and – oh dear – ‘VAK’.
‘Knowledge’ is information that is stored in our long term memory.
‘Learning’ is information and/or skills that is/are stored in our long term memory that we can draw on in future when we need it/them – ‘knowledge’ and ‘learning’ are therefore pretty much the same thing.
‘Skills’ are also just knowledge – yes, they’re layers and layers of knowledge that have been refined through practice into a process – but they’re knowledge nonetheless. Which makes the knowledge versus skills debate redundant. We lose sight of this because after a certain amount of successful practice, a skill appears as something complete in itself that is different from knowledge; it isn’t. It’s easy to see that as soon as you break the skill down into its component parts, or layers. You can test this out easily – if you can drive – by breaking the driving ‘skill’ down now into the bits of knowledge from which it comes. Have a go!
‘Skills’ and ‘knowing how’ are both about procedural knowledge – so they’re the same thing, too.
If we can keep our understanding of ‘ learning’ nice and simple, and talk about it in simple terms too, that will surely help everyone involved in education to discuss the most important thing we do: help people learn well.
Take-away quiz
1. Complete this sentence: all that learning is…
2. What is ‘knowledge’?
3. What is ‘learning’?
4. What is the difference between knowledge and skills?
5. How does simplicity help?
Done it? Here are my answers:
All that learning is can be summed up as knowledge and knowledge applied.
Knowledge is information stored in our long term memory.
Learning is information and/or skills stored in our long term memory that we can retrieve when we need to use it/them.
Knowledge is usually factual – I know that…; skills are procedural: I know how to…
Simplicity helps because it gives everyone the opportunity to think about and discuss what can otherwise feel like an impenetrable subject.
