Week 1

In reading the first chapter of How People Learn, what seemed to stand out the most was the distinction between teaching and learning.  Effective teaching can only happen if actual learning is occurring.  Moreover, what learning requires these days is much more sophisticated than in previous times—mostly, because the emphasis has shifted from “knowing” (i.e., acquisition or memorization) to understanding.

Drawing upon this idea of understanding, the textbook provides an example of how students’ previous knowledge influences how they learn.  The example of Leo Lionni’s children’s book, Fish Is Fish, is meant to illustrate how people’s preconceptions inform their learning experiences.  In Lionni’s book, the fish character imagines his tadpole friend’s descriptions in terms of what he knows—which is to say, fish.  This was probably my favorite example included in the reading, because it made sense in terms of my own personal learning style.  When reading a book I imagine settings in terms of the places I have been, characters in terms of the people I have known, etc.

My last thoughts on Chapter 1 are on metacognition, or knowing about knowing.  The authors stressed the importance of not following a “one-size-fits-all” sort of rhetoric for learning.  Obviously, different disciplines require different approaches. For librarians, I think this is an important idea to bear in mind, as user requests for information are extremely varied in scope and topic.

Considering the differences between novice- or expert-level as discussed in Chapter 2, I take into account my experiences in SI 502, a recent technology courses I took.  One of the primary objectives of the class is to introduce students to basic computer programming through the Python language.  For me, not having a preexisting framework for understanding Python made understanding how to program difficult.  I didn’t always “get” why certain syntax rules or structures had to exist, and I had certain preconceptions of my own from which I probably needed to be disengaged.

Finally, after reading ALA’s Core Competences of Librarianship, I was immediately struck by how diverse the set of core competences are.  In particular, though, I found the 5^th section, Reference and User Services, to be the most interesting.  I was originally attracted to librarianship because it is socially aware and community driven—so no surprise that I think how librarians interact with their patrons is of key importance.