#synthesising

Someone recently asked me to name the top five things that I believe make a successful learner. I really tried to make it five. But I couldn’t. After the conversation I had with this person, I felt I had an important blog post to write. So, here we go...

1. Self regulation

This is where learners set goals, implement strategies, monitor their own learning progress, and modify their strategies when they believe they are not effective. Another feature of self regulation is an emphasis on intrinsic motivation, whereby the learner is self motivated and finds meaning in what they are doing. Discipline could certainly fall under this area as well but I felt it deserved to stand alone this time around.

2. Taking risks 

Taking risks and experiencing both failure and success are important aspects of learning and achievement. All students need a safe and supportive environment to do this in. Scaffolding learning is one way to reinforce taking risks and dealing with failure. Praise for effort regardless of outcome is important. 

3. Discipline

Discipline is so essential to learning. All students at some time must be able to draw upon this strength, particularly when responding to deadlines, exam pressures and when they come across subject material that is difficult. Discipline to me involves developing routines around learning or study and being consistent. 

4. Coping skills & resilience

Considered by me to be the doyenne of learning and success in life, developing positive coping skills and being resilient will never fail any student. No matter how hard something is, no matter how pointless something may seem, you keep going. Coping with study demands, exam pressures, meeting expectations, struggling with content all require the resilient student. Coping with change and adaptation are important markers for a successful student. 

Being resilient means finding and taking advantage of opportunities to develop social skills whilst also engaging explicitly with the key areas of emotional literacy, decision-making, problem-solving, positive self-regard, stress management, positive coping, help-seeking and peer support. These areas of resilience support development of key skills students require to lead balanced and happy lives. 

5. Synthesis & sharing what you have learned

After decades of teaching and providing learning support I have observed that synthesis is really about understanding and being able to apply what one has learned. This is vital and for me, I believe learning is pointless if a student does not comprehend what they have learned nor can they utilise it. One social aspect of learning that seems never written or spoken about is the time when students then go on to share what they have learned with others. I have come to believe that this aspect of the learning process (and learning is a process not an outcome) is an important final step. Synthesis has truly occurred and the success is reinforced. 

Synthesising looks like this: 

Students build a structure or pattern from diverse elements; it also refers to the act of putting parts together to form a whole. Compiling information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions. 

Production of a unique communication 

Production of a plan, or a proposed set of operations 

Derivation of a set of abstract relations

Questions that look like: 

Convert an unhealthy recipe for apple pie to a healthy recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients. Explain the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose vs. the original ones.

6. Commitment

Finally, this is a big one. Commitment has to come from the student, which means he or she must find their learning meaningful. They must make their own choices at some point. They must be intrinsically motivated. Parental modelling of this kind of behaviour is important in a student’s environment. Setting goals but also establishing boundaries goes a long way to reinforcing healthy student commitment.  

You may have noticed how some of these aspects overlap or seem to be saying  something similar. You would be right. However, each aspect is also important in its own right and together, when combined, create a positive and happy student and much success. 

Hey, Elle Exxe has a gift for you all: a free download of her newest track!

We saw the sweet, lovey-dovey stuff on her previous single ‘Home With You,’ but now it’s seriously time to rock. ‘Synthesising’ tears shit up with its bruising riffs and unforgiving drum tread, while Elle shows she has some decent rock grit underneath all that neon as she lets out an incredible snarl of a vocal while revelling in her usual infectious bravado. Absolutely killer...

Get your free download of ‘Synthesising’ from Elle Exxe’s site.

Image retrieved from: http://blog.openhelix.eu/?p=3467

WHAT EXPERT TEACHERS DO: SYNTHESISING (CH. 8)

Synthesis is the process of putting all the component parts of a larger concept together to create an intelligible whole, much like assembling a puzzle pieces together.  In bringing the component parts together, the student creates a new idea and extends his or her knowledge.  

Teaching procedures that Loughran suggests to encourage synthesizing that we have explored already in CURR 303 include the jigsaw groupwork method, and the postbox procedure.  Procedures presented in this chapter that are of particular interest to me and that I would like to try to incorporate into my future teaching practice include: learning from discussion, and design and create a learning artifact.

In the learning from discussion procedure, students keep a running list of issues raised during a class discussion and then analyze that data to form conclusions.  They can also keep a list of questions that they feel were not addressed by the discussion that they think are important to reaching a logical conclusion.

In my past teaching experience I have had some success with class discussions, but, as Loughran mentions, I have worried that the students have not linked those discussions with learning.  The learning from discussion procedure provides a simple way to consolidate students learning after a class discussion, as well as encourage synthesizing, and is something I am eager to try with my future students.

Sonar | Fetching Music from the Globe

Elle Exxe - SYNTHESISING