Page 9 - International Journal of Process Educaiton (Special Issue)

Learning to Learn (1990) LD

Learning to learn focuses on improving the performance of learning through increasing the
ownership, capacity, and efficiency learners demonstrate when constructing, using, and validating
knowledge (Figure 1).

Figure 1INCREASING Improving Learning Performance

LEARNING isOWNERSHIP of learning During the 1991/1992 academic year, 20 members of this
CAPACITY for learning same community worked together to produce a freshmen
CONSTRUCTINGEFFICIENCY of learningcourse and curriculum focused on improving student
learning performance. The first chapter of Learning
VALIDATING Through Problem Solving offered a model of a high-
quality learner and added that “everyone can improve
USING their ability to learn” (Apple, Beyerlein, & Schlesinger,
1992). This idea of learning as a malleable and improvable
KNOWLEDGE process was further advanced in Everyone Can Learn to
Learn (Arah & Apple, 1993), which noted a variety of
The idea of learning to learn was the direct result of ways in which learning rate or learning performance can
an experiment with 22 colleges during the 1989/1990 be improved: by targeting life skills, intervening in and
academic year where freshmen and seniors were asked to teaching students about the learning process, the use of
compete in a learning challenge. To the surprise of nearly cooperative learning, and the practice of self-assessment.
all, the learning performance of the seniors was no better
than that of the freshmen; in four years of college, the Figure 3
ability to learn had not observably improved (Apple, Ellis,
& Hintze, 2015). When shared, this discovery led to the
creation of the Problem Solving Across the Curriculum
(PSAC) conference. At the inaugural conference, hosted
by Wells College in 1990, more than 120 faculty came
together to share their insights and concerns regarding
learning and the idea of learning to learn (Kramer &
Beery, 1990). Participants collaborated on a model for the
learning process at the first conference, which became the
basis for subsequent activity by the conference community,
including Pacific Crest in its first Teaching Institute in
1991 (Apple, 1991).

The key ideas shared at that Teaching Institute were about
shifting the focus from teaching disciplinary content to
teaching students how to learn:

1. Students need to be the center of the learning process

2. Students must learn how to learn

3. Students must improve their critical thinking, prob- Foundations of Learning (Krumsieg & Baehr, 1996)
lem solving, communication, and learning skills continued along this same vein; Chapter 2, titled "Learning
to Learn," presented the Learning Process Methodology
It is worthy of note that together these principles as a concrete way to improve learning performance, with
offer the very definition of active learning, where the the profile of a high-quality learner as a model for what a
responsibility of learning lies with the learner (Bonwell strong learner should look like, in practice. Four editions
& Eison, 1991).

International Journal of Process Education (February 2016, Volume 8 Issue 1) 7