What Is Meaningfullearning?

Jonassen, D., et al. 2008, Meaningful Learning with Technology, 3rd edn,Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, pp.1-12.

2 Chapter 1

What drives learning, more than anything else, is the understanding of and effort. - invested in completing a task or activity. It is the nature of the task that students

. intend to perform that will best determine the nature of the learning that results.Unfortunately, the natUre of the task that so many students most commonly expe­rience in schools is completing standardized tests. Schools in America havebecome testing factories. Federal legislation has mandated continuous testing ofK-12 students in order to make schools and students more accountable for theirlearning. In order to avoid censure and loss of funding, many K-12 schools haveadopted test preparation as their primary curriculum. Perhaps the most unfortu­nate epiphenomenon of this process is the current generation of students who willcomplete their K-12 education knowing only how to take tests. Because thepurpose of those tests and the preparation supporting them is to attain a passingscore (relative to other schools), the students are seldom fully invested in theprocess, so they make no attempt to understand the knowledge being tested. Thestudents do not ask to take the tests. The tests assess skills and knowledge that aredetached from their everyday experience, so they have little meaning. The testingprocess is individual, so students are enjoined from cooperating with others. Thetests represent only a single form of knowledge representation, so students are notable to develop conceptual understanding, which requires representing what youknow in multiple ways. Simply stated, learning to take tests does not result inmeaningfulleammg.

In order for students to learn meaningfully, they must be willfully engagedin a meaningful task. In order for meaningful learning to occur, the task that stu­dents pursue should engage active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and coop­erative activities. Rather than testing inert knowledge, schools should help stu­dents to learn how to recognize and solve problems, comprehend newphenomena, construct mental models of those phenomena, and, given a new situ­ation, set goals and regulate their own learning (learn how to learn). Tasks thatrequire. intentional,. active, constructive, cooperative, and authentic learningprocesses (see Figure 1.1) will result in more meaningful learning. Although tech­nologies can be used to provide additional testing practice, when they are used toengage students ill active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperativelearning, the students will make more meaning. These attributes of meaningfullearning will be used throughout the remainder of this book as the goals for usingtechnologies as well as the criteria for evaluating the uses of technology. Let'sexamine these attributes a little more closely.

• Active (Manipulative/Observant) Learning is a natural, adaptivehuman process. Humans have survived and therefore evolved because they wereable to learn about and adapt to their environment. Humans of all ages, withoutthe intervention of formal instruction, have developed sophisticated skills andadvanced knowledge about the world around them when they need to or wantto. When learning about things in natural contexts, humans interact with theirenvironment and manipulate the objects in that environment, observing theeffects of their interventions and constructing their own interpretations of the

What Is Meaningful learning?

ActiveManipulative/Observant

3

IntentionalGaol directed/Regulatory

ConstructiveArticulative/Reflective

AuthenticComplex/Contextualized

CooperativeCollaborative/Conversational

Figure 1.1 Characteristics of Meaningful Learning.

phenomena and the results of their manipulations. For instance, before playingsandlot baseball, do kids subject themselves to lectures and multiple-choice exam­inations about the theory of games, the aerodynamics of orbs, and vector forcesapplied'to them? No! They start swinging the bat and 'chasing fly balls, and theynegotiate the rules as they play the game. Through formal and informal appren­ticeships in communities of play and work, learners develop skills and knowledgethat they then share with other members of those coIIlIriunities with whom theylearned and practiced those skills. In all of these situations, learners are activelymanipulating the objects and tools of the trade and observing the effects of whatthey have done. The youngster who consistently hits foul balls will adjust his orher stance and handgrip on the bat in order to manipulate the 'path of flight andobserve the effects of each manipulation. Meaningful learning requires learnerswho are active-actively engaged by a meaningful task in which they manipulateobjects and parameters of the environment they are working in and observing theresults of their manipulations.

