By Denis Sale
The Reality Now
Whether we like it or not, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is massively impacting all aspects of society; this is occurring now, and it is not a fad that will go away. How we deal with it will not only shape the future of learning, but that of the future of humankind – for better or for worse. Education has long been a creature of fashion, flitting between so-called traditional and progressive methods of instruction, and often shaped more by ideology rather than empirical evidence from scientific research. The consequences of a severe lack of relevant learning focus may be a significant underpinning factor in the Times Education Commission findings (2022) which reported that::
British education is “failing on every measure”, with over half (59%) of parents with school-aged children believing that schools do not prepare pupils for life while 60% feel it does not prepare them for work.
AI’s impact on education is rapid and potentially non-reversible. Chatbots such as Chat GPT and Gemini, armed with an increasing army of specialised AI agents, can already serve up extensive text, graphics, and video content, as well as provide intelligent customised tutoring to meet much of our learning needs. Just as EdTech tools drove teaching by dictating lessons to a bygone era, AI will quickly drive a curriculum that is largely content-focused on what to learn rather than how to learn into a similar educational Jurassic Park. Notions of developing expert learners who are self-directed and able to learn effectively and efficiently is not new – nor its importance for today’s educational landscape. As far back as the 1990s the world-famous management guru Peter Drucker observed:
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
At this present time, Jim Kwik, globally known as a learning expert, makes the stark assertion that:
“If you can learn how to learn, the world is yours.”
What are Learningto Learn Skills?
In most basic terms, these constitute our most current knowledge on how humans learn in terms of psychological functioning and neural wiring in the brain, and how this is practically applied to facilitate the most effective and efficient learning possible. It is a wide competence that encompasses Motivation, Understanding, and Doing (MUD), and these involve a range of strategies and skills that enable people to effectively encode and recall information in memory and use it in solving real-world problems. In this column I will outline what I see as a useful initial framework and the key focal areas involved. In following columns, I will identify, unpack, explain, and illustrate the essential strategies, techniques, and skill sets that comprise the wider Learning to Learn competence.
Let’s start with small steps to build understanding and minimise cognitive overload. Key things that must occur in effective learning are:
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Motivation: There must be a desire to learn something, a goal that is seen as purposeful to a learner. We know that without motivation, an individual will not activate the necessary cognitive activities essential to planning learning, seeking out relevant resources, and making the required effort to learn the knowledge and skills involved.
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Understanding: This is crucial to successful learning. It is much more than rote memorisation as it involves the creation of mental schemas (pictures in our mind of what the knowledge domains are comprised of). This typically requires sustained cognitive effort – thinking – over time. Thinking is essential for making sense of new information and integrating it into one’s prior knowledge. In basic terms, thinking plus knowledge builds understanding. Once successfully attained, mental schemas will be firmly wired at the neural level in our brains – and that’s where we want to keep them, readily available for quick total recall and application.
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Doing: There is an old saying that “knowledge is power”, and this may nicely apply on gameshows such as “Who wants to be a millionaire” and “The Chase”, but not in the real world of practice. Yep, given the question of which player from which team scored the first goal in the 1966 World Cup final and in what minute – can you instantly correctly answer this? I can, it was Helmut Haller, in the West German team, and he scored in the 11th minute. Am I that smart? Nay, I was there, it was an emotional day, and it’s so firmly wired in my brain. Can I do DIY around the house – nay, I have never used a power tool. It’s not about how smart you are, it’s about what you are smart at – and that’s mainly to do with the MUD you have mixed.
There are many armchair football pundits who understand the game of football but can hardly play the game in practice. One must also have the competence/expertise in the various skills sets – that’s the Doing, and this requires much by way of Deliberate Practice. Of course, good understanding underpins and supports practice – but it’s the doing that applies it in real world and work activities.
To be able to learn effectively and efficiently, and I will add creatively, one must be able to positively effect these three main areas of learning – and how to do this constitutes learning how to learn. Here’s a simple anchor to aid memory recall for now: Great learners mix MUD. From this basic framing, we will go deeper into the MUD, and explore its various components, how they work, and how we can master them to build learner power.
In the next column, the focus will be on unpacking how the motivational system works. There are specific understandings, strategies, and skills, that must be employed to build a mindset that facilitates a positive belief system and resilience to get going on a successful learning to learn journey. I won’t pretend that becoming an expert learner does not require significant effort, and many people fail on this count, and there are reasons for this – another part of the whole scenario of learning how to learn. However, just like a good road map for getting to physical locations makes the journey much easier to navigate, learning to learn capability has a similar result as everything is easy when you can do it well, and underpinning what looks like genius are well-crafted methods.
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Dennis Sale worked in the Singapore education system for 25 years as advisor, researcher, and examiner. He coached over 15,000 teaching professionals.
Visit dennissale.com.
