1. No category

Cultivating a flexible mind:
Can you learn how to learn for life?
J.P. Leighton, Ph.D., R.Psych
1
Canadian Council on Learning’s
MINERVA lecture series
y The Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) is a national,
independent, and non-profit corporation that is
committed to improving learning across the country and
across all walks of life
y The Minerva lecture series—discussion on how research
can inform learning
2
The Canadian Council on Learning has organized this speaker series under the
name of MINERVA. The CCL is a national, independent, and non-profit corporation
that is committed to improving learning across the country and across all walks of
life. The MINERVA lecture series is a travelling, national forum through which the
work of learning researchers in Canada can be shared with Canadians so as to
foster (a) discussion, (b) provide opportunities to demonstrate how learning
research can inform learning, and (c) support the development of a pan-Canadian
learning agenda. It is an honour to be a MINERVA scholar and be part of an
exciting series designed to shape our history as learned Canadians.
MINERVA
y The Roman goddess of wisdom,
medicine, the arts, dyeing, science
and trade, but also of war
y Athena in Greek mythology
y Daughter of Jupiter
y In rivalry with Neptune provided
Athens with the first olive tree
3
Illustration from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
Some of you might be wondering what MINERVA is and how it might be related to
learning? I was curious too so I did a quick search on Wikipedia, the free online
encyclopaedia, and found out that MINERVA was the Roman goddess of wisdom,
medicine, arts, dyeing, science, trade and even war. Her name is Athena in Greek
mythology.
She was the daughter of Jupiter (Roman god of the gods). As the myth is told,
Jupiter had a splitting headache and from one of his headaches, Minerva was born.
Minerva came into her own in a rivalry with Neptune, Roman god of the sea.
Legend has it that Jupiter decided to settle an on-going feud between them by
challenging them to come up with the most useful gift for the people of Athens.
Neptune gave the people of Athens a fountain of water but it was salty so therefore
not much use to them. In contrast, Minerva tried to come up with something more
enduring. She gave the people of Athens their first Olive tree.
The olive tree
y Provided the people of Athens with food,
firewood, and shade
y Thus, Minerva's gift was the most useful
and covertly noble, and she won
patronship of the city
y The olive tree takes a long time to produce
fruit, so olives could only be cultivated
successfully in long periods of peace
4
Illustration from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
Because the olive tree provided the people of Athens with food, firewood, and
shade, she won patronship to the city. But there was an even more noble gift in the
olive tree she provided. The olive tree requires a long time to produce fruit, so in
order for the people of Athens to enjoy the fruits of the tree, they needed to promote
long periods of civil stability and peace.
Learning and the olive tree
y The investment is time and effort
y The rewards are the fulfillment of cognitive needs, and
greater confidence in life
5
The gift of the olive tree is a powerful metaphor for the gift of learning—or the gift of
lifelong learning. Just as the olive tree requires environmental stability and security
to grow strong and healthy, so must learning be cultivated in healthy environments
so that it will take root and grow strong. Stability and security are needed to promote
learning. But the rewards of learning are worthwhile. The rewards are many—
fulfillment of cognitive needs and greater confidence in life.
Learning
What
Whatbrings
brings
me
to
the
me to the
study
studyof
of
learning?
learning?
6
So what brings me to the study of learning? What is my angle and why should you
believe anything I have to say? For starters, I’ve spent my entire university training
studying how people think, reason, learn, and ultimately show what they learn. I’m
also interested in assessment—the kind that provincial governments administer at
the end of the school year in some provinces and also the kind that teachers use to
assign report card marks in school. I’m interested in assessments largely because I
think they can be used to predict important life outcomes such as college
performance, well being, and/or job success. What I have realized, however, in the
course of my research is that most tests are poor indicators for assessing what
really drives individuals to learn and to succeed. In fact, more often than not, it
seems that our tests drive people away or might even discourage them from
engaging in learning. If you don’t believe me, all you have to do is look at the
growing body of work on test anxiety and stereotype threat. This is discouraging.
We need to do a better job with assessments. But in order to improve the
assessment of learning, we need to know more about learning, especially learning
to learn attributes.
What is learning? Who learns?
y According to the Oxford English Dictionary:
y The acquisition of knowledge or skills through study,
experience, or being taught
Excellence in learning is not only the domain of the
exceptional mind or the gifted
7
So let’s begin. What is learning? And are there people who exemplify successful
learning? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, learning is a noun and is
defined as the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience, or being
taught. There is more to know about earning than the acquisition of knowledge.
What I will be talking about today is that everyone can become a better learner.
Learning is not only for those deemed to have exceptional or gifted minds.
What do we know about learning?
8
Educators and psychologists study learning from distinct research perspectives
such as by studying how people behave or how their brains light up on MRIs as
they perform certain tasks. These perspectives are important, but the research I
want to focus on today is one that is conducted largely by educational and cognitive
psychologists. The questions guiding the presentation today are those that speak
directly about what we can do today to achieve excellence in learning. That is:
1.What are the conditions that promote excellence in learning?
2.What can educators and parents do to promote excellence in learning?
The thing about learning…
y How do we distill the
most important
messages and deliver
them so that they will
resonate with the
greatest group of
people?
9
I will spend the rest of the time today trying to describe decades of educational and
psychological research within the span of an hour. I will miss by necessity some
ideas about learning. What I miss does not indicate that it’s unimportant. It just
means that, for the sake of time, I’ve had to pass it. I have a list of recommended
readings that I will share at the end of this presentation (see slides 57 to 62) so that
you can read more comprehensively about the topics I’ve covered today (and those
I haven’t).
Outline for learning
10
The general outline for the discussion today focuses on:
1. Who is an exceptional learner?
2. What are the conditions that promote excellence in learning?
3. What can educators and parents do to promote excellence in learning?
11
The greatest
?
y Frederick Banting
y Alexander Graham Bell
y Don Cherry
What makes
these people
exceptional?
12
Photos from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
Who is an excellent learner? What kind of individuals achieve excellence in
learning?
The CBC in 2004 ran a contest to find out who was the greatest Canadian.
Listeners and viewers were encouraged to vote for the greatest Canadian. This
contest caught my attention because it first made me think about how obsessed we
all are with rankings but also, more importantly, the lessons we can learn from these
extraordinary individuals. The valuable teaching moment from this contest is not in
the rankings but what all these individuals share in common. They are all
exceptional learners. The top 10 greatest Canadians are (in alphabetical order):
Frederick Banting—Groundbreaking research in the 1920s; discovered insulin.
Alexander Bell—Formed the Bell Company in 1877.
Don Cherry—Hockey player and successful NHL coach; 24 years with CBC’s
Hockey Night in Canada
The greatest
?
y Tommy Douglas
y Terry Fox
y Wayne Gretzky
y Sir John A. Macdonald
13
Photos from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
Tommy Douglas—Canada’s father of Medicare.
Terry Fox—Originator of the Marathon of Hope for cancer research. Died in 1981.
Wayne Gretzky—Greatest scorer in the NHL, breaking over 60 records and winning
4 Stanley cups.
Sir John A. MacDonald—Founding father of Canada, and facilitated construction of
the CP Rail.
The greatest
?
y Lester B. Pearson
y David Suzuki
y Pierre Trudeau
What makes
these people
different and
can we foster
this?
14
Photos from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
Lester B. Pearson—Canadian Prime Minister, oversaw introduction of the Canadian
Pension Plan. Accepted Nobel Peace Prize in 1957.
David Suzuki—Author of more than 30 books; environmental guru and gladiatorial
geneticist.
Pierre Trudeau—Canadian Prime Minister; worked to promote bilingualism and
create a Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights.
The greatest
?
y October 18, 2004:
y Which characteristic do you think is the most
important in defining "greatness" in Canada?
y Passion 31%
What are the
y Legacy 39%
conditions that
y Leadership 23%
promote excellence in
y Genius 5%
learning?
y Humour 3%
15
http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/trudeau-pierre.html
What is it about all these individuals that makes them great? This question was
posed to Canadians in October 2004, and the responses were as follows:
While all these responses are relevant, I don’t believe they identify the root of what
makes these people great. The most important characteristic in defining greatness
at least among the people chosen to be part of this list is a commitment to
excellence in learning and performance. None of these individuals could have
achieved what they did in medicine, politics, or sports without a commitment to
excellence in their chosen field. Another word for excellence within a field of study is
higher-level learning and performance ; improving performance consistently. While it
may be true that not all of these individuals have excelled in the same areas, a brief
look at their biographies will convince you that they do all share something in
common: A commitment to engage in deliberate practice with the help of mentors
and other supporters and to persevere in the achievement of their goals. It is not a
coincidence.
S what conditions promote excellence in learning?
16
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
y At the most basic level:
y Association between affluence (SES) and education
y Association between education, health, and life
expectancy
17
What are the conditions that promote excellence in learning?
We know that at the most basic level there is an association between affluence or
SES (which is short for socio-economic status) and education. For example, this
means that children born to parents who have greater financial security and/or have
attained higher levels of education are more likely to finish high school and
participate in higher-level education.
We also know that there is an association between education, health, and life
expectancy. For example, individuals who have attained a higher level of education
are more likely to enjoy better health, and even live longer.
Individuals who have better health are more likely to participate in the workforce,
and have opportunities to achieve excellence in their domains of study and accrue
financial security.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
18
What we know, then, is that there are at least three basic variables to help us
understand the conditions that promote excellence in learning.
Let us look at the association between SES and education more closely.
A family’s SES provides an index of its financial resources and, hence, its
environmental stability.
We know that parents who have higher SES are more likely to have their children
finish high school and go on to participate in higher-level learning opportunities in
university and college.
This is not surprising because financial resources and environmental stability permit
children to have the materials needed to learn (books, desks, pencils, computers)
and, more importantly, the time and focus to think about learning.
In order to focus on learning and how to learn well, a child cannot be worried or
distracted by unstable and unpredictable conditions in their environment.
This is similar to the olive tree. The olive tree needed environmental stability and
peace. Learning needs this as well.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
19
The association between SES and education still continues to be observed.
Canada’s economically disadvantaged students continue to be less likely to go to
university than students from well-off families. In 2003 Statistics Canada study, over
half of the young people from families at the top of the income distribution attended
university at age 19 compared with fewer than one-third of young people from
families in the lowest 25%. Furthermore, the study found only weak evidence that
financial constraints were a direct barrier to attending university. Instead, it found
that the gap is almost entirely associated with differences in academic performance
and parental influences. Although this should sadden and worry us, it should not
surprise us. Would you aspire to engage in an activity that you did not have time to
do or that you felt was for others to enjoy but not for you? Perhaps when a person’s
mind set has been focused so long on simply surviving day-to-day life, options like
higher-level education seem out-of-reach.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
20
Although there are many studies showing the link between SES and education, and
education and health, no other source provides such a compelling account of the
conditions needed for learning and education as the book, the Status Syndrome, by
Dr. Michael Marmot. In this book, Dr. Marmot, a British epidemiologist introduces
data collected over 30 years on the relationship between education and health
habits found among British civil servants. He explains the powerful relationship
between education and health and even life expectancy. For example, people with
less education are more likely to die from coronary heart disease than those with
more education even after controlling for age and other risk factors such as
smoking, blood pressure, and blood sugar (Marmot, 2004).
Moreover, individuals who enjoy better health also are in a better position to acquire
higher-level education and accrue the financial resources to achieve a desired level
of affluence. If you are sick less often, you are in a position to study longer, work
harder, and live longer.
So learning, as the olive tree, is dependent on its environment. An olive tree that
has grown in unstable conditions may bear fruit, but just barely. An olive tree that
has grown in solid and stable conditions will bear fruit, fruitfully.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
More
education
21
In a more recent published policy brief for the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy at
the University of Michigan, two economists, one from Harvard University and the
other from Princeton—analyzing data from the NHIS (the National Health
Information Interview Survey) found that more education reduces the risk of heart
disease by 2.2% points (relative to a base of 31%), the risk of diabetes by 1.3%
points (relative to a base rate of 7%), lowers probability of reporting poor health by
6% points, and reduces lost days of work by 2.3 days in the year. These
economists, furthermore, found that health behaviours alone did not account for the
improvement in quality of life between the more and less educated. In other words,
there is something about attaining higher-levels of education that offers protection
from ill health.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
22
What we know, then, is that the relationships between SES and education, and
education and health are important for providing the proper conditions for learning.
What we can begin to appreciate is that lifelong learning or excellence in learning is
not an end in itself but is really a means to an end—a better life, with better health,
with more opportunities. When we look at lifelong learning in this way, we realize
that promoting learning is not just about having a better, more interesting career or
a bigger house, but it more fundamentally about having a good life; the opportunity
for the best life possible. This is not just a goal that educators have for students, or
parents for their children, but a goal we need to have for all members of society.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
€ The success of an economy and of a society cannot be
separated from the lives that members of the society
are able to lead….We not only value living well
and satisfactorily, but also appreciate having
control over our own lives.
Amartya Sen,
Development as Freedom (1999)
23
Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
Dr. Amartya Sen, Indian economist and philosopher who won the Nobel prize in
economics in 1998, has written about the important role of learning in shaping lives.
He suggests that learning and education serve as powerful protective factors in
health and more generally in life because they increase our sense of control in
managing our lives, creating opportunities, and solving problems.
What would it take to
encourage all
individuals to seek
higher-learning
opportunities?
24
To answer this question, we have to again consider the environmental conditions—
financial resources and environmental stability—that promote excellence in learning
and how they influence learning. To help us understand how poor conditions thwart
aspirations of learning, we consider Maslow’s Hierarchy.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
y Maslow’s hierarchy
Self-actualization
Esthetic and cognitive needs
Esteem needs
BASIC
META
Belongingness and love needs
Safety needs
Physiological needs
25
The idea that individuals need to have some basic needs met before they can learn
and satisfy cognitive or higher-learning needs was very well illustrated by Abraham
Maslow, a psychologist within the humanistic tradition, in 1970. It bears repeating
here. He called basic needs those that have to do with surviving day-to-day life; for
example, physiological needs such as eating, safety needs such as feeling
protected, and belongingness needs such as feeling a sense of affiliation,
acceptance, and affection.
After these basic needs are met, he argued only then can more “privileged” needs
be satisfied such as needs for learning, thinking, and needs associated with beauty
and justice.
What are the conditions that promote
excellence in learning?
y Before we can promote excellence in
learning, we must ensure that individuals
have basic needs met.
y If a child is worried about what she will
eat for dinner that night, it is unlikely that
she will have an interest in reading or
music or science.
26
Maslow’s ideas had an intuitive appeal back in the 1970s and need to be reiterated
today because they are now being supported with research data. We know that
poverty short circuits people’s desire and perhaps need for learning. Recall the
2003 statistics showing that Canadian students from the poorest family abstain from
going to university not because they can’t find the tuition but because their
academic performance lags and they do not receive parental encouragement. They
should know education is important, and yet they don’t participate. Perhaps one
reason they don’t participate is that they just don’t see the opportunity to learn as a
need to which they can afford to aspire.
Going back to the olive tree. An olive tree that has a difficult time just surviving is
not going to produce the most or the healthiest olives.
What are the conditions that
promote excellence in learning?