• Constructive (ArticulativelReflective) Activity is necessary but not suffi­cient for meaningfulleaming. It is essential that learners articulate what they haveaccomplished and reflect on their activity and observations-to learn the lessonsthat their activity has to teach. New experiences often provide a discrepancybetween what learners observe and what they understand. That is when meaning­fulleaming begins. They are curious about or puzzled by what they see. That puz­zlement is the catalyst for meaning making. By reflecting on the puzzling experi­ence, learners integrate their new experiences with their prior knowledge about theworld, or they establish goals for what they need to learn in order to make sense outof what they observe. Learners begin constructing their own simple mental modelsthat explain what they observe, and with experience, support, and more reflection,their mental models become increasingly complex. Ever more complex modelsrequire that learners mentally represent their understanding in different ways usingdifferent thought processes. The active and constructive parts of the meaning mak­ing process are symbiotic. They both rely on the other for meaning making to occur.

4 Chapter 1

• Intentional (Goal-Directed/Regulatory) All human behavior is goaldirected (Schank, 1994). That is, everything that we do is intended to fulfill somegoal. That goal may be simple, like satiating hunger or getting more comfortable,or it may be more cqmplex, like developing new career skills or studying for amaster's degree. When learners are actively and wiUfullytrying to achieve a cog­nitive goal (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994), they think and learn more because theyare fulfilling an intention. Technologies have traditionally been used to supportteachers' goals but not those of learners. Technologies need to engage learners inarticulating and represel)ting their understanding, not that of teachers. Whenlearners use technologies 'to represent their actions and construction, they under­stand more and are better able to use the knowledge that they have constructed innew situations. When learners use computers to do skillful planning for doingeveryday tasks or constructing and executing a way to research a problem theywant to solve, they are intentional and are learning meaningfully.

• Authentic (Complex/Contextual) Most lessons learned in schools focuson general principles or theorie~ that may be used to explain phenomena that weexperience. However, teachers and professors remove those ideas from their naturalcontexts in order to be able to cover the curriculum more efficiently. When they do,they strip those principles of the contextual cues that make them meaningful.Physics courses are a prime example. Teachl;rs read a simplified problem and imme­diately represent the problem in a formula. Students may It:;arn to get the correctanswer, but what are they learning? Learning isn't IT).eaningful because studentslearned to understand the ideas only as algorithmic procedures outside of any con­tex.t, so they have no idea how to relate the ideas to real-world contexts. Everythingphysical that occurs in the world involves physics. Why not learn physics throughbaseball, driving, walking, or virtually any other physical process on earth?

Most con!emporary resear<;h on learning has shown that learning tasks thatare situated in some meaningful real-world task or si,mulated in some case-basedor problem-based learning environment are. not only better understood andremembered but also more consistently transferred to new situations. Rather thanabstracting ideas in rules that are memorized and then applied to other cannedproblems, iearning should be embedded ill. real-life, useful contexts for learners topractice using those ideas. . .

• Cooperative (Collaborative/Conversational) Humans naturally worktogether in learning and knowledge-building communi~ies,exploiting each others'skills and appropriating each others' knowledge. In the everyday world, humansnaturally seek out others to help them to solve problems and perform tasks. Thenwhy do educators insist that learners work independently so much of the time?Schools generally function based on the belief that learning is an independentprocess, so learners seldom have the opportunity to "do anything that counts" incollaborative teams despite their natural inclinations. When students collaborate

. without permission, educators may even accuse them of cheating despite the factthat such cross-fertilization is encouraged in any self-respecting design studio.However, we believe that relying solely on independent methods of instruction

What Is Meaningful Learning? 5

cheats learners out of more natural and productive modes of thinking. Often, edu­cators will promote collaborative methods of learning, only to resort to indepen­dent assessment of learning. Learners, they believe, must be accountable for theirown knowledge, so even if you agree, at least in principle, with collaborative learn­ing principles, the hardest part of applying your beliefs will be assessing learners inteams. Most of the technology-based activities described throughout this book aremore effectively performed collaboratively in groups, so we must assess the per­formance of the groups as well as individuals. Learners are strategic enough toknow "what counts", in classrooms, so if they are evaluated individually, collabora­tive learning activities will fail because students realize that their outcomes arenot important.

