Metaphors We Learn By

Metaphors We Learn ByElizabeth DaltonApril, 2015

IntroductionIs learning a matter of transferring knowledge objects from the

external world to the internal mind, the construction of such objects

internally by the learner, or some other process altogether? Does

knowledge exist within the individual, or within the sociocultural

context? To what extent do individual characteristics of learners such

as age, sociocultural membership, or gender affect learning?

Philosophers, educators, and education policy makers have argued about

the nature of learning, and of knowledge, for thousands of years, and

their various theories have been implemented, in part, in learning

programs of all kinds. In this essay I suggest that there is not a

single “correct” answer to this question, but that the different

theories of knowledge do have implications for the experiences and

outcomes in those learning programs organized around them. I propose

to analyze these different theories of knowledge and learning in terms

of metaphorical cognition, using theories developed by Lakoff and Johnson

(1980) and a methodology suggested by Schmitt (2005), concluding with

practical recommendations for an adult online college program based on

this metaphorical analysis.

In 1980, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argued persuasively that

metaphors are not merely artful expressions of language, but

structures by which humans interpret abstract concepts into concrete

forms. Their work was built on an exploration of the “conduit”

metaphor by Michael Reddy in 1979, but extended to metaphorical

interpretations of all kinds. Reddy wrote, “if language transfers

thought to others, then the logical container, or conveyer, for this

thought is words, or word-groupings like phrases, sentences,

paragraphs, and so on” (p 267). Reddy provides numerous examples of

common speech making use of this metaphor in English, e.g.:

“(4) Whenever you have a good idea practice capturing it in words (5) You have to put each concept into words very carefully(6) Try to pack more thoughts into fewer words(7) Insert those ideas elsewhere in the paragraph(8) Don't force your meanings into the wrong words.” (Reddy, 1979, p287)

Reddy’s metaphor is summarized here by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p 10):

IDEAS (OR MEANINGS) ARE OBJECTS.LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS.COMMUNICATION IS SENDING.

This is not a single metaphorical statement, but a complex

metaphorical system, with consistent entailments systematically

employed by users of the metaphor. Lakoff and Johnson note some of

these entailments: “words and sentences have meanings in themselves,

independent of any context or speaker… meanings have an existence

independent of people and contexts” (p11). As Lakoff and Johnson point

out, “These metaphors are appropriate in many situations—those where

context differences don’t matter and where all the participants in the

conversation understand the sentences in the same way” (p 11-12).

However, there are many situations in which context greatly affects

meaning, or even in which there is no meaning without context. The

conduit metaphor is insufficient to explain these situations… but that

does not mean that it is wrong, or useless. There are many situations,

including educational situations, in which the conduit metaphor can be

highly useful so long as we remember that it is not the only possible

metaphor, and it is not a complete representation of communication.

Metaphors, Lakoff and Johnson argue, are systematic structures that

allow humans to use cognitive capacities evolved for embodied living

in the physical world, such as direction, quantity, scarcity, and

health, to interpret and make use of abstract concepts like knowledge,

learning, and sophisticated social relationships. IDEAS (OR MEANINGS)

ARE OBJECTS is a kind of short-hand reference to one such system.

Specific metaphorical systems may be widespread, and ease

communication between individuals making use of similar systems, but

are not universal, and significantly, a single individual may use

multiple metaphorical systems to interpret the same abstract concept.

This is critical, because, as Lakoff and Johnson explain, “The very

systematicity that allows us to comprehend one aspect of a concept in

terms of another… will necessarily hide other aspects of the concept.”

As a simple example, if ideas are objects, then when one person gives

another an idea, they no longer retain the idea, which is not the

case. On the other hand, if ideas are places, two people can share the

same location, but one person cannot be in two locations (i.e.

conceive of two different ideas) at once. In other words, metaphors

(to use a metaphor) illuminate parts of a concept, while casting

shadows on other parts. The use of multiple metaphors, whether in

sequence or in parallel, can allow us to more fully comprehend an

abstract concept. Lakoff and Johnson would argue, in fact, that it is

the only means we have of doing so.

We know of specific examples of this principle in the natural

sciences. One well-publicized example is the dual nature of light: in

some contexts light will behave as a particle (as in photonic pressure

experiments), whereas in others (e.g. dual slit experiments) it will

behave as a wave. (For an accessible overview, see Englert, Scully &

Walther, 1994.) These two definitions of the nature of light are

incompatible; particles and waves in the concrete, physical world have

very different properties and behaviors, and theories of light based

on particles make very different predictions than theories based on

waves. However, the predictions of both theories are borne out in experiments. Both

interpretations of light are metaphorical; both have utility. Neither

is complete.

Further, we have additional evidence for the ways in which our minds

assemble and use metaphors to interpret our world, in the form of

heuristics or “rules of thumb.” Psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer explores

this method of reasoning in detail in his book Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of

the Unconscious. As Gigerenzer explains, the fast “intuitions” used by

most people to deal with most situations in life rely on taking

advantage of “an evolved capacity of the brain,” often being used for

a new purpose. “The mind, in my view, can be seen as an adaptive

toolbox with genetically, culturally, and individually created and

transmitted rules of thumb” (Chapter 1). One example Gigerenzer

provides is the “recognition heuristic.” Suppose a person is asked,

“Which city has the larger population, Detroit or Milwaukee?”

Gigerenzer and colleagues asked this question of German students, who

were able to answer the question correctly—most of them had never

heard of Milwaukee, and used the recognition heuristic to answer the

question: “If you recognize the name of one city but not that of the

other, then infer that the recognized city has the larger population.”

More generally, this heuristic may be expressed as, THE MORE YOU KNOW

ABOUT ONE MEMBER OF A GROUP OF THINGS, THE MORE SIGNIFICANT IT

PROBABLY IS. In metaphorical terms, FAMILIARITY IS IMPORTANCE. While

there are certainly times when this heuristic will lead to a false

conclusion, in practical terms it very often serves well. These rules

of thumb are simplified ways of interpreting the world around us. They

rely on ignoring some information, either because not all information

is available, or because taking all information into account would

take too long to compute a solution. Yet these heuristics have very

high utility in answering day-to-day questions. “Much of intuitive

behavior, from perceiving to believing to deceiving, can be described

in the form of these simple mechanisms that are adapted to the world

we inhabit” (Ch 3).

Gigerenzer does not use the word “metaphor” in his book, but his

descriptions of heuristic thought processes are strikingly similar to

the descriptions Lakoff and Johnson provide of metaphorical thinking.

A method of interpreting simple physical phenomena in the real world

is repurposed to interpret data and answer questