Engagement with ideas and understanding: An essential for effective learning in the electronic age

Abstract

Learning, in the early years of the twentieth-first century is seen as a constructive process which is: enhanced by collaboration with others, at a range of different levels; affected by the context of the learning, its situation; and sometimes given impetus through an awareness, at a person and individual level, of the processes involved-this refers to metacognition. With these ideas very much in mind, a consideration of the importance of significant engagement with knowledge and concepts is made and developed in this chapter. Notions of constructivism are briefly reviewed, and the ideas of Vygotsky, Lave and Wenger, and Flavell, amongst others, are considered. A model of the learning process which puts engagement at the centre of the enterprise is presented and discussed in detail. The idea of flow, a state of intense involvement, is introduced and considered in the context of schooling. Deep and surface learning are defined and then considered. The long term aim of most education is seen to be achieving lasting, that is, deep, meaningful, and accessible learning. The importance of engagement for almost all kinds of learning is set out and examples from both recent classroom research and of practice witnessed in many classrooms on a regular basis are given. Conclusions are drawn from the evidence presented from the work of cognitive psychologists and reports of research, concerning the importance of the situatedness of learning, the importance of working together, in groups or in pairs, including the part played by dialogue with others, and the explicit knowledge which individual's might be encouraged to develop as a part of the learning process. © 2006 Springer.