Collaboration most often requires conversation among participants.Learners working in groups must socially negotiate a common understanding ofthe task and the methods they will use to accomplish it. That is, given a problemor task, people naturally seek out opinions and ideas from others. Technologiescan support this conversational process by connecting learners in the same class­room, across town, or around the world (see chapters 6 and 7). When learnersbecome part of knowledge-building communities both in class and outside ofschool, they learn that there are multiple ways of viewing the world and multiplesolutions to most of life's problems. Conversation should be encouraged becauseit is the most natural way of meaning making.

As is depicted in Figure 1.1, these characteristics of meaningful learning are inter­related, interactive; and interdependent. That is"learning and instructional activi­ties should engage and support combinations of active, constructive, intentional,authentic, and cooperative learning.'Why? Be\=ause we believe that these charac­teristics are synergetic. That is, learning activities that represent a combination ofthese characteristics' result in even more meaningful learning than the individualcharacteristics would in isolation.

There are many kinds,of leaming activities that engage meaningfulleaming, justas there are teachers who for years have engaged students in meaningfulleaming. Weargue throughout this book that technplogies can iilld,should become the tools ofmeaningful learning. Technologies afford students the opportunities to engage inmeaningfulleaming when they leam with the technology, not from it.

How Does Technology Facilitate Learning?Learning From Technology,Some of the first educational technologies were illustrations in 17th-century booksand slate chalkboards in 18th-century classrooms. Educational technologies in the20th century include lantern-slide and opaque projectors, later radio, and thenmotion pictures, During the 1950s, progranimed instruction emerged as the first trueeducational technology, that is, the first technology developed specifically to meet

6 Chapter 1

educational needs. With every other technology, including computers, educators rec­ognized its importance and debated how to apply each nascent commercial technol­ogy for educational purposes. Unfortunately, educators have almost always triedto use technologies to teach students in the same ways that teachers had alwaystaught. 50 information was recorded in the technology (e.g., the content presented byfilms and television programs), and the technology presented that information to thestudents. The students' -role was to learn the ,information presented by the technol­ogy, just as they learned information presented by the teacher. The role of the tech­nology was to deliver lessons to students, just as trucks deliver groceries to super­markets (Clark, 1983). If you deliver groceries, people will eat. If you deliverinstruction, students will learn. Not necessarily! We will tell you why later.

The introduction of modem computer technologies in classrooms has fol­lowed the same pattern of use. Before the advent of microcomputers in the 1980s,mainframe computers were used to deliver drill and practice and simple tutorialsfor teaching students lessons. When microcomputers began populating class­rooms, the natural inclination.was to use them in the same way. A 1983 nationalsurvey of computer uses showed that drill and practice was the most common useof microcomputers (Becker, 1985).

Later in the 1980s, educators began to perceive the importance of computersas productivity tools. The growing popularity of word processing, databases,spreadsheets, graphics programs, and desktop publishing was enabling busi­nesses to become more productive. 50 students in classroom began word process­ing and using graphics packages and desktop publishing programs to write with(see chapter 4). This tool conception pervaded computer use according to a 1993study by Hadley and 5heingold that showed that well-informed teachers wereextensively using text processing tools (word'processors), analytic and informa­tion tools (especially databases and somespreadsheet use), and graphics tools(paint programs and desktop publishing) along with instructional software(including problem-solving programs along with drill and practice and tutorials).

The development of inexpensive multimedia computers and the eruption ofthe Internet in the mid-199ps'quickly changed the nature of educational comput­ing. Communications tool's (e.g.; e-mail and computer conferences) and multime­dia, little used according to Hadley' and 5heingold, have dominated the role oftechnologies in the classroom ever since. But what are the students producing?Too often, they are using the technology to reproduce what the teacher or textbooktold them or what they copy from the Internet.

Our conception of educational computing and technology use, described next,does not conceive of technologies'as teachers or repositories of information. Rather,we believe that, in order to learn, student~ shopld teach the computer or use thetechnology to represent what they know rather than memorizing what teachers andtextbooks tell them. Technologies provide rich and flexible media for representingwhat students know and ,what they are learning. A great deal of research on com­puters and other technologies has shown that they are no more effective at teachingstudents than teachers/but if we begin to think about technologies as learning toolsthat students learn with, not from, then the nature of student learning will change.

What Is Meaningful Learning? 7

Learning With TechnologyIf schools are to foster meaitingfullearning, then the ways that we use technolo­gies in schools must change from technology-as-teacher to technology-as-partnerin the learning process. Before, we argued that students do not learn from technol­ogy but that technologies can support productive thinking and meaning makingby students. That will happen when students learn with the technology. But howdo students learn with technologies? How can technologies become intellectualpartners with students? Throughout this book, we assume the following:

• Technology is more than hardware. Technology consists also of thedesigns and the environments that engage learners. Technology can alsoconsist of any reliable technique or method for engaging learning, such ascognitive learning strategies and critical thinking skills.

• Learning technologies can be any environment or definable set of activi­ties that engage learners in active, constructive, intentional, authentic, andcooperative learning.

• Technologies are not conveyors or communicators of meaning. Norshould they prescribe and control all of the learner interactions.

• Technologies support meaningful learning. when they fulfill a learningneed----;-when interactions with technologies are learner initiated andlearner controlled and when interactions witD the technologies are con-ceptually and intellectually engaging. .

• Technologies should function as intellectual tool kit~ that enable learnersto build more meaningful personal interpretations and representations ofthe world. These tool kits must support the intellectual functions that arerequired by a course of study.

• Learners and technologies should be intellectual partners, where the cog­nitive responsibility for performance is distributed by the part of the part­nership that performs it better.

How Technologies Foster LearningIf technologies are used to foster meaningful learning, then they will not be usedas delivery vehicles. Rather, technologies should be used as engagers and facil­itators of thinking. Based on our conception of meaningful learning (Figure 1.1),we suggest the following roles for technologies in supporting meaningfullearning:

• Technology as tools to support knowledge constructi(;m:• for representing learners' ideas, understandings, and beliefs• for producing organized,multimedia knowledge bases by learners

• Technology as information vehicle for exploring knowledge to supportlearning by constructing:D for accessing needed information• for comparing perspectives, beliefs, and worldviews

8 Chapter 1

• Technology as authentic context to support learning by doing:• for representing and simulating meaningful real-world problems,

situations, and contexts• for representing beliefs, perspectives, arguments, and stories of otherso for defining a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking

• Technology as social medium to support learning by conversing:o for collaborating with others, ,o for discu~sing, arguing, and, l;milding consensus among members of a

communityo for supporting discourse among knowledge-building communities

• Technology as intellectual partner (Jonassen, 2000) to support learning byreflecting:o for helping learners to articulate and represent what they know

,0 for reflecting on what they have learned and how they came to know ito for supporting learners' internal negotiations and meaning makingo for constructing personal representations of meaningo for supporting mindful thinking

How Technologies Foster ThinkingWhy do these uses of technology foster meaningful learning? It is because theyrequire that students 'think and reason. In this book, we argue that students do notlearn from teachers or' from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking­thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what theybelieve, thinking about what others have done and belIeve, thinking about thethinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediateslearning. Learning results from ,thinking. What kinds of thinking are fosteredwhen learning with technologies?

Causal Causal reasoning is one of the most basic and important cognitiveprocesses that underpin all higher-order activities, such as problem solving. Humecalled causality the "cement of the universe" (Hume, 1739/2000). Reasoning from adescription of a condition or set of conditions or states of an event to the possibleeffect(s) that may result from those states is called prediction. A baseball pitcher pre­dicts where the b,all will go by the forces that he or she applies when pitching the ball.When an outcome or state exists for which the causal agent is unknown, then an infer­ence is required. That is, reasoning backward from effect to cause requires the processof inference. A primary function of inferences is diagnosis. For example, based onsymptoms, historical factors, and test results of patients who are thought to be abnor­mal, a physician attempts to infer the cause(s) of that illness state. Thinkllg causally isalso required for m'aking explanations. Explaining how things work requires learnerto identify all the causal connections among the things being explained.

