Teach English in Dianqian Zhen - Anqing Shi

Learning TechniquesFor the purposes of this paper, I have decided to focus on Jarvis?s learning process. British researcher and educator, Peter Jarvis, developed a theory about the process of learning through social experience and reflectivity. The premise of Jarvis? learning process model is based on the assumption that all adults have experiences; some are good, some bad. Many experiences, however, may be so rote or routine that a person gains nothing from them. The learning process then calls for an experience out of the ?norm,? which elicits a response at a different level than would be typically done. In other words, the experience requires some reflective action. Reflection is the heart of Jarvis? model. (Maxwell, 2008). Basically, when something new happens, we have to adapt to this and this causes us to learn. I think this is just common sense. How else could we ever do anything that is not instinct without using prior experience and adapting to change? We could not run if we did not know how to walk: we could not walk if we did not first learn to crawl. Almost everything we do outside of breathing, crying and nursing are learned using our senses and by learning from past experience. I also agree, to a point, about not learning when the experience has been adapted to multiple times. I think that, with few exceptions, every time we have an experience we are still learning, but in amounts too small to be measured. Yes, after you learn to type, you are not learning the keys anymore, but you are learning to type faster and more accurately. Eventually you?ve mastered the skill, but practicing keeps it fresh in your mind and prevents you from losing the skill. Things are often compared to being ?like riding a bicycle,? which means you do not forget how to do them, but as someone who has not ridden a bicycle in years, when I tried to do so again recently I did not do very well. True, I did not crash, but I was very wobbly for a few blocks. So, while you may no longer adapt in a measureable way to a skill, you are keeping the skill from atrophying. Jarvis also noted that even poor or ?mis-educative? experiences promoted learning. John Dewey defines a mis-educative experience in the following way: Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experience. An experience may be such as to endanger callousness; it may produce lack of sensitivity and of responsiveness. Then the possibilities of having richer experience in the future are restricted (Dewey, 1938, p.13). I don?t take that to mean that Dewey disagrees with Jarvis. I think the two are saying the same thing in different ways. For example, if you eat a lot of candy you learn that not only is candy tasty, it can also give you a stomach ache. You are arresting your behavior of eating too much and by doing so you adapt your habit of eating candy from gorging to eating it in moderation. Positive reinforcement may be a good way to learn, but negative experiences can create a much more vivid and long lasting lesson, which is why they are good for life saving and other vital lessons. You can?t learn not to be hit by a car by being hit by a car, unless you are lucky enough to survive, but you can see a ball that has rolled into the street and been popped and figure out that it might not be a good idea to be in the same position of the ball. In conclusion, while Jarvis may not have nailed down every variable about learning, which is probably impossible to do, He has laid out a framework that is a good starting point and that is adaptable enough to allow further expansion and discussion. References Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. Indianapolis, In: Kappa Delta Pi. Maxfield, J R. (2008). Online Education for Nontraditional Adult Students: Perceptions and Attitudes of Emergency Services Workers in Asynchronous Learning Environments. utah State UniversityDigitalCommons@USU. Retrieved from digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=etd