What is learning?

Learning is a construction process radically affected by interactions, backgrounds, languages, understandings, connections, experiences, cultures, actions,  multimedia, locale, emotions, relationships, gestures, materials, opportunities, and engagement.  In order to understand learning, it is important to think about all the different ways that our lives are affected by each interaction and also to understand that we are always changing--this results in learning.  Every interaction results in some form of learning-doesn't it?  I touch the stove and get burned; I learn to be more careful.  My grandmother comments that the length of my skirt is "interesting"; I learn that she doesn't approve of my dress and that I need to watch what I wear around her.

Whitmore, Martens, Goodman & Owocki (2005) write about Transactional Theory in literacy learning.  This theory helps me think about learning. They write that;

"The fundamental ideas of a transactional theory are defined by the work of John Dewey and Louise Rosenblatt and further informed by Kenneth Goodman’s language development and L. S. Vygotsky’s learning theories. Dewey (1938) says that, “An experience is always what it is because of a transaction taking place between an individual and what, at the time constitutes his environment” (p. 43). Rosenblatt (1976) adds that transaction is a poem—“the interrelationship between the knower and what is to be known” (p. 27). A transactional view of reading and writing means that we see literacy as a meaning construction process, and that within a given literacy event, both the text and the reader/ author are changed."  

I think my ideas around learning are informed by a transactional view of learning that demands words like transactional, interrelationship, meaning construction, process, and changing. Whitmore et. al., (2005) write that Vygotsky says learning begins long before school, meaning all school learning must be viewed as a continuation of a previous learning history. A critical feature of Vygotsky’s view of learning as it affects transactional theory is that learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that operate only when children are interacting with people in their environments and in cooperation with their peers.

I created a pictorial representation of my early thinking about learning, each sector represents another area of learning that is important. The reason that the list won't do on it's own is that it neglects the interconnectedness and action between and among the sectors.  Only a visual can show that. Currently, the seven sectors include:

1. We learn by doing, trying, making mistakes, having fun, and engaging in activities and with materials. Learning is active and involves doing something.
2. Learning is Social.  We learn with others who are experts or learning with us.  We learn with our peers through play, talk, listening, feedback, and their reactions to our lives.
3. We learn through interactions with multimedia like tv, books, computers, music, lyrics, billboards, visual images, video, movies, pop culture and more.
4. Learning is environmental and depends on spaces and places.  It is affected by nature, cultures, experiences and languages.
5. Learning is fluid, ongoing, relentless, and always changing us. It begins at birth and ends with we die.
6. Leaning is built on prior experiences and our past histories, families, cultures.
7. Learning involves emotions.