Exploring Children's Learning

3 – 11 years

Christine Ritchie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138190306
• eBook ISBN: 9781317279181
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Exploring Children's Learning: 3–11 years is essential reading for those passionate about supporting children's learning environments from Early Years to Key Stage 2. By combining learning with important aspects of a broad curriculum content it will inspire and enhance an interest in supporting children's learning. Individual chapters focus on key areas of the curriculum such as literacy and history, numeracy and science, as well as more general topics such as creativity, assessment and the emotional and behavioural aspects of learning.

The book takes an objective view on control over curriculum and offers practical insights into how supportive learning opportunities can create enjoyable and satisfying lifelong learning habits, preparing children for the challenges they may face in their adult working life.

Whether you dip into chapters, or read through the book as a whole, you will develop your understanding of the complexity of learning and the lifelong effects implicit in this, not only from the individual basis that each child faces in terms of learning how to learn, but also concerning the differences in learning strategies required to successfully negotiate subject knowledge across a range of disciplines.

This book is a must-read for students of Childhood and Education Studies programmes, those undertaking Initial Teacher Training as well as general readers with an interest in supporting children's learning.

1 Exploring learning theory and its significance in education

Christine Ritchie and Anita Cooper

Chapter overview

This chapter focuses on ‘exploring learning’ and considers three main themes: first, how theory has provided a basis for understanding the processes of constructing learning; second, how during this process children develop learning strategies and build a learning identity, and third, to examine ways in which adults support learning through the use of learning and teaching strategies. Examining theories about how children learn will indicate how belief in the ways children learn has determined past and current educational practice. The aim is to encourage readers to consider their own beliefs and practices related to children’s learning and to recognise aspects of theory when observing children in learning situations, and so be able to make conscious decisions when selecting strategies that promote learning in general and for individual children, regardless of the curriculum content.

Why understanding children’s learning matters

The quest to determine how a child learns has occupied the minds of great thinkers, and theories about how children learn have influenced educational practice in ways that can be easily traced through history. The idea that children were ‘empty slates’ or ‘empty vessels’ as suggested by John Locke in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where children were born waiting to be written on or filled up with knowledge, contributed to the teaching methods of the past where children were mostly silent and expected to listen to the adult and then regurgitate knowledge in a rote-learning scenario. This method of teaching children was slow to change, and in many ways was influenced by the behaviourist theories of Pavlov and Skinner, with the idea that behaviour (including learning) could be conditioned through a process of reinforcement. From the 1960s onward the influence of Piaget changed educational ideas, and The Plowden Report (HMSO, 1967) moved towards a more exploratory form of learning, with a more child-centred approach that encouraged children to discover knowledge for themselves through experimentation within their environment, with the adult being the facilitator of the learning experience rather than just the expert. Similarly, when the writings of Vygotsky became more widely discussed, the importance of learning together, socially and in groups with the learning scaffolded by a ‘more knowledgeable other’, brought further changes to teaching methods. Theories, including Jerome Bruner’s ‘spiral curriculum’, are so embedded in educational practice that the ideas are taken for granted and not always consciously explored (Gibbs, 2014, p. 42).

The traditional theories adopted by schools brought significant changes not only to the thinking about how children were learning, but also to the physical layout of classrooms, with rows of desks facing the teacher being replaced by tables arranged to accommodate group learning; walls with a few charts on display were replaced with brighter, changeable wall displays and resources that children could use independently from adults to aid their learning. Changes in the beliefs about children’s learning behaviours also saw the introduction into the classroom of more adults; no longer seen as sufficient, the one adult to 35+ children ratio has given way to smaller classes with several adults supporting learning, particularly for younger children.

Although, arguably, Piaget and Vygotsky may be considered as the ‘fathers’ of modern understanding of both development and learning, together with researchers such as Pavlov and Skinner (Skinner, 1953, 1971), who argue that learning is a change in behaviour brought about by reinforcement and conditioning, other key writers and researchers have continued to influence the way in which children’s learning is approached in educational situations. Words and terms abound that have resonance for the teacher and parent from such developments, including emotional literacy, behaviour for learning, thinking skills, modelling behaviours, teaching and learning strategies to name just a few. All reflect the notion that the child is unique, an active member of the community and that learning is more complex and holistic than perhaps previously considered. Understanding some of the complexity surrounding learning allows us to understand the child and so meet their needs in an increasingly complex world.

