national college of ireland student orientation

5 September, 2007NCI Orientation

Becoming a Successful Learner

Bertram (Chip) Bruce

Library & Information Science

U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

http://www.uiuc.edu/~chip/

http://www.uiuc.edu/~chip/

5 September, 2007NCI Orientation 2

Inquiry Cycle

http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/

http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/


College students today…o are smarter (James Flynn)

o are better educated (Berliner & Biddle; Marable)

o more professionally-oriented, older, more female, more non-white, more non-English speaking

o get too little sleep (Mary Carskadon)

o use the Internet instead of print sources, but trust print more (Leigh Healy)

o focus on testing and grades too much


Stephen's questionso Why do cars speed up passing a stop sign?o Why do things far away seem blue?o Why do my eyes water when I stare?o How does your body make tears?o Is the salt in tears the same as the salt on

food?o What’s that pipe from the silo to the barn?


? => .

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. => ?

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Part 1. What shape is the earth? Draw a picture of yourself standing on the earth, as you would have drawn it when you were five years old.

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Exercise: How do you learn?


Part 2. How did you learn that? Write three or four phrases describing what led you to that picture of the earth.

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Child: I can see it. The world is flat.

Research on learning


Adult: No, the world is round.Child: It’s round? Oh, a pancake!

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Adult: No, no... a ball! Look at this photo of earth from outer space.Child: Oh! Two earths! The round one in space

and the flat one we live on.

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Learning means too Ask; find problemso Investigate; combine information from

visual, auditory, kinesthetic, verbal sourceso Create; active construction of meaningo Discuss; collaborate with others of

different backgrounds; think criticallyo Reflect; build on experience; learn how to

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...Difficult

o Piaget: disequilibrium

o Vygotsky: zone of proximal development

o Dewey: felt difficulty


We always live at the time we live and not at some other time, and only by extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience are we prepared for doing the same in the future. This is the only preparation which in the long run amounts to anything.--John Dewey, Experience & Education

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Inquiry and life