It's been almost two months since I began my journey at HGSE, and they've been full of reflection. In this first post, I want to make sense of those learnings and connect the ideas that stood out the most.
Over the past few weeks, three questions kept circling in my head:
- What does it mean to learn?
- How do people learn best?
- What is the role of design in helping people learn?
From kindergarten through grade 12, I was always seen as an "excellent learner." Over time I adopted that identity too, partly because of how others saw me and partly because my scorecard told the same story. But in my head it never quite fit, because learning was neither easy nor enjoyable for me. I often found it difficult and scary, and I was forever trying to keep those grades up.
I had misunderstood the whole idea of learning.
The approach to learning
Looking back, my understanding of what it meant to be a good learner was distorted. Did I ace my exams? Yes. Was I really learning? No. I was memorising concepts and pushing information into long-term memory through retrieval, interleaving, and other techniques, so I could reproduce it on demand. But I wasn't making meaning, or connecting any of it to my own context and what I already knew.
The approach to teaching
Most of my classes followed a behaviourist approach. I was tested for knowledge, and sometimes understanding, but rarely for any higher-order thinking. Learning meant sitting in a room, listening to a lecture, and taking notes, with no real chance to interact with or learn from my peers. When I didn't understand something, I just assumed I wasn't working hard enough.
So, what is learning?
Learning is a prolonged, complex phenomenon. It happens when we take in information through our senses, build on top of what we already know, and manipulate that new information to make connections or form new ideas.
How do people learn best?
People learn best in all sorts of ways: by actively engaging with new information, having meaningful discussions, building things, reflecting on their own understanding, tinkering with tools, running experiments. I don't believe there's a foolproof, one-size-fits-all method. Each of us is unique in how we learn, whether it's our preferred mode, our ideal environment, or the time of day, and it can even change with the subject. The key is understanding those factors and figuring out what works for you.
How do we design for it?
Each learner is unique, and so is every learning experience. As we design, we have to think hard about what the learner needs, how to engage all of them, and how to simplify information so they can make meaning and build expertise. In learning design, context is key, and the learner sits at the centre of everything we make.