A New Definition of Learning

The essay The Thinking Curriculum (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, n.d.) discusses the new definition of learning that has emerged from the various educational standards:

"The different curriculum standards reveal a common spirit. Over and over again, these professional organizations admonish traditional models of education for emphasizing memorization, and decry their push to cover content at the expense of deep conceptual understanding. Instead, the reports regard learning as the active, goal-directed construction of meaning. All emphasize in-depth learning; learning oriented to problem solving and decision making; learning embedded in real-life tasks and activities for thinking and communicating, and learning that builds on students' prior knowledge and experiences.

Implementation of the new standards in schools would help to develop students who are successful learners---learners who are knowledgeable, self-determined, strategic, and empathetic. By focusing on core concepts and treating them in depth, students acquire a firm conceptual base for organizing the content they learn into coherent knowledge structures. By emphasizing the connection to their own experiences and attitudes, the guidelines, when implemented, would validate students' experiences and enable them to become competent 'knowledge workers' in the various disciplines. By uniting process and content, students learn the strategies they need to acquire, produce, use, and communicate knowledge. And, finally, by looking at the subject areas from multiple personal, cultural, and historical perspectives, students develop empathy for the experiences, feelings, and world views of others.

The new definition of learning can serve as the framework for restructuring a curriculum. By using a new school-based definition of learning, drawn from the research-based definition of learning, . . . all members of a school community and its broader community can develop a common language for curricula reform. Sharing this language will help build a community of individuals who have a common framework for curricular reform. They will have a basis for rethinking, as a community, the content and intent of the curriculum.

In addition, all professionals in the school will come to see that the reforms in their own disciplines--whether it be language arts, mathematics, science, or social studies--have a common basis, since all reforms are guided by a common research base and conceptual framework for learning. Thus, they can make curricular changes as a community, and they also can have common ground for interdisciplinary efforts. The characteristics of a thinking curriculum will become part of the school mission that the school as a whole and its community formulate in collaboration."

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