So I probably should have blogged about dewey before Shirky, but better late than never right?! I love Dewey's points about active learning verses passive learning. Active learning has to be something you comprehend, which means there have had to be a reflection on what you have analyzed. Teachers giving out notes and having students memorize them is not an active way to learn because the students cannot reflect on what they have memorized. All they know is that blank happened because of blank, or this war happened and this time, but unless you really understand why something happened, or works you aren't learning anything. You can learn more by asking yourself why? Without reflection, there is only memorizing, not comprehending. This was my biggest problem in school. I am a fantastic memorizer, and I definitely used that to my advantage! All of my tests were mostly multiple choice due to the amount of people in my class. I could memorize everything in 2 days and pass with flying colors. If you asked me to retake the test a few weeks later without revisiting my notes... I most likely would do worse, which meant I didn't learn anything. When you reflect and comprehend something, forgetting does not happen. Now my memorizing talent got a little shoo-kin up when it came to science classes like physiology because you needed to really understand how one part worked in order to understand how the next part was going to work. Even in my Anatomy class though a lot of it was memorization. There was so much memorization packed into the class in a semester that passing the class with full understanding of the human body definitely did not happen. I believe that when reflecting you also come up with things that you were unaware that you understand, or learned.
In conclusion, active learning > passive learning. Reflection is key to comprehending which is the key to learning.
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