Learning is best by working out for ourselves

Informally I discoered this for myself as a teenager reflecting on my own learning. Later I discovered that the educational research was suggesting engagement made for better learning. Now some further evidence to suggest it is true.

"While we know that active engagement is the key to rapid learning," he said, "Meredith's result suggesting that knowledge gained via a child's own inferences is sometimes more powerful and longer lasting than knowledge gained through instruction may have powerful repercussions for how we teach new material. These implications have yet to be explored, but this first result is tantalizing."

It really should have us reviewing the way we are 'delivering education' (note the instructional bias of the terms, which are borrowed from the commercial world and seem to indicate an unhelpful metaphoric underpinning to contemporary educational policy).

And while we're on the subject, I loved what Caroline Ramsey wrote recently,

But, for me, learning is not about moving towards one correct answer, it is not about discarding wrong or less-than-best practices. Learning is about adding repertoires to our human living, refining our living practices in such a way that we, and those we live with, are happy with the outcome of those living practices.

Very much where I am in the matter.
ScienceDaily: Kids Learn Words Best By Working Out Meaning: Filed in: learning, research, psychology, instruction, education, teaching