Causal thinking is really more complex than learners understand. In order tobe able to understand and apply causal relationships, learners must be able toquantify attributes of causal relationships (direction, strength, probability, andduration) as well as be able to explain the underlying mechanisms describing the

What Is Meaningful Learning? 9

relationship (Jonassen & Ionas, 2007). Why does a force applied to a ball cause it tomove in certain direction?

Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology.into a single principle, it wouldbe to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding anew idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that isalready understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (theanalogue) are mapped or transferred to. another (the source or target). Singleanalogies are also known as synonyms or metaphors. One word conveys attrib­utes to the other, often using the word "like" or "as" as a connector. FollowingHurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans was said to be inundated with a "toxicgumbo." Gumbo is a complex New Orleans-style soup that contains a variety ofingredients. The waters that surrounded New Orleans contained a complex vari-ety of toxic substances-thus metaphor as analogy. -

People most commonly. think of syllogism as analQgies. A syllogism is afour-part analogy. For example, love is to hate as peace is to --'-. The analogymakes sense only if the structural characteristics of the first analogy can beappliedto the second.

In using technologies to represent their' understanding, students consistentlyare required to engage in the comparison-contrast reasoning required to struc­turally map the attributes of one or more idea to others, that is, to draw an analogy.

Expressive Using technologies as tools to learn with entails learners representingwhat they know, that is, teaching the computer. To do so, learners must expresswhat they know. Using different tools requires learners to express what they knowin different ways. Chapter 4 describes how technologies can be used to help learnersexpress themselves in writing. Chapter 5 illustrates how learners can express them­selves using a variety of tools, such as databases, spreadsheets, and expert systems,each tool requiring different forms of expression. Chapters 6 and 7 show how tech­nologies can support verbal expression, while chapter 9 focuses on visual expres­sions. Contrast these varieties of expressions to those required by state-mandatedtests, where students' only form of expressions is the selection of answer a, b, c, or d.

Experiential.; Experiences result in the most meaningful and resistant memories.We can recall with clarity experiences that we have had many years before. Theprimary medium for expressing experiences is the story. Stories are the oldest andmost natural form of sense making. Stories are the "means [by] which humanbeings give meaning to their experience of temporality and personal actions"(Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 11). Cultures have maintained their existence throughdifferent types of stories, including myths, (airy tales, and histories. Humansappear to have an innate ability and predisposition to organize.and represent theirexperiences in the form of stories. Learning with technologies engages stories in acouple ways. First, the experiences that students have while using technologies torepresent their understanding are meaningful and memorable. Second, studentsmay seek out stories and use technologies to convey them (see chapters 5 and 9).

10

Conclusion

Chapter 1

Problem Solving Using technologies to express and convey learner knowledgeall entail different kinds of problems solving. Learning with technologies requiresthat students make myriad decisions while constructing their representations.Deciding what information to include and exclude, how to structure the information,and what form it should taRe are all complex decision-making processes. Studentsalso engage in a lot of design· problem solving while constructing their interpreta­tions. They also must solve rule-using problems in how to use software. When learn­ers are solving problems, they are thinking deeply ahd are engaged in meaningfullearning. What they learn while doing so will be so much better understood andremembered than continuously preparing to answer multiple-choice test questions.

An underlying assumption of this book is that the most productive and meaning­ful uses of technology will not occur if technologies are used in traditional ways­as delivery vehicles for instructional lessons. Technology cannot teach students.Rather, learners teach the technologies. Meaningful learning will 'result when tech­nologies engage learners in the following: .

• Knowledge construction, not reproduction• Conversation, not reception• Articulation, not repetition• Collaboration, notcornpetition• Reflection, not prescription

We argue that technologies can support meaningful learning when students learnwith the technology, not from it. When students use technologies to investigate(chapter 2), explore (chapter 3), write (chapter 4), build models (chapter 5), buildcommunities.(chapter 6), communicate with others (chapter 7), design (chapter 8),and visualize (chapter 9), then they are engaged in deeper levels of thinking andreasoning, including causal, analogical, expressive, experiential, and problemsolving. Technologies are lousy teachers, but they can be powerful tools to thinkwith. That is the theme that we describe in the remainder of this book.