27
The conditions that promote excellence in learning include basic needs (e.g.,
financial resources and environmental stability) so that meta-needs can be ignited.
Only once basic needs have been met, can we hope to have individuals fall in love
with learning. Once basic needs have been met and meta-needs are ignited, then
we can start to imagine how learning to learn and excellence in learning are
cultivated in students.
28
What can we do to promote excellence
in learning?
y What can educators and parents do to assure that
students will learn to become excellent in ways that we
value?
y 1. Deliberate practice
y 2. Mentorship
y 3. Developing personal dispositions
29
Educators and psychologists have conducted research over many years to better
understand how people learn and what parents and educators can do to help
children and adults learn. Much of this research has been conducted under various
broad headings including expert development, adaptive expertise, self-regulation,
metacognition, reasoning and problem solving, exceptionalities, and positive
psychology. I will avoid using these headings in favor of focusing on the general,
enduring themes that have emerged from the accumulation of research across
research areas.
The three areas that continually emerge as best practices in promoting excellence
in learning are: 1. deliberate practice, 2. mentorship, and 3. personal dispositions.
Most, if not all, of the greatest Canadians share in these practices. I will talk about
each one in turn.
1. Deliberate practice
y “A century of laboratory research has revealed that
learning is most effective when it includes focused goals,
such as improving a specific aspect of performance;
feedback that compares the actual to the desired
performance; and opportunities for repetition, so the
desired level of performance can be achieved.”
K. Anders Ericsson (2002)
30
Deliberate practice is about hard, hard work and lots of motivation to engage in hard
work. There’s no escaping it. In fact, K. Anders Ericsson, a pioneer and
groundbreaking researcher in the area of expertise said the following: “A century of
laboratory research has revealed that learning is most effective when it includes
focused goals, such as improving a specific aspect of performance; feedback that
compares the actual to the desired performance; and opportunities for repetition, so
the desired level of performance can be achieved.”
1. Deliberate practice
31
So what is deliberate practice?
1. Deliberate practice
32
Deliberate practice involves engaging in specific aspects of performance such as
domain-specific experience. This means that a person who wants to learn and
achieve better math performance engages not just in any kind of activity associated
with math but, rather, identifies where he or she has weaknesses. If the weakness
is in geometry, the person focuses specifically on improving his or her performance
in geometry. What is known to occur from this type of domain-specific experience is
that performance will improve gradually. There is no evidence that individuals can
perform at a high level consistently without this type of intense relevant practice and
experience.
1. Deliberate practice
y In the August 2, 1999 issue of the New Yorker, they
asked the question:
y What do Wayne Gretzky, Yo-Yo Ma,
and a brain surgeon named
Charlie Wilson have in common?
y Practice over and over again, until they iron out even the
smallest imperfections.
33
Perhaps you were hoping that there was something more mysterious about the way
in which high-level performers achieved their excellence in learning. On the one
hand, that they practice until they get it right is strangely comforting because it is so
accessible to all of us. On the other hand, it’s strangely discomforting that it is in fact
so accessible to all of us. We cannot make excuses.
1. Deliberate practice
34
Deliberate practice also involves activities that help bridge the gap between where
that individual is in his or her performance and where he or she wants to end up.
The recognition of your current state and your goal state is critical here. The goal
becomes how to achieve the goal state. This is where feedback—good feedback is
vital. You cannot become an excellent writer without a very talented editor.
Teachers play a powerful role in providing this feedback to students. Parents can
also become important mentors in this respect.
