What Our Students Need Most

The 7 Fundamental Conditions of Learning

Rob Jenkins, Presenter

• 30-year veteran of higher education

• 20 years as a mid-level administrator

• Columnist and blogger, The Chronicle of Higher Education

• Author of Building a Career in America’s Community Colleges

• Currently associate professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College

How Do Students Learn?

•Bloom’s Taxonomy•Gagne’s Learning Theory• The 7 Fundamental

Conditions of Learning

Bloom’s Taxonomy: Cognitive Domain

Comprehension

• Translation• Interpretation• Extrapolation

Knowledge

• Exhibit memory• Knowledge of specifics• Knowledge of conventions,

classifications, etc.• Knowledge of universals and

abstractions: theories, principles, structures, etc.

Application

• Solving problems• Applying acquired

knowledge

Analysis• Elements• Relationships• Organizational principles

Synthesis

• Producing unique communications

• Producing a plan or proposal

• Deriving a set of abstract relations

Evaluation

• Judging internal evidence

• Judging external criteria

Affective Domain

• Has to do with “emotional learning”• Receiving• Responding• Valuing• Organizing• Characterizing

Psychomotor

• “The ability to use sensory clues to guide motor activity”

• Perception• Set (mental, physical, emotional)• Guided response• Mechanism • Complex overt response• Adaption • Origination

Advantages of the Taxonomy

• Defines knowledge• Identified different types of

knowledge• Tells us what to teach• Tells us in what order to teach those

things

Disadvantage

While the Taxonomy does a good job telling us what to teach, it doesn’t

necessarily tell us how to teach it—or, to be more specific, what we as teachers

ought to be doing in the classroom and what conditions are necessary to learning. In other words, Bloom is focused more on

teaching than on learning.

Gagne’s Learning Theory

• Like Bloom, identifies domains• Verbal information• Intellectual skills• Motor skills• Attitude• Cognitive strategy

However, unlike Bloom…

Gagne also identifies specific conditions under which learning in the various domains can best take place. That is, he tells teachers specifically what to DO. Gagne is more learning

focused.

Gagne’s 5 Domains: What students need

• Verbal information• Intellectual skills• Motor skills• Attitude• Cognitive strategy

Verbal information

• Provide a meaningful context• Opportunity for storing and

retrieving information• Stress relationships among content• Provide opportunities for additional

practice over time

Intellectual Skills

• This take us back to Bloom• Recall of specific

prerequisite intellectual skills• That is, reviewing and

re-teaching skills as necessary

Motor Skills

• Observing of model performing skill in correct way• Opportunity to practice performing

skill• Receiving feedback on performance• Making adjustments and trying again

Attitude

• Observing model who makes desired choice

• Seeing that choice is positively reinforced

• Making desired choice

• Receiving positive reinforcement

Cognitive Strategy

• Opportunity to work with novel problems

• Monitoring their cognitions

• Allow them to observe expert problem solvers at work.

Advantages of Gagne

• Builds on Bloom• Goes a step further • Tells us more about what students need

in order to learn• Tells us more about what we ought to be

doing in the classroom

Disadvantages

• For me, still doesn’t go far enough• Good starting point, but doesn’t do enough to

tell me exactly what I need to be doing• What, specifically, do students need in order

to learn?• What can I do to establish those conditions?

The 7 Fundamental Conditions of Learning

• An attempt to build further on Bloom and Gagne

• To take their ideas and apply them directly to the college classroom

• Practical, relevant, modern• Based on my 30 years of college teaching and

attempts to apply Bloom and Gagne• Hands-on “research”• Student-centered, not teacher-centered

The Questions:

• What do conditions must be met if students are to learn?• How can I best create those

conditions?

The 7 Conditions

• Awareness• Interest• Motivation• Relevance• Engagement• Reinforcement• Support

Awareness

• Awareness of subject matter• Recognizing there is

something they need to learn• Students don’t know what

they don’t know• Teacher must open students’

eyes to fact that there’s A LOT they don’t know that might be of use to them.

Interest

• Why should students care?

• Especially difficult with required “core” courses

• Teachers must show them why and how information is meaningful—why they should care

• Otherwise, they’re unlikely to feel motivated

Motivation

• Can be a product of interest• Other types of motivation:

grades, good standing, approbation, academic acceptance

• Best type: professional standards and expectations

• That is, why is it in their best interests to learn this material?

Relevance

• Big complaint: college education is mostly theoretical

• Some theory is necessary for students to understand concepts

• Look for opportunities to connect those concepts to “real world”

• Show them how what they’re doing prepares them for career and life

Engagement

• Students who understand relevance of materials are more likely to be engaged

• Engagement means students are immersed in subject—listening, participating, reading, thinking about topics

Engagement

• Also goes beyond mere listening and thinking to doing

• Easier in some disciplines than others

Reinforcement

• Includes necessary repetition (Gagne’s “re-teaching”)• Includes assessment and subsequent

modifications to teaching• Includes motivational tactics—

positive and negative

Reinforcement

• Mostly, though, it means providing evidence that the material is actually relevant

• Outside materials, guest speakers, etc.

Support

• Not just hand-holding• OK, a certain amount of hand-holding (e.g.,

non-traditionals, first generation)• Making sure students have the tools they

need (intellectual, technical, physical)• Building an environment conducive to learning

In conclusion…

• Our quest is not to figure out how to teach best

• It’s figuring out how to create an environment and a situation where students can learn best

• It’s the quest of a lifetime, full of trial and error, failures and success

• But…

It’s well worth it!

Questions?

Contact information

Rob.Jenkins@outlook.com@HigherEdSpeakRobJenkins.com404-375-5447

Thank you for attending!