Meaningful Learning

Meaningful Learning

In my experience, there isn’t one set way that people learn.  Just because I need to take notes and read back over the chapter to fully grasp the material doesn’t mean that the person sitting across from me learns the same way.  She may grasp everything just by listening or by drawing a mental image of the material in her head.  I do, however, think that people generally learn by relating the subject back to something that they already have prior knowledge about or to anything that interests them.  Doing so will minimize the disequilibrium the learner feels when trying to grasp a new subject so he or she will not be discouraged in the process.  And if the subject matter doesn’t seem relevant to that person’s goals, the student will not have the motivation to learn about it.  Also, at least for me, learning is a trial and error process.  If you don’t get it right the first time, try again.  You can not only learn from your own mistakes but also from the people around you.