Posted: September 13th, 2017

What is meant by the term 'learning to learn' and why is it important to succeed at university?

What is meant by the term ‘learning to learn’ andwhy is it important to succeed at university?

Learning is merely the method in which people engage in the act of absorbing knowledge and as you have new experiences that you take in and reflect on them.Whilst people are doing this, they are blending these experiences with existing concepts and over time form new concepts that they can then apply.As a person you test the new concepts you have applied on a day to day basis as you use them in subsequent situations (AIU Online, 2005).All people learn differently and do not approach learning the same way. A prime example, in a group of three, two people has the convergers learning style while the other has the assimilator learning style.

Convergers and assimilators both have a similar way of thinking, the abstract conceptualization. However, they remain different in multiple ways (AIU Online, 2005).Convergers enjoy doing hands on or active experimentation, excel in areas such as laboratories, homework and field work. They are very inquisitive, while assimilators learn by watching, reflecting and observing, they usually excel in papers, lectures and analogies. Assimilators like to make a connection as to how the things they are learning relate. (Betcher & Esichaiku, 2008) Although there are an incredible amount of differences in learning styles.Different learning styles often make it difficult to learn immediately in a wide range of different courses and can be even more frustrating when your lecturer has a particular teaching approach. Covering a variety of learning and motivational tasks such as over coming procrastination, managing your life and becoming more responsible, build your self-confidence, always prepare for exams, learn from text and lectures.
Bandura and McClelland (1965 & 1979) suggest the use of strategies as above increase learners motivation and achievement.

Garcia and Pintrich (1994) offered a framework for self-regulation at the higher education level that includes both a cognitive and motivational component as well as two influential sources such as beliefs and knowledge, and strategies. Bandura’s (1977) perception of common determinism, the conjointly interactive relationship between thoughts, environmental consequences and behaviours. The perception of changing the intentionality of other peoples actions (Graham, 1997). Robinson’s (1961) prominence on asking the question of the approach in teaching students to extract the meaning from a particular text. As well as Mayer’s (1989) identifying the value of conceptual models that visualize the ways of problem solving. The learning and motivational strategies stated above were taught to the students at a larger Midwestern university.

Even though they have many differences academic researcher and educational practitioners agree on a largely broad goal which is, to develop students thinking skills which will prepare them to contribute to a higher democratic society. However the two groups speak very different languages. Educators mainly talk about critical thinking and analysis as on objective, most researchers have largely avoided the term, preferring goals that can be easily measured. Cognition and learning has a very large growth now in learning and education, that teachers would also benefit from because of the understandings of the mechanisms involved in metacognition and how best to foster it. This is a vitally important point for educators in higher education learning as they spend a large amount of time on topics like critical thinking and analysis. The educational goals of practioners can be traced back all the way back to 1820 (Thomas Jefferson).

The cognitive skills that educators find under the critical thinking and analysing are amenable to empirical research. It is possible to learn about the development of their nature as a whole. In the research they examined the two major families of educational skills of argument and inquiry. In disparity to elementary skills such a numbers or classification that come into view in all regular children among their earlier years in life. Argument and inquiry do not necessarily develop as skills until a much later point in their life as an adolescent. Researchers made the attempt to study the development of the two skills, argument and inquiry in people whilst other adolescent developments were taking place. A foundation of inquiry is the basis of a thesis, or even a question and potentially evidence that depends on it. There are always new things to find out and discover. Entertaining a thesis that is known as being possible to disconfirm by rudimentary evidence reflects skill in coordinating evidence and theory.

Skills of argument have not received anywhere near as much attention than those of inquiry, they are however still just as important. Arguing is not born as a skill in a child it is developed over time as they grow. Argument research has previously shown that young adolescents do not struggle when they need a claim they have stated to be supported, when debating with someone with an opposing view, however they find that the difficulty has in fact increased when attempting to support their claim and argument (Kuhn & Felton, 2001). Adolescents have appeared to interpret the goal of argument dissertation as dominant against their opposition. If the adolescent becomes successful in what they are attempting to achieve they undermine their opponent’s position.

The commonly known definition of critical thinking are wide ranging as well as numerous. However a non-controversial claim that can be made about critical thinking is that it entails the awareness from your own thinking and reflection of thinking of others not just only yourself. Metacognition, a construct that is increasingly the centre of cognitive research (Robinson, 1961). Metacognition develops in early life as a young child, when they start to become aware of the people around them and themselves their intellectual skills are developing. Although typically they don’t reach the level we assume or hope that they will. Preschool aged children are what are called realists, they observe and explain everything exactly how they see it in their own mind.

A particular way you can support the development of metacognitive development is encouraging adolescents or young students to evaluate and reflect the activities they are and get involved in and question themselves as to why they are involved in these activities also the purpose of these activities. Another well-known source of metacognitive development is the declarative or procedural. The latter involves ones broader understanding of critical thinking. The epistemological understanding has previously been studied for the understanding and thinking development (Kuhn & Dean, 2004). Epistemological is the further out branch of philosophy that is mostly concerned with the nature and the view of knowledgeand has also been known as “theory of knowledge”. It regularly questions what knowledge is and how it can be improved and acquired. Much of the this field has focused on the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to and connects to other questioned notions such as the following truth, belief, and even justification. Philosopher Simon Blackburn has criticized this formula by suggesting that we are not wanting to accept as knowledge beliefs and are not held for appropriate reasons. He quotes that “we do not want to award the title of knowing something to someone who is only meeting the conditions through a defect, flaw, or failure, compared with someone else who is not meeting the conditions.” (Simon Blackburn, 1991) Further progress in epistemological which can be thought of as an extra task has been previous characterized as coordinating the subjective along with the objective and the elements of knowing.

In summary, I have argued that, learning to learn is a huge part of our lives and that it is open to all, Critical thinking needs to become a stronger pushed point in all education systems as without it we cannot contributeto a higher quality in society as in necessary due to the growing reliance on standardized testing of basic cognitive skills. We need to improve the definition of what it is and means to be a highly educated person. However educators are frequently discouraged for facing challenges and appreciating the importance of evidence as a basic for policies. Each year less cognitive development researchers are remaining content and preoccupied with smaller goals ignoring the larger and more important issues.
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