What is Learning?

‘What is learning?’

Quite a question to be asked after two weeks off on a Monday morning! My initial definition was “The process of gaining new knowledge or skills” but after a discussion with my peers and lecturer Steve Wheeler I now believe learning to be slightly more complex than this.

I gave this question a Google and found that the dictionary definition of learning is “The acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience, or being taught” a very close definition to what I first came up with (I didn’t cheat, honest!). However, I still think that this is too simple a definition and I do not believe that learning is necessarily taught. A famous man named Albert Einstein (ever heard of him?) stated this “I never teach my pupils, I only provide the conditions in which they can learn”. This is much like the saying “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink”, just because someone teaches you something it does mean that the person has learnt it. So basically I’m saying I do not agree with the dictionaries definition for “learning”.

During the seminar I also realised that knowledge and skills are not the only two domains we learn. Benjamin Bloom suggests that there are three domains to learning; cognitive (knowledge), psycho-motor (skills) and affective (emotional).  

I didn’t even consider emotional learning (affective domain) when asked “what is learning?” but now it seems pretty obvious that the manner of how we deal with emotionally is learnt and developed over time.

In order to try and get closer to a definition for learning we then started looking at learning theories in chronological order. We looked at how theories of learning change over time as new research and ideas are developed, behaviorist learning theories of the 1920’s are considerably different to connectivist theories of today.

This question needs a much deeper insight than a single blog post allows because of the complexity of learning and the sheer amount of research around it. I do not think a definitive definition can be given because of how ideas change over time as new research and theories come to light. I’m sure sometime in the future new theories will be suggested which may change the answer to the question “what is learning?”.

Summer Placement Week 5

Final week!

Monday was spent reflecting on their trip to London and the others presented their topics. Throughout the rest of the week the children we're doing self- portraits, thank- you letters to the people involved with the trip and their tennis coaching sessions. This week went incredibly fast!

Didn't do a massive amount of teaching this week as they didn't have English or maths but was still kept busy supporting groups and individuals with other work. Also got a look at the schools new radio equipment and had a little play with one of the schools Digital Leader children.


The school has a great communal spirit, children all behave beautifully and everyone is extremely friendly. I've had loads of great opportunities at this school that I probably wouldn't have got at others. I feel that other the past five weeks I've grown in confidence in my abilities as a teacher and already can't wait to get back into the classroom!

Thank-you Cockwood, I hope to visit soon!

Summer Placement 2015 Week 4

This week the majority of the class have gone off to London for the week as a treat for the Y6's finishing their SATS. They will be visiting various attractions including the Cutty Sark, Royal Albert Hall, Madam Tussards, Parliament and even Lego Land!

I've been left with the five children who for whatever reason couldn't make the trip. At the beginning of the week the children each choose a topic of their interest. We had pop stars, JK Rowling, Isle of Wight, off- roaders and football picked. Then we decided on ways they could present their chosen topic to the rest of the class we had a poster, a booklet, diagrams and PowerPoint presentations. The children did join up with class 2 for PE lessons and we used the Pop Kits again to help break down the week.

Overall a very relaxed week (even let the children listen to the radio for most the time as a treat). It was nice to be given full responsibility of these children for the week and was great to get to know them better.

Daily Mile

A few days back on the morning news I learnt about a school up country implementing a "daily mile" to their school day. The story behind this being that someone accused the students at the school of being unfit so the staff decided to get the students to run around the field for a mile. They couldn't so the school decided to carry this on each day to get improve fitness levels.

The school I'm currently on placement at (Cockwood) today had their first "daily mile". The whole school (foundation- Year 6) had 15 minutes to move how ever they wanted around the school green at the end of the day. They also had to think about why their best friend was their best friend as they went (implementing PSHE) and feedback at the end.

The children could move around the edge of the field how ever they wanted with some walking, others jogging and most running trying to get the most laps. It was a great experience to be part of with the staff at the school even joining in with the kids. Some children we having mini races with each other and some were jogging a little bit and then slowing down to have a chat with their friends. I thought this is a great way for children to improve their fitness levels as well as blowing off some steam at the end of the school day.

However, this was the first one, it would be interesting to see if the school manages to keep this going over a period of time and to see if the children will still be enjoying it. The other issue being that it took in just over half an hour for this to be completed as the teachers had to get the children down to the school field (which is down the road) and back up after the mile. The time it takes for the children to get there and back should improve with time and I hope it does because the children seemed to really enjoy it!  

Summer Placement 2015 Week 3

The class teacher I've been working with this week has been ill so consequently I've been given much more teaching responsibility. Tuesday- Thursday I've taught English and mathematics following the teachers lesson plans.

One lesson in particular that did go well was Wednesdays maths lesson where I introduced algebra to most of the children. I felt by the end of the lesson the most of the children had a basic understanding on what algebra is and hopefully when the teacher goes through it again in 2 weeks time they'll prove me right! The only issue was with the lesson was that because it's a Year 4/5/6 class the year 6's already had a good understanding of algebra so they were instructed to sit with the younger children and reinforce what I was teaching. Some of these year 6's seemed to get bored of this quickly and I was under the impression that others were just giving the answers to the younger kids. This is one clear issue with having a class with such a range of ages.

In the English lessons we were looking at adjectives and used them to describe characters in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, underline adjectives in an extract from the book and finally we made fathers day cards with adjectives that describes their dad's on a word cloud on the front (where we had major problems with the kids laptops!)

At times I'm still struggling to get the children listening when I want an input after I've set them off with a task but it has definitely improved with practice from last week.

Summer Placement 2015 Week 2

This week I've finally got involved with some whole class teaching. On Thursday my placement partner and myself took a computing lesson. The aim of the lesson was to learn some basic programming skills with the help from a new piece of tech called "Pop Kits". Pop Kits look similar on the iPad to Scratch but instead of programming a game to program physical components like making a light with a switch. The lesson went fairly well with the children meeting the objective which was for them to create a code to make a door bell. However, at times I found it difficult to bring the class back together when I wanted them to give feedback and because the school only had 4 of  the "Pop Kits" some children said they didn't get much of a go.

The day after I repeated this lesson on my own with the 7 children who missed the lesson the day before. This went much better as it was easier to get their attention and they had enough Pop Kits around so everyone got a go.

I've learnt that I need to practice getting a classes attention faster and the it is important to have enough of a resource to go around (although this wasn't my fault in this case!)

Summer Placement 2015 Week 1

For my summer placement I've been placed in a tiny tiny school in Dawlish called Cockwood. The school only has just over 90 children in 3 classes  which are Foundation and Year 1, Years 2,3 and lower ability Year 4 and the class I'm working in higher Year 4, 5 and 6.

This week I've mainly been making observations of the children and their teacher but I have taken some responsibility in the class by taking the register and taking individual children for reading. I want to take more responsibilities in week 2 and I think that me and my partner are going to take a computing lesson using "Pop Kit".

Out of the normal school day I have also attended a staff meeting and was surprised how much this small school has going on. I have also gone with a teacher and the schools "Digital Leaders" to a showcase where they presented their K'NEX London Tower Bridge project which they had programmed to move up and down. There were some other cool projects here which included a school showing off their school radio show, I even got interviewed by a couple of children on air! On Friday I went with the class to their first tennis coaching session which the kids and myself really enjoyed.

Thoroughly looking forward to the next 4 weeks!