Here are some new terms that I have learned:
metacognition-awareness of one's cognitive processes and use of this knowledge to self-regulate one's cognitive processes or knowing how you know stuff or knowing how you learn stuff
zone of proximal development or in academic circles, ZDP- Lev Vygotsky came up with this as an argument against standardized testing He thought that learners should be tested on how they solved problems not on what they knew. The zone of proximal development is the area of knowledge that is just beyond the learners stage of development or level of mastery. It is the difference between actual developmental level and potential developmental level. He thought that material should be introduced ahead of a developmental stage because it would rouse a set of skills as they were maturing and help them to fully develop. OK, I can get on board with that.
Constuctivist theory- good old Piaget thought that knowledge was not so much acquired as it was constructed by assimilating knew information into an existing framework. It is a way to describe how humans learn not a prescription.
Social constructivism is a way to apply constructivist theories to learning.
I also found some abstracts of different studies about zones of proximal development and proximal learning applied to study skills and I noticed some recurring themes:
People will learn things more quickly and more thoroughly if it is their own idea to learn it in the first place.
Learning should be a collaborative process between people with different levels of mastery.
Knowledge is part of a whole and shouldn't necessarily be split up into different topics.
Hmmm,could there be a school set up that actually encourages this type of learning?
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