Passive+Learning+Snopes

Myth: Learning is the transfer of knowledge from a teacher to a passive learner..

According to (1938), the traditional view of learning is that learning occurs through the transfer of information from knowledgeable sources (textbooks or elders) and from one whom is more informed to the passive recipient. The information received is then stored until it needs to be sourced out for a particular reason. As teachers, we are given a curriculum that has all the content and strategies in which we should relate the information to our students. In a sense... that makes us robots, we read the almighty teacher's manual and then relay that information to our students who are blank canvases ready to take in all that we are going to give them. The learning opportunities have already been determined. Additionally, it is most commonly found, especially in higher education, where students have a difficult time focusing on class lectures. Throughout the duration of a class, students are concentrating on memorizing the facts rather than taking in the knowledge and using it for higher cognitive processes ([|Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991)].

However, due to an accelerating pace of a changing and unknown world, our learners must be equipped with skills that are at a level of mastery. Learning is occurring faster and being able to solve problems creatively and analyze situations logistically is becoming knowledge that one must be certain in. Furthermore, our young children are becoming familiar with technology at younger ages, making them "digital natives" who are able to process information in a random manner rather than in a linear way. Check out this Vision of the 21st century student...

media type="youtube" key="_A-ZVCjfWf8" height="315" width="420"

[|The National Research Council] holds a contemporary view of learning which approaches the science of learning of allowing children to take control of their own learning; engaging in active learning, meta-cognition, and the transfer of knowledge. This newer approach allows students to apply concepts to real word contexts, which then allows for opportunities for learning in and out of the classroom. Active learning students are becoming constructors or their own and others' knowledge as it is a participatory form of education. As a teacher you create conditions that allow for the students to take charge of their own learning- moving well past the role of being a passive learner and a note-taker. "Active learning involves students in doing things and in thinking about what they are doing." [|Bonwell and Eison (1991)].

Active learning has been around since the hunter/gatherer society, where young members learned how to survive by studying the movements of their elders. Other educational philosophers such as Rosseau, Dewey, Piaget, and Kolb have advocated active learning as well through play and practical sensory experiences to promise complex intellectual constructs and abstract reasoning. Active learning includes a variety of teaching methods such as small group discussion, cooperative learning, role playing, and hands-on projects ([|www.lookstein.org]) When these teaching methods are embedded within the culture of a classroom and school, students are not only engaging in the active learning process, but they are //becoming// active learners. When an individual is engaged in their learning, the knowledge and information they are gathering is meaningful and therefore gets stored within our long-term memory, a storage space that houses all connected learning that will be readily available for one to call upon when the time is needed.

We are active learners and we are life-long learners as we learn from the company we keep (Smith, 1998).

__Sources (all are linked above, except Smith):__ [] [] [] [] __The Book of Learning and Forgetting__, Frank Smith (1998)

"Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life" by Robert J. Sternberg & Scott A. Snok plus 6 other authors is a good reference for your topic.
 * Jonathan: