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Living in a Learners’ World
A learners’ world (ALW) exists as a first person view of the world. It is sensual. Other people use these sensual patterns as the beginning point for philosophies, theories, and models of human life that give meaning for themselves.
This world view of learners occurs while a person learns something. It’s momentary. It’s all consuming during those moments, irrespective of the venue, the activities of others, etc.
The term ALW represents experimental research descriptions of what people do as they learn. That’s a learner’s world while learning. ALW consists of sights, sounds and other physical sensations. It is the process that serves as the foundation upon which other views of learning rest, and exists separate from the content (subject matter, whether academic or therapeutic) people learn.
Learning with a Learners’ View (ALV)
The process of learning is distinguishing (also called discriminating) among these sensations and then connecting selected sensations in ways to solve a problem (also called to accomplish something). Connections occur through trial-and-errors.
A learners’ view cuts across boundaries of other views of learning and avoids the interpretations, theories, and beliefs upon which they rely.
Existing Standard Grand Views of a Learning
Three prominent grand views of learning exist in both standard and specialized dictionaries and textbooks of education and psychology. One view attributes learning to one or more cognitive process(es). The other grand view avoids cognition and other theories with descriptions of observable patterns of behavior people use to change their behavior patterns. A third grand view gives priority to humanistic client-centered self-descriptions and interpretations of cognitive and behavior patterns as emotions, love, anger, etc.
Learning as Cognition
Perhaps the most accepted view of learning is that it occurs as a cognitive process in the brain. Somehow, yet undescribed, the sensations people see, hear, smell, etc. transform into electrical-chemical processes that change choices people make to adapt their patterns of behavior in and out of classrooms.
In effect, its fundamental translations and transliterations of patterns of sensations to cognition exist as speculations, some argue akin to the ancient argument of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Educators and others who try with theories and models of cognition to manage someone else’s learning must translate incomplete descriptions of neural activity into instruction of lessons. For decades, results of these attempts appear consistent with a distribution on Gaussian (bell) curves.
ALV accepts the assumption that cognition may exist, but analyzes and uses the sensations cognitivists use to speculate about cognition.
Learning as Humanism
This view rests on philosophies and beliefs that learning involves all parts of being human, the body, spirit, and expressions of the individual. Believers use a wide range of words and phrases to denote their approach. For example, Buscaglia featured Love, Rogers featured client-centered therapy, later adapted to schooling as learner-centered programs, and Leary who argued that the use of psychedelics accelerate and expand learning rapidly.
Humanistic approaches to learning assume that learning will occur when a learner is ready to learn. That learning goes beyond words and gestures. This optimistic and hopeful view accepts that people will learn to turn toward others, to go beyond self-centeredness.
Educators and others who work with humanistic theories and models argue that effectiveness, not efficiency, and self-direction are of primary concern in lessons.
ALV uses the assumption that people, as humans, each have their own interests, background, etc. ALV, however, accounts for what people do while learning regardless of those interests, background, etc.
Learning as Observable Behavior
Behaviorism, an acknowledged, but not trendy, view of learning, consists of descriptions of the processes one person can use to change behavior patterns of another person or of a group of people.
ALV relies on descriptions behaviorists have reported from their research. ALV uses these reports as descriptions of behavior patterns of what learners do while learning, regardless of the intent of educators and others who may try to change the content of learning, the what people learn.
Related Resources
- Buscaglia, L. Dr. Love
- Leary, T. Flashbacks, 1997.
- Piaget, J.
- Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
- Rogers, C. (1973). On Becoming a Person]