Teaching versus learning

Before continuing the exploration of learning in this chapter, the distinction between ‘learning’ and what constitutes ‘teaching’ deserves consideration. Within education, it is perhaps impossible to separate one from another as teachers and practitioners are as involved in what should be taught as in what should be learned. Issues of adult and school accountability examine planning and intent as well as how much children know, especially in the core curriculum subjects of literacy and numeracy. Emphasis on knowledge-based assessment adds pressure to adults to ‘teach’ children facts to a set timetable, although teachers and practitioners who understand children’s ways of learning will plan creative activities to engage children in learning. Research seems to indicate that national curriculum testing does inhibit some forms of teaching that may support children in their learning; for example, Jones (2010) found that the teaching of thinking skills in primary schools has suffered as a result of an education system that is dominated by tests and league tables. Encouraging children to think and question is often seen as a fundamental part of learning, so any teaching that prevents children from learning to think for themselves indicates some of the challenges facing educationalists as they ponder the balance between teaching and learning.

Teaching methods are founded on the drive to acquire knowledge and conform to patterns of behaviour that are generally based on behaviourist theories. Such theories are based on assumptions of conditioning and a cycle of reinforcement for certain accepted behaviours that followed the work of Burrhus Frederic Skinner, and others, known as ‘operant conditioning’. This theory is based on the study of actions and their consequences, and is often used in schools as part of a system of rewards and punishments. Through reinforcement of certain behaviours, children can be manipulated or programmed into working in ways that support learning in predetermined directions. This is an effective way to manage a class and feedback on learner performance (e.g. encouragement, approval, praise, affirmation) providing reward and also reinforcement to ensure repeat performances.

Learning could perhaps be considered as something that brings its own rewards and reinforcement, but it comes from within the individual rather than being imposed from outside. Perhaps this is the distinction between learning and teaching; one comes from within and the other is controlled and determined by others.

Some traditional views of learning

What is learning? A pause for reflection

Before you read this chapter, pause and consider what you think learning is. How do children learn? What do they learn? How do we know that children are learning?

And then, consider how ‘teaching’ fits into the picture of learning …

The processes involved in understanding how children learn are complex, and there are differing views that try to satisfactorily answer the fundamental question, ‘What is learning?’. Many academic papers and books on learning seem to hesitate to explicitly define the meaning or agree on a definition (De Houwer et al., 2013; Wirth and Perkins, 2008). However, any attempt at a definition usually encompasses the idea that learning involves the acquisition of new knowledge and a change in behaviour, often as a result of experience being internally assimilated in the mind by the individual, either by solitary activity or through interaction with another person or the environment. Dewey (1998) famously links learning to experience, but not to all experiences; he equated learning from experience as the ability to reflect upon the experience in a personal way, thus enabling learning to take place. This idea that experience precedes learning is extended in the notion that ‘learning is a consequence of thinking’ (Perkins, 1992, p 31; Ritchhart and Perkins, 2008), which stresses the importance of not only educators presenting children with opportunities to experience but to then talk/think/reflect in order to bring about learning.

Our understanding of the role of learning within child development made significant strides with the influential work of Jean Piaget and his interest in cognitive development. His work outlining stages of development related to a child’s age showed how children were able to build upon existing knowledge to assimilate and accommodate new learning. In this way, his contribution demonstrates the cumulative and constructive nature of learning; that is, that as new experiences and ideas are explored and assimilated into new mental pictures, the child’s view of the world changes and a new layer of knowledge and understanding is established.

Piaget essentially saw learning as a solitary, cognitive activity, with the role of the adult being a facilitator of learning, giving the child experiences and opportunities to explore the world and build knowledge and understanding for themselves. Vygotsky brought a new dimension to such constructivist theories, by stressing the importance of the adult or ‘more knowledgeable other’ in the learning process. Vygotsky’s ideas were based around the way in which a more learned partner can encourage and anticipate the next step in learning and so enhance the learning experience. This led to an appreciation that a difference can be made to the learning process through social interaction. Vygotsky succinctly voiced the idea that ‘what the child is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow‘ (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 211; 1998, p. 202) giving value to social learning and talking a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Exploring learning theory and its significance in education
• Chapter 2 Children’s views on what matters in learning and life
• Chapter 3 Behaviour, learning and emotional intelligence: a critical learner perspective
• Chapter 4 Creativity: thinking and innovation for learning and teaching
• Chapter 5 Assessment: policies and practice
• Chapter 6 Supporting individual learners: working with Deaf learners: the role of the communication support worker (CSW)
• Chapter 7 Learning to be literate
• Chapter 8 Learning mathematics
• Chapter 9 Science trends in education
• Chapter 10 Supporting physical development: health and well-being through the use of outdoor environments
• Chapter 11 History, geography and learning about the world
• Index