.} .-: ," ~ :" LJ •r'

. '.. >•. ~

.,~ :~.' :. ":., ::'.~':. "', '.

If you would like' to reflect on the ideas that ~e present~din this chapter, consideryour responses to the following questions.

1. If learners cannot know what the teacher knows because they do not sharea common knowledge and experience base, how can we be certain thatstudents learn important things? For instance, if you want to teach

What Is MeaningFul Learning? 11

students about the dangers of certain chemical reactions ill the lab, howdo we ensure that learners know and understand those importantlessons?

2. What is your theory of learning? From your perspective, how do peoplelearn? What ~re the important processes?

3. Is it possible to learn (construct personal meaning) without engagingin some activity; that is, is it possible to learn simply by thinking aboutsomething? What are you thinking about? Can you think of anexample?

4. When learners construct knowledge, what are they building? How is itpossible to observe the fruits of their labor, that is, the knowledge theyconstruct?

5. Think back to your childhood. What can you remember from your earlychildhood? Where did your remembrance occur? What meaning did ithave at the time? How has that meaning changed over time?

6. Think about a recent controversial topic that you haveheard or readabout. What are different sides arguing about? What do they believe?What assumptions do they make about what is causing the controversy?Where did those beliefs come from?

7. Radical constructivists argue that reality exists only in the mind of theknower. If that is true, is there a physical world that we live in? Prove it.

8. Some educators argue that we learn much more from our failures thanfrom our successes. Why? They believe that we should put students in sit­uations where their hypotheses or predictions fail. Can you think of a sit­uation in which you learned a lot from a mistake?

9. Recall the last difficult problem that you had to solve. Did you solve italone, or did you solicit the help of others? What did you learn from solv­ing that problem? Can that learning be used again?

10. Can you learn to cook merely from watching cooking shows on televi­sion? What meaning do you make from the experiences that you observe?Will the experience you have when you prepare a dish be the same as thatof the television chef? How will it be different?

11. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge, according to manydefinitions. Can you think of a teaching technology (replicable, proventeaching process) that does not involve machines?

12. Can you calculate the exact square root of 2,570 without a calculator?Does the calculator make you smarter? Is the calculator intelligent?

13. Describe the difference in thinking processes engaged by a short­answer versus a multiple-choice test question. Are they different?Are they assessing knowledge? Is that knowledge meaningful? Why orwhy not?

14. Can you think of an activity that makes you dumber, not smarter? Do younot learn anything from that activity?

15. Have you ever produced your own video, movie, slide show, or computerprogram? How did it make you think? How did it make you feel?

12

Referenc~s

Becker, H. J.. (1985). How schools use microcomputers:Summaryofa 1983 national survey. (ERIC DocumentReproduction Service No. EO 257448)

Clark, R. (1983). Mere vehicles. Review ofEducationalResearch, 53(4), 445-459.

Hadley, M., & Sheingold, K. (1993).Comrnonalitiesand distinctive patterns in teacher interaction ofcomputers. American Journal of Edilcation, 101(3),261-315.

Hume, D. (1739/2000). A treatise of human nature.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Jonassen, D. H. (2000). Computers as mindtools inschools: Engaging critical thinking . .Columbus,OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Chapter 1

Jonassen, D. H., & Ionas, 1. G. (2007). Designing effec­tive supports for causal reasoning. EducationalTechnology: Research and Development, 55.

Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and thehuman sciences. Albany: State University of NewYork Press.

Scardamalia, M. & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computersupport for knowledge building communities.Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 265-283.

Schank, R. C. (1994). Goal-based scenarios. In R. C.Schank & E. Langer (Eds.), Beliefs, reasoning,and decision making: Psycho-logic in honor of BobAbelson (pp. 1-33). Hillsdale, NI: LawrenceErlbaum.