So I hear a lot of people talking about learning to learn. What is learning to learn? And is it possible to learn to learn? >> That's a very good question, and it's a very trendy thing to talk about L2L, learning to learn. Even people like the World Bank have now run with it and consider this to be terribly important. But when people talk about it, it's very unclear what they're really talking about. There are three phrases, learning to learn, learning how to learn, learning about learning. And in some ways they reflect the different purposes for learning that we were talking about earlier. So the idea of as learning to learn, in its purest form, I would say as an academic, is based on Kolb's famous cycle of active learning, which is do, review, learn and apply. So the best way to learn how to learn is to do that. So it's to reflect on one's own learning and think, well, did that get me where I wanted to get to? And if not, what should I do differently next time? In many classrooms it's not very useful at the moment because all you have to do is memorize and regurgitate. So that's actually quite straightforward. And it's probably fairly meaningless in that you can be fairly strategic. I remember learning how to read the examiner's mind before I went into the exam, and I got very good at that. The thing is that that doesn't mean I was a good learner. And I think that makes a difference. So learning to learn, L2L, has sometimes been abused in the sense that teachers have tried to tell students this is how you learn to learn, whereas I think certainly constructivist educators would say, no, you can't tell someone how they learn best. That is the one area in school where actually the student always knows best. They know what helps them in their learning. What they need is a chance to talk about that, explore that and find out for themselves what will help them better. So sometimes learning to learn, well, all of the terms sometimes have become a bit instrumental. Learning about learning tends to be more open, and at best, Chris Watkins's term is meta-learning. So that means learning about learning as in metacognition means thinking about thinking. So meta-learning will be based on Kolb's cycle of do, review, learn and apply, and will involve many cycles of reflection. So people often use learning journals, and I believe that's something that you're doing too, where learners observe in detail their own learning. They think back about it. They look at how it progresses. And then they consider how they can make it more powerful for themselves. So at that level I think it can be very transformational, but not for everybody actually. I find in my MA classes, some people find learning journals really, really helpful, and others never really catch on. >> So are some people better learners than others, or is it just about getting to know yourself a little bit better as a learner? >> It's a pretty much impossible question to answer, or rather, there's so many different answers that you could give to that question. It depends what you mean by good learner, doesn't it? So a good meta-learner is certainly someone who is very aware of their learning, knows how to think about it, knows how to get feedback on it, if you'd like, from other people and from texts, and knows how to change it for the better. So a good meta-learner, I would say that's easier to define. But a good learner, that depends entirely what we mean by learning. So some people do better than others in exams. Teachers often imply that those are the good learners. Very good, very good learner, you did very well in your exam. However, what we know is that doing well in exams is a reflection of how well one learns, but it also reflects people's home backgrounds, their mother's qualifications particularly. Their home situation, their social class, their wealth, their health, the school that they've landed up in and their opportunities for networking. So we really can't say that somebody who studies hard does better in exams. This does not apply if you look carefully. It's much more complex than that. Obviously hard work will get you a long way in the traditional way of learning, in traditional classrooms. However, think of good old Einstein, who was kicked out of school, failed his exams, and look where it got him. So we could say that a good learner is somebody who's always open to learning and perhaps Einstein was one of those people. That he wasn't good in the conformist system but he was very creative and dynamic and had a thirst for finding out things from the world and from other people. So it totally depends what you mean by learning. >> So if I came to you for advice and said that I wanted to become a better learner in some way, what kind of advice would you give me about how I could improve my own learning? >> Well, that would depend on my view of what is valuable, but you've probably gathered that I think we need to extend learning opportunities beyond the traditional classrooms, although they have a role to play. I can't advise you on what would make you a better learner. It is down to you, is what I would say. However, what could help you is to read research about learning. People like us have done lots of classroom research, not enough. There's still lots more to be done, especially, I think, in listening to what pupils have to say about their learning. But read the research. What do people say about learning? What have they found about learning and learners? Also if you get on the bus and listen to how people use the word learning, and just think, oh, what did they mean by it? You hear expressions like oh, that will teach you a lesson. What's behind that? Listen out and analyze what people might mean and why that person might have meant that. I think that, and don't accept other people's arguments, even when you're supposed to. Check them out. Check their evidence base. Often you think, I can't say that. Surely that can't be right or someone else would have said it. But try saying it and see what happens, cuz often you'll find that those are things everybody has been dying to say, but they didn't dare because it's not conformist enough. So be open and take the risk. >> Okay, so my last question for you, then, is on this course people are given some opportunities to think about different areas to do with education. There's some interviews like this one with various academics that have done work in this area. There's some readings that people can do. And then there's some activities to encourage people to reflect on what they've learnt and to reflect on their own experience. >> Right. >> What advice would you give someone who's on a course like this about how they could get the most out of this course? >> From what I've gathered from people I've worked with who've done courses like that, is to make sure you fully understand as best you can on your own, whatever the input is, but then to discuss it with other people on the course, whether that's online or face to face. That seems to be where people really get the value out of courses like this. So they have the input and then they get other people's perspectives on it and that can totally transform the way people see their own classroom and their own learning.
