My theory of learning

One of the greatest flaws I see within education is our fundamental lack of knowledge on how we learn. Yes, I know there are numerous learning theories in existence each with their own individual merits and weaknesses, but they all seem to miss the big picture. Maybe it is just me and I am the only one of this mindset but let me try to explain my thoughts.

Most educators have heard of learning styles, some students have preferences for visual representation of information, others auditory etc. Likewise there are behaviorist, constructivist and cognitive approaches to learning, but is that how we actually learn? What really happens in the brain when learning occurs? They way I see it we have a fair understanding of the start and the end of the learning sequence have no real idea about what happens in the middle.

To me learning styles explains the beginning of learning - how do we best receive information. Really what it means is that we all have personal preferences on how we like to be shown new concepts. No different in that we all have our preferences for how we like to obtain energy for our bodies. I might prefer pizza, my husband prefers a steak. Regardless of how I get it my body requires energy but ultimately it gets processed the same way each and every time.

To me it seems the same way with learning and what is happening in the mind. We all need input data, we can get it from different sensory sources but I believe ultimately it all gets processed in the same way. This explains the beginning of the learning sequence.

Looking at the end and using the food analogy we all eliminate waste from our bodies in the same way (and I do not need to explain the how of that you :). Likewise, we also all output our understanding of what the brain has processed in a similar fashion. Dependent on how much our bodies take in for food our amount of eliminated waste varies, likewise dependent on how much information our brain takes in we output varying degrees of understanding and the ability to apply our understanding.

So the question is what happens in the middle? In every cell of our body the process of getting energy out of the food we have taken in is the same - it is called cellular respiration. Regardless of what type of food or how much of it we ate, it is all processed the same way each and every time at the cellular level. Therefore I cannot believe that it is any different with the mind. I hear continue expressions like everyone learns differently? Do we really - in the very essence of learning, do we really each learn differently? That would essentially mean that every brain at a physiological level works differently. The science of biology would seem to suggest otherwise. I think we tend to confuse our preference for how we obtain data to how we learn. I prefer visual cues for learning, my son is totally auditory - but once we obtain that data what happens to it, where does it go? Are we really processing it differently?

I think this is the little black box in the field of education, we do not understand HOW we process the data. We have figured out how our body processes our food to make energy right down to the cellular level, but do really know how the brain processes the sensory inputs to form understanding? Piaget introduce the idea of schema formation as a theory to explain this process- but is this really what happens? What have we scientifically proven today about the processing of information in the brain?

I believe that until we really understand the how, that one process that is the same in all of us, we can not really be effective in maximizing the learning experience for the student. What I see is current practice and even research is a lot of trail and error. We see something that works one on student we try it on another, we really do not understand why it works, because we do not understand the process. No different than the mechanic who does not understand how your car engine works, he might tweak this or that and your car seems to work better. But was it the best solution to the problem? You can't answer the question unless you understand the process.

In education we keep trying out things without understanding the process, and lo and behold some things work and others do not and we can never really explain why. Ask a teacher to explain why their best instructional strategy works, most will say they can't explain why, it just does.

Maybe I have missed some work in field of neuroscience that has solved the little black box riddle and if I have someone please point me in the direction of this research so I can understand the process. But this is my ultimate passion within education is to make sense of that process. Ok I will get off my soap box now.