In an ever-changing landscape, a world of diversity and no boundaries… Now, more than ever do we need a powerful educational system that can produce sharp thinkers who can take us wherever the future 
holds. In a world where learning occurs everywhere, whether it’s at an institution, an occupation, you name it- people are teaching and people are learning. But I’m sure by now, you’ve noticed things don’t always go as planned. Have you ever had a time where you spent an hour learning something to forget it the next day. What about the time where no matter how hard you try, those things you cannot seem to understand. The truth is that learning is not a unidirectional process. AND believe you me, you’re going to be teaching others… make sure they actually learn.
Knowledge as a Schema
Knowledge: An individual’s understanding of a concept. Knowledge is 
no commodity, which we can pass down to others in its entirety. Instead, it should be viewed as a unique construct in an individuals mind. Check it out for yourself: Ask 10 people to describe an orange, and see if they tell you the same thing. If knowledge is a construct, then schemas are the scaffold. A schema is a cognitive structure (exist in the mind), and is the collection of facts, images and relationships regarding a topic. We can think of schemas a a web diagram, centered about a concept and the nodes are populated with bits of information that our mind uses to define the concept. Someone’s schema for an egg is shown to the left- Think what makes an “egg” and compare the words that come to your mind with this schema.
Making Connections 1 : Prior Knowledge
Learning is at it’s best when we make connections. Incoming information is juggled in the mind and we negotiate with the idea in our head for a bit (or a while) until we end up deciding what to do with it. Strong learning takes place when we connect new information with existing ideas in our head. The capacity of a student to make connections depends on prior knowledge on the subject and whether the learning approach is passive or active. Prior knowledge has a major impact on a student’s pick-up. Incoming ideas enter the working memory. From there, it can get stored in long term memory where it is incorporated into a schema. An individual who is familiar with the subject is able to make connections to existing schema, store the information effectively and demonstrate a thorough understanding. Otherwise, the information appears fragmented, neither grasped nor retained. Imagine learning genetics without knowing what DNA is or what a protein does, it will be a struggle!! Prior knowledge is an important consideration when teaching to newcomers- what topics can I cover, what approaches should I take, how long do we need to spend. Diving into a new topic carelessly won’t do your students a favor… and you’ll be frustrated when no one seems to learn a darn thing.
Making Connections 2: Active Learning
We learn in our heads, and in learning, like in many other things- a meaningful focused effort goes a long way. This is where notions of active and passive learning come into play. In a holistic view, we can define active learning based on the degree to which learners involve themselves. Active learning contains discussion, experimentation, problem solving and abstraction. It moves beyond taking notes and reciting details- active learning is about comprehending a topic and appreciating the significance and workings behind a concept. Active/passive often gets lumped with deep and surface learning- and they do share similarities. Deep learning is gradual, laborious, involves relating new concepts to existing ones and understanding the symbolism and notions underlying the concept at hand. Active learning styles lead to deep learning. 
Constructivism
Everything I have talked about so far leads to the idea of constructivism: knowledge is constructed in the mind of an individual, tempered by one’s beliefs, background, existing knowledge and biases. As teachers, we cannot simply expect our ideas to get across- we must do more. More important than presenting information, is ensuring that students are able to develop it for themselves. This is where our active learning approaches come into play- put the student at the center of learning and find ways to engage them with the material. Ask and field questions, hold discussions, give open-ended projects, the whole works.
“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.”
Admittedly, constructivistic learning is slow and can be a real challenge to implement in a world where time is limited. That’s where it becomes a judgement call- which topics should I employ constructivistic approaches and which one’s can I lean on more traditional approaches. At the end of a day, having this approach in one’s teaching toolbox will only elevate the classroom.
Misconceptions
I just wanted to spend some time on misconceptions, and hopefully shed some light on when we have trouble shedding light. A misconception is a misalignment between an individual’s knowledge and the general body of knowledge. For example, a student once said, “since nitrogen gas is more dense than hydrogen- a mole of nitrogen gas occupies less volume than a mole of hydrogen gas.” Misconceptions are notoriously hard to detect, hard to correct and occur very easily. Misconceptions typically arise from commonsense reasoning: We associate events to a higher goal (teleology), speak in terms of A caused B (causality), tend towards single explanations (parsimony) and focus on proximity and personal experiences. However, things in nature don’t follow common sense: Gravity pulls the earth toward me, metals react with acids just as equally as acids react with metals, atoms neither expand nor contract with temperature, the list goes forever. ID’ing a student’s misconception can be troublesome, we need to evaluate how students reason and figure out where they are getting tripped up. Correcting misconceptions is challenging- someone is used to thinking in a distinct manner, we cannot abolish this viewpoint in one fell swoop.
As teachers or as students, when we appreciate the nuances of learning; we are enabled to higher planes. As time goes, it will be interesting what else we uncover about the learning process. The classroom is changing just as quickly as the world.
Pictures taken from:
1.https://janelleacharles.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/screen-shot-2013-12-22-at-3-33-08-
2. http://teorije-ucenja.zesoi.fer.hr/doku.php?id=learning_theories:schema_theorypm.png
3.http://slideplayer.com/slide/220822/.
Useful links:
- Cross, Patricia K. “Learning Is About Making Connections” The Cross Papers Number 3 1999. League for Innovation in the Community College, 1999. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED4323314.
- Perkins, D. “The Many Faces of Constructivism.” Educational Leadership, 1999, 57 (3), 6-11.
- Johnstone, A.J. “Chemistry Teaching – Science or Alchemy?”, Journal of Chemical Education, 1997 74 (3), 262-268
- Talanquer, V. “Commonsense chemistry: A model for understanding students’ alternative conceptions.” J. Chem. Ed., 2006, 83(5), 811-816
- Lubin, J. “Deep, surface and strategic approaches to learning. Good Practice in Teaching and Learning. “University College Dublin, 2003
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