Introduction to How People Learn

Preexisting knowledge, shown in the text, is an extremely important concept of teaching an learning that I had not yet thought much about before. Addressing preexisting knowledge now makes complete sense when dealing with teaching people of any age. A students will learn a concept better if they can relate it to something that they already know. If they have no concept of what is being taught then they are only learning disconnected pieces of information.

Active learning is another important concept of learning that should be incorporated into teaching students at all levels. Before reading this I did not picture elementary kids being able to assess themselves the way that most college students do in their own learning. Younger students would be more engaged in their learning if they understood how and why they were assessing how well they knew their material.

Some key points of the reading were: in teaching we must make sure students understand what their learning rather than just memorizing facts, we need to recognize that students have preexisting knowledge that can either help conceptualize or confuse what they are being taught, and students need to be active learners.

Meta-cognition is the ability of a person to assess how well they are learning a material, and the ability to predict how well they would test on that material. According to the text, teaching meta-cognition to students at an elementary level is extremely beneficial. It is a skill that will be used not only in education but in the real world of students. Using it to teach information will force students to become more engaged in their own learning. For teachers, this means they will have to learn how to teach this vital skill to their younger students.

As shown in the text, assessment is vital to the learning environment. Assessments help teachers measure how well they are teaching, and help students measure how well they are learning. What could be changed, however, is the way in which we approach assessment. Instead of basing it solely on spitting out memorized facts, it should assess more critical thinking and application skills. For example, as much as I hate to say it, using word problems in math would be beneficial in assessing if students knew how and when to use the math taught to them. Another idea introduced about assessment is that it should not be strictly grade based. It should also focus on students truly assessing how well they know a material and going back to understand material they did not test well on.