Learn By Exploring
Overview
Exploring is how humans (and other animals) learn. Trying new approaches is sometimes necessary. Trial and error can often be helpful.
This exercise is aimed at all levels of my math curriculum at Renton Technical College. A big challenge for many new or unexperienced students is the meta-process of learning. Many students, if not most, have learned by seeing and copying what they've been shown or told to do. Exploring by trying new things, whether clicking on buttons or drop-down menus, or by examining an object like a car engine is the blueprint for life-long learning. This exercise was created as part of our fulfillment for our school's grant from OSPI.
Learn By Exploring
- Think back to a time when you first had to fix something. Maybe it was your bicycle, or your car, or heater, or a door, or a phone, or anything that you needed to fix. In the space below, tell what it was it that needed fixing.
- In the space below, write down a short description of how you approached the problem (what did you do to fix it?).
- If you were successful in fixing it, what did you learn? In the space below, write a short description of what it was that you learned.
- Now, think about another time when you had to fix another problem. Did the first problem come to mind when you thought about fixing the new problem (yes or no)?
- If the earlier problem came to mind when you tried to solve the later problem, did it help? (If the problem had nothing to do with the earlier problem, then just write N/A)
- If the later problem had nothing to do with the earlier problem, what did you do to fix the later problem?
- Now, think about your lifetime of dealing with different types of problems, can you describe any pattern of how you’ve learned to deal with those problems?
- Have the patterns that you’ve learned to use to solve problems helped you with school (yes or no)?
- If those patterns helped you, describe how they helped (if not, skip to 10).
10) If those patterns didn’t help, describe why they didn’t help.
Learning is about exploring and trying new things as well as those things we already know. When we’re confronted with unfamiliar things, we think about what we already know. If we can apply previous process successfully, then that will suffice. However, when the demand for a new process confronts us, we need to learn about it in a manner similar to how we learned other things in the past. It’s this meta-process, a basic process applicable in most circumstances, that lets us get beyond where we’re at and solve unfamiliar problems.
Often, we need to look up information to solve problems. Learning to find what we need is a very useful skill. However, just finding answers that exist on the internet or elsewhere will not always be sufficient to get the answers we need. This is when we need to explore.
As an example, when we’re using a program like Word or Excel, we often need to look things up at first. Once we know the layout of the program, we can use our knowledge of the overall structure to find functions that control what we need. Just knowing that drop-down menus give us options for what we can do gives us a start on how to get where we need to be within a program. After we’ve used a few different programs and apps, we start to notice a pattern of how these programs and apps are designed and how they work. When we do this, we’re using what we have learned, but until we’ve explored and looked things up we won’t have this knowledge.
At our college, we use Canvas and ctcLink. At first we might find these programs confusing, but as we explore them, we learn how to use them. Some instructors have a lot of different items that need to be done for the class, and sometimes knowing what to do next or how to do it can be confusing. We can explore the course by clicking on various buttons and links to see what they do or where they take us. Doing this helps us become more confident of working in different environments. Of course, we should contact our instructor for clarification if, after a few tries, we are still unsure.
Finally, exploring requires time and energy. When we’re out of time or energy, we should contact the instructor to let them know that we need a bit more time to complete an assignment or project. Most instructors are flexible because they know that work and family and emergencies can get in the way of successfully completing the assignment or project. So, communicating with your instructor is very important. It helps them to help you.