2. Mentorship
y Ivan Galamian (1972), the famous violin teacher stated:
y “If we analyze the development of the well-known
artist, we see that in almost every case the success of
their entire career was dependent upon the quality of
their practicing. In practically each case, the practicing
was constantly supervised either by a teacher or an
assistant to the teacher…”
35
Mentorship is the second important aspect of assuring that students will develop to
become excellent learners. Psychologists refer to teachers who help apprentices
move from a novice state to an expert state as mentors. Educators call these
mentors, role models or simply teachers. Whatever you call them, they directly help
students understand what they need to do to achieve a higher level of learning and
performance. Ivan Galamian, a famous violin teacher made the following statement
about mentors:
2. Mentorship
Extraordinary
Extraordinary
minds
mindsand
andtalents
talents
such
as
Einstein,
such as Einstein,
Mozart,
Mozart, &
&Picasso
Picasso
were
guided
were guidedby
by
mentors
mentors
36
Mentors must be more knowledgeable about the student’s field of study than the
student because mentors must be able to help the student achieve a greater level of
learning and performance by providing accurate and detailed feedback. The
feedback must be specific about the ways in which the students can improve his or
her performance. Many extraordinary minds recollect the decisive role mentors had
in their development of expertise. In fact, it is the rare expert that cannot recall the
role of a mentor in his or her development.
2. Mentorship
37
Not only do mentors teach directly and help students reduce the gap between their
current level of performance and their desired level of performance, but they also
inspire, motivate, and support. For example, in an interview with Dr. David Suzuki,
he answers the question of what inspired him in his passion for conservation in the
following way:
2. Mentorship
38
Mentors are also symbols of what may be possible for an individual within a given
domain. For example, in the area of science and engineering, Dr. Margaret-Ann
Armour from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alberta acts as a role
model, cheerleader, and career counsellor for high-school girls who are interested in
science but might be afraid to pursue science at the university level because they
think it is inappropriate for them. Spearheading WISEST (Women In Scholarship
Engineering Science and Technology) program, she helps girls break new ground
and blaze trails that they otherwise might not have thought possible.
2. Mentorship
39
In addition to acting as models of what is possible, mentors also provide concrete
and objective tools with which to help those they mentor. For example, Dr. Frederick
Banting was named as one of the greatest Canadians for discovering insulin.
However, he had help.
3. Personal dispositions
REFLECTING,
LEVERAGING,
FRAMING, &
CONTROL
40
So far we have discussed two important elements in the process of assuring that
students become excellent learners—deliberate practice and mentorship. However,
these two components, as important as they are, are not enough. Let’s go back to
Maslow’s hierarchy for a moment. Recall that Maslow indicates that we have basic
needs and meta-needs. In order to even have a shot at being a successful learner,
basic needs must be met. You need to have food, shelter, security, and love. Only
once these needs are met, does a person have a shot at meeting more “privileged”
needs such as esteem and cognitive needs. However, even once a person has
basic needs met, you might ask how it is that they organize themselves to engage
in deliberate practice and seek mentorship and feedback—that is, how do they
organize themselves to meet the meta-needs? This is an important question. The
individuals who pursue cognitive needs, for example, tend to have a constellation of
personal dispositions—learned or acquired—that allow them to understand the
importance of deliberate practice and benefit from the sage and sound advice of
mentors.
What are the dispositions that facilitate excellence in learning? They have been
identified as: 1. reflecting, 2. leveraging, 3. framing, and 4. control. I will discuss
each one in turn.
3. Personal dispositions
41
Dr. Howard Gardner has studied the lives of extraordinary individuals such as
Einstein and Mozart and he’s found that these high-flying individuals spent a lot of
time thinking how to meet their goals.
At the classroom level, researchers such as Dr. Phil Winne from Simon Fraser
University have studied students who engage in self-regulation or metacognitive
behaviours which are very similar in quality to reflection. The ability to think about
how you think, learn, and perform is very useful to helping individuals understand
how to improve their learning and performance and incorporate what their mentors
tell them into techniques to get better at what they do.
3. Personal dispositions
42
However, a word of caution is in order. Reflection is not rumination.
3. Personal dispositions
43
The second personal disposition common among extraordinary learners and clearly
useful for achieving excellence in learning is called leveraging. Leveraging has been
studied by many researchers including Dr. Robert Sternberg in his triarchic theory of
intelligence. Leveraging grows out of reflective practices—it means that you have
been able to identify what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at. Then you
try and achieve your learning goals by using what you’re good at doing and getting
help with what you’re not so good at doing.
3. Personal dispositions
44
What is great about leveraging is that you take stock of your strengths and seek
help with what you’re not so good at doing. For example, every year I teach my
class in graduate statistics I always have one student who announces to me the first
day of class that he or she is afraid of numbers and formulas. Just as I’m about to
inform him or her that statistics is more than just numbers and formulas, the student
informs me that they have gotten through most of their “math” courses by sheer
hard work—pure sweat and tears. He or she further informs me that this is the only
course they are taking and they will devote all their time to it. Sure enough they
email me and the teaching assistant with questions through out the term. Typically
these students do extremely well—so well in fact that they are often mistaken as
talented in mathematics. They are talented. One reason they are talented is
because they understand their learning and seek help to ensure that they have the
right opportunities and environments to learn well.
We all need support and help in what we do. Our accomplishments are rarely
unitary. We all stand on the shoulders of generous mentors and colleagues, and
others who help us achieve what we aspire to achieve and learn.
3. Personal dispositions
45
The third and possibly the most critical personal disposition is framing. Framing
essentially entails thinking about past performance—especially failures and
mistakes—in a way that helps you continue learning. It has to be constructive.
Cathie Black, president of Hearst Publishing, has one of the best examples of what
it means to frame one’s bad experience well. This is not self-delusion or deception
but constructive and even motivating. In her book, Basic Black (2007), Cathie Black
tells the story of when her marriage collapsed, she decided she needed a change in
environment. Even though she had a great career at Ms. Magazine in New York
City, she decided to take a job in San Francisco for a new magazine being unveiled
by Francis Ford Coppola. She studied the move and it seemed right. She made the
complete move and 3 months after moving to San Francisco the magazine failed.
She went back to Ms. Magazine. When Rupert Murdoch some time later asked her
whether she thought the move to San Francisco had been a mistake she replied
that it had not been a mistake at all. She had made valuable contacts while in San
Francisco and she was able to negotiate a better job when she returned to New
York City. The moral of this story is that she could have berated herself for taking a
calculated risk but instead she recognized that failure was part of pursuing her
passion, and striving to learn increasingly more about her passion for advertising.
This meant taking risks.
3. Personal dispositions
46
Illustration from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
As every learner who strives for excellence will tell you, failure is part of the journey
if you want to be a serious lifelong learner. Risks are part of what learning is about.
Wayne Gretzky, one of our greatest Canadians, once said that “you miss 100
percent of the shots you never take.” This is an important lesson.
3. Personal dispositions
47
I am a strong believer that one of the most important lessons that mentors can
teach their students is how to understand failure and learn from it. No one likes to
fail but failures carry substantial information about performance and provide the
opportunity to become a better learner and improve performance. Usually what I tell
students who have not won an academic award or honor is that the inference to
draw from the experience is not to avoid trying or applying again for fear of another
piece of bad news. The inference to draw is that next time you apply, you will
prepare an even better proposal, get more feedback, and allow even more time for
putting the package together. No one wants to fail all the time, and this is unlikely to
happen if students are taught how to learn from defeats and improve their learning
and performance.
3. Personal dispositions
48
How does one learn to learn from defeats? It is best to instill this disposition early in
life. Use these moments as “teaching opportunities.”
3. Personal dispositions
49
It seems as if we know a lot about what parents and educators can do to promote
excellence in learning among students. And, yet, my experience as a researcher in
educational assessment is that many teachers and possibly many students, and maybe
even many parents feel somewhat estranged from learning. They no longer know what it is.
Is it what goes on in the classroom during instructional time? Is it what students enjoy at
home when they don’t realize they are learning? Or is it what tests measure at the end of
the year?
My observation of the situation, however, is that one of the biggest discrepancies between
how excellence in learning is conceptualized by cognitive psychologists who study expert
development versus how it is conceptualized by educators within the classroom involves
control.
Psychologists who study expert performance, for example, study adult individuals (usually
adult but sometimes youth/children) who have self-selected themselves to become experts.
These individuals love what they do and take an active role in the improvement of their
learning. In other words they take control of their learning. They choose their learning path.
This is different from the situation that students often find themselves within the classroom.
Learning in school is associated often with a lack of control.
3. Personal dispositions
50
Order is an important part of achieving a proper classroom climate. If everyone in
the class is doing their own thing, it would be quite challenging to teach anything.
I’m certainly not suggesting that control in the classroom should be eliminated!
However, what I am suggesting is that we need to consider ways in which we can
increase students’ sense of control within the classroom. Assessments might be
useful in helping us achieve this objective. We consider assessments since
assessments are a very influential aspect of learning in the classroom, which
teachers already claim takes much time. Classroom assessment researchers such
as Paul Black and Dylan Wiliams encourage us to think about new ways to assess
students. Assessment for learning, and even cognitive diagnostic testing, are
designed to be sensitive to students’ needs and designed to provide students with
specific feedback about their learning and performance. In this way, students have
the opportunity to use the feedback they receive from their performance to improve
their learning.
Educational assessments that provide students with accurate and specific
information about the connection between learning processes and outcomes should
increase students’ sense of control. Why? Because, if it’s good feedback, then
students should be able to use the feedback, engage in specific forms of deliberate
practice, and begin to see gradual improvement and better test results. And this
association might help students see the connection between learning—real
learning—and performance on tests that measure important learning outcomes
accurately.
3. Personal dispositions
51
I want to go back briefly to Amartya Sen’s quote. If we can help students see the
control they can have in their learning by means of better assessments, this may be
one way to help all students aspire to higher levels of learning. Even those students
who are struggling to have basic needs met may begin to see education as a way
out of the struggle.
We cannot forget that lifelong learners are people who choose their paths in life.
They are not usually people who go without choosing. This is also part of what we
must communicate and cultivate in students—the importance of actively choosing a
path, to identify what they enjoy, and what they are willing to work hard at, and who
they are willing to seek mentorship from, and the extent to which they are willing to
change their thinking about what they enjoy in order to excel at it.
Learning re-visited
52
What are the conditions that promote excellence in learning?
What can educators and parents do to assure that students will learn to become
excellent learners in ways that we value?
Learning to learn
53
To conclude, I believe that learning to learn attributes are far more important than
any content-specific attribute in reading, math, or science. Not because reading,
math, or science aren’t evidently important but because a child who learns to learn
can learn anything. If she can focus her efforts on a task of interest, seeks and is
mentored throughout her learning, is motivated to think about her learning, is
learning to choose how she achieves her goals, and has the personal fortitude to
welcome feedback and incorporate it, she’ll be able to learn anything she wants in
reading, science, math, or any other content domain she wishes to tackle. Just as
the olive tree was a wonderful gift from Minerva because it provided the people of
Athens with food, firewood, and shade not just for one year but for many years, so
do learning to learn attributes—these are our olive tree. Learning to learn attributes
do not only allow one to learn one skill within a single domain, but rather they open
the doors to many years of excellence in learning.
Learning to learn
54
Life is changing at lightning speed. We cannot teach students everything. We have
to give them tools. Learning to learn attributes will help us prepare students and
children for almost any eventuality.
Learning re-visited
Learning
to learn
55
Finally, I want to leave you with this. Let’s not forget after all that the root of
“learning” is to learn, which is a verb—an action word—and not a noun.
THANK YOU
http:www.ccl-cca.ca/minervaseries
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Graphics
y All clipart and most photographs used in this
presentation can be downloaded free of charge from
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx
y Other photographs and drawings were obtained free of
charge from Wikipedia
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