Learning according to the Learning Curriculum

Dr. Elger’s Learning Curriculum defines learning as, “the process of becoming better at something that is useful.” The curriculum explains that learning requires certain things: (1) that the thing being learned is useful, (2) that improvement is occurring, and (3) that the learner is engaged in learning.

Recommendation for Improving Definition
Although, the definition displayed in the Learning Curriculum is wonderfully short and to-the-point, I would highly recommend adding the word “active” before “process”, making the definition, “the active process of becoming better at something that is useful.” Although this may seem like an insignificant change, it makes a large difference because learning is an active process and not a passive one. I have tried numerous different ways of learning things, even going so far as to try the learn-by-osmosis-with-a-book-under-the-pillow trick (it didn't work), and one thing that has been apparent to me over and over again (especially right after trying to sleep with a book under my pillow) is that learning is active. There is no osmosis-learning. There is no passive learning. Even babies trying to learn to walk and talk do so because they really want to “come to mommy” and because they want to mommy to understand what they need. They are active in becoming better at something useful. This is supported by the Learning Curriculum itself when it points out that engagement, i.e. actions of reading, listening, practicing, making mistakes and fixing them, etc., is a major part of learning. Thus, putting the word “active” into the Learning Curriculum’s definition of learning, would improve the clarity and fullness of the definition.


Learning and Competent Professionals

The main reason why competent professionals are really good at learning to learn is because they have made a conscious decision to be a learner. Being an active process, learning requires a mindful commitment on the part of the learner before that person can really learn and become competent. Being good at learning is relevant to being a competent professional in a number of ways. According to the Learning Curriculum, being competent means one has “the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to do something successfully”. Most of us, when we have done something successfully (e.g. played a hard piece on the violin, used parry counter-six riposte in fencing, started a fire with flint and steel, etc), think that we have learned that ‘thing’ and are competent in it. This idea, then, of needing to be good at learning to learn in order to be a competent professional might seem foreign to us, since often we think that if we are “competent” we have already learned what we needed to learn. When we really think about it, however, we realize that we can all learned how to do things better. We can always learn how to play the hard violin piece better (even Itzhak Perlman isn't perfect), become more effective with parry counter-six riposte, and start fires with flint and steel in worse conditions. This is why being good at learning is so relevant to being a competent professional; if a person is constantly working to get better and better or they will truly be competent.


Getting and Education According to ABET

According to ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), an engineer who really has an education excels in a list of twelve “competencies”. These competencies are as follows (these are based on Dr. Elger’s notes, which are his “translation” of the original ABET language into a more user-friendly language):

1. I get my knowledge down (i.e. know my stuff)

2. I build math models and know how to use them to solve real-world problems

3. I practice experiment design and use it to get valid data.

4. I design successful products/systems in their ability to do a task and in their marketability (i.e. successful in the marketplace).

5. I am a real team-player.

6. I can take a vague, complex, mixed-up problem and clarify, organize, and crack it.

7. I behave in a professional and ethical manner.

8. I am an effective communicator

9. I am able to connect and apply my solutions to the real world.

10. I learn and grow on my own without needing others to push me, and I have fun doing it.

11. I am knowledgeable on current societal issues and incorporate them into my work.

12. I use modern technologies and engineering techniques.


Getting an Education According to Me 

Education is an extremely broad term that can be applied to anything from pig farming to neural surgery. In all of these areas education is required in order to be able to do things successfully in that field (i.e. be competent). A pig farmer must be educated in pigs in order to be able to run a healthy and efficient farm. Similarly, a neural surgeon must also be well educated in order to perform successful operations. So how does one define what “getting and education” means? It is apparent that it must require learning how to do the basics in that field (e.g. the farmer must learn what things are healthy for pigs, when to butcher, etc), but it must also have to do with providing something for others (e.g. meat from the pig farmer, health from the neural surgeon). Additionally, the person must be able to learn without being pushed and have basic life skills (i.e. problem solving, knowledge construction, etc). Thus, I would define “getting an education” to be the process of acquiring the information and skills necessary to be successful in one’s field, provide useful products/services, and to learn how to learn. This definition is far from perfect, but it is a start.

Simple Way to Measure Getting and Education 
From what I have seen, a simple way to tell if you are really getting an education or not, is to try to apply your “education” and solve real-world problems.

What I Want Out of My Education
A fear that I had coming into college was that, in the end, my degree would be just a piece of paper, that I would not really come out knowing how to engineer things. Sadly, my first few semesters did not help this fear. I learned calculus, some physics, and chemistry, and yet I didn't know how to apply it. My older brother, who has a liberal arts degree, is much more of an engineer than I am, always thinking up new designs for things and researching how to build them and make things better. He really knows how to learn. He would share his ideas with me, and I, even though I have a higher “education” in mathematics and science than he has, would feel like I was talking to an engineering professor. One thing that I want from my education is to be able to apply what I have learned (i.e. engineering knowledge, math models, experiment design, life skills, etc.) to real world problems like my brother does. I want to have an “education” like his.


Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is the brains ability to change due to experiences, in other words, the biological process of the brain “learning”. Apparently, when learning is happening, dendrites (connection structures on the neurons on the brain) grow and make more connections with other dendrites. The more experiences a person undergoes the more the growth of the dendrites and the greater the learning. That is why being active in learning (applying things, repetition, putting the time in, etc) is so important. It is part of a biological process. In my own experience, I have found that I can tell how much I am learning something simply by how I look at the rest of the world. For example, this semester in school I am taking two classes that deal heavily with analyzing the forces on objects (one dealing with objects in motion and the other with stationary objects). It seemed strange to me at first, but I started seeing the force of friction everywhere; in cars, on bicycles, coffee cups, books, gravel, frying pans, etc… What I think is happening, is that, having spent hours learning these concepts (e.g. friction), the dendrites in my brain have grown and made more connections, causing me to see more connections in the world around me.


Carol Dweck’s Mindset Theory 

Carol Dweck, a Stanford researcher, has proposed a Mindset Theory in which she concludes that there are two basic types of mindsets that people can have: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Accordingly, there are some behaviors that characterize people, indicating which mindset they have. People with a fixed mindset (the larger group) put a high premium on “looking good”. Their main goals are to get good grades, have high status, own nice stuff, have lots of money, etc… Hence, they tend to only do things they know they can do it, or, if they give up on something, they tend to blame it on talent, i.e. “I am just not talented in that area”. Because their focus in on outward appearance, they easily get jealous of others who do better than them. Contrastingly, a much smaller percentage of people have the growth mindset. These people tend to have a much greater motivation to get good at things, don’t mind looking like beginners, consider “failure” part of the learning process, and actually seek out people who are better at something than they are in order to learn from them. In short, the fixed mindset put others in charge of your actions (worried about what others think) where the growth mindset puts you in charge of your actions (worried about what is the right thing to do).

Which Mindset Used by Greats?
The growth mindset is held by many of the most successful men and women in the world. The Wright brothers weren't worried about what others thought of them. Instead, they used their mistakes to grow, and, in the end, they became the men who invented human powered flight! Thomas Edison, another man with the growth mindset, once said, “Results! Why man, I have gotten lots of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.”


My Explanation of the “Beliefs-to-Results Chain” (BRC) 

The Beliefs-to-Results Chain (B.R.C.) is an interesting (and thought-provoking) idea. The chain almost models a simple function (i.e. I put in certain beliefs and get certain results out) with one significant exception: my results are dependent not only on my beliefs but also on my actions. The chain is as follows: Beliefs ==> Thoughts ==> Emotions ==> Actions ==> Results. The idea is that my results are based off of my actions, which are based off of my emotions, which are based off of my thoughts, which come from my beliefs. This “hierarchy” effect means that in order to change my results I need to change my beliefs. An interesting thing to note in this chain is that, while thoughts, emotions, actions, and results are all dependent on my beliefs, my actions are also dependent on my skills. In other words, my end results are not only affected by my beliefs, but also my skills.

Competent Professionals and BRC
Competent professionals can use this beliefs-to-results chain to improve their results and have more fun, by constantly analyzing their beliefs in light of this chain. For example, if a professional is not getting the results he wants from a meeting, he should ask himself questions to find out what results he was looking for and use that to find out why he wanted those results (his beliefs). Knowing his beliefs, he can then analyze them to see if they are correct, because it is possible that his result were right and his beliefs wrong. Changing his beliefs may give him a breakthrough and allow him to see the real way to solve the problem, etc. When this happens, not only does it help solve the problem quicker for the professional, but it gives him more enjoyment too. It is a blast when you “stuff” works!


Anders Ericcson’s Theory of Deliberate Practice 

Through many years of violin practice, something that was always drilled into me was you don’t learn a piece well by seeing how fast you can play it. What allowed you to learn a piece well was how correctly you played it. Since the best way to play it correctly was to play it slowly over and over, it became apparent that in order to learn a piece well, I would have to dedicate hours of practice playing each part over and over until it became “second nature”. This illustrates the fact that the more we practice fundamentals (correctly), the more they become embedded into our brain and the better we are able to do them. How are we to know if we are practicing well, though? The best way is to have someone who is really good at what you are trying to learn (e.g. superb violinist), have them show you the correct way to do it, and then come back to them and show them how you are doing it to make sure you are doing it right and for corrections. In visual form, deliberate practice looks like this:


Figure out how pros do ‘it” (e.g. play the violin) ==>   Practice   ==>   Get feedback (from peers, pros, etc)

Competent Professionals and Deliberate Practice 
Competent professional might use this process any number of ways to help themselves or their teams. Since competent professionals are always working on getting better at things, it is only natural that they would find others who are better in a specific way than they are (or their team is) and see what it is that those other people do to be so successful. After find out what it is, they would practice it; following up their practice with getting feedback in order grow. This is a general overview of deliberate practice.