Global Learning

Some colleagues and I were having a discussion in the library about the "how is it relevant to me?" question.

It seems that one of the big points to come out of the First Year Experience studies (which examines what students in their First Year feel about university, and what they need to make it to Second Year) is that students want to know exactly how a piece of information is relevant to them, and if that relevance isn't immediately obvious or declared, they elect to 'switch off' and ignore that information.

Now, this doesn't really surprise me all that much because I used to be a high school teacher, and I found this attitude was growing increasingly prevalent amongst my students (it's one of the reasons I left teaching). It was only a matter of time before the high school students who wouldn't pay attention unless you specifically answered the "how is it relevant to me?" question would become university/college students with the same approach to learning.

There's a culture within the current crop of teenagers/twenty-somethings that insists on the bare minimum. They want to burden themselves only with what is absolutely necessary. Anything that might be beyond that bare minimum is something regarded as a waste of time - and no one wants to waste time learning things that won't immediately help them, do they?

This is, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous attitudes to learning you can cultivate.

Now, I'm assuming that, if you read this blog, it's because you want advice on how to get the most out of your studies and research. Can I give you the biggest and best piece of advice I could ever give any student?

Learn globally - Assume that everything will be relevant one day, and pay attention. It never hurts to know more than you have to know, but there is real danger in knowing less.

Why? It's called scaffolding. Basically, you learn new information by building on the information you already have. Educational theorists like Piaget and Vygotsky may disagree on many other aspects concerning how and why we learn, but they all agree that the knowledge you already have helps shape the way you gain new knowledge.

If you only pay attention to the bare minimum, you aren't giving yourself much of a platform to build on. It's very hard to build connections between things that aren't there. So, by choosing to ignore things that aren't immediately relevant, you are robbing yourself of a foundation that will become important later, when that information is relevant.

Think about it, why would a lecturer or teacher waste their time and yours by telling you things that won't improve your knowledge and understanding? Obviously, whatever is covered in class is going to become relevant at some point, so why would you ignore it?

Speaking of "understanding", there's another reason why you should learn more than the bare minimum and pay attention even if no one has specifically told you why it is relevant: Lateral thinking.

One of the most useful skills you can cultivate in life (let alone studies) is the ability to think laterally - to see the connections between things that aren't, at first, obviously connected. You will find that, most of the time, the connections are actually there, and it will help you better understand what you learn. This gives you a broad knowledge base, and helps you learn new things more effectively.

There's no point in knowing information if you don't understand it. It won't stay in your head, you won't be able to pull it out later and use it. Once you understand something, though, you're more likely to be able to remember it and use it.

Later, I'm going to talk about Bloom's Taxonomy - a way of looking at learning that will help you understand what your teachers and lecturers want from you. For now, I'm just going to tell you that there are different levels of learning, and 'knowledge' is right on the bottom.

To climb up the levels, you need to start connecting the individual things you know to everything else you know and the world around you.

That's what learning globally is all about - learning what you can about everything so that you can build a better understanding of the world and how what you're studying fits into it. It makes you a better student (and a more interesting person to talk to - how's that for immediate relevance?).

So, next time you're in a lecture or class and you're about to ask "how is this relevant to me?" before choosing to switch off, remember that everything is relevant. Think beyond the next assignment or exam paper and look at the big picture. You won't regret it.

Further Reading

On Vygotsky's theories:
http://www.esu.edu/sps/Dean/article7.htm
http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Vygotsky.htm
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/sdtheory/index.htm

On Piaget's theories:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~dnb208/Piaget.html
http://archivespiaget.ch/en/jean-piaget/life/index.html
http://www.piaget.org/

On both:
http://www.education.uiowa.edu/resources/tep/eportfolio/07p075folder/Piaget_Vygotsky.htm
http://www.uni.edu/freeburg/Publications/Vygotsky%20Piaget%20and%20Edu.pdf