I’m always interested in the idea of becoming educated. What exactly happens when we have truly learned something?
This idea is opposed by other things that we conflate with learning. Inert learning is the opposite of what is learning to me, and we are all familiar with this as we forget what was on the test moments after passing it. Increasingly, I am convinced all the work educators do to ensure students have “met the objectives” is inert and has little lasting effect on students’ lives. I am interested in the type of learning Eric Mazur wants to promote in his courses.
When I am learning something new, I am convinced I am beginning to understand it, really understand it and not just to pass a test, when I see the world differently. When I listen to discussions and what once did not draw my attention now does and I question the implications of it, I have begun to understand it. When graphs are no longer scribbles, I have begun to understand. When I walk into a space and see things that are relevant that were not previously, I have begun to understand.
I discovered a new term for this in a book on the nature of science written in 1963. (I bought it at a used bok store that was going out of business a few years ago and finally got to read it.) Leonard Nash used the phrase “threshold of impressionability” to describe this phenomenon. He describes it as the ability to see data in an experiment when others see only noise. We gain this through observation and refection and experience.
When I teach, I stive to begin lessons with a problem. The intent is to introduce to students some situation that differentiates “data” from “noise.” Once the see the difference, we have a chance of helping them see it, and out solution to it, permanently.
Reference
Nash, L. (1963). The nature of the natural sciences. Little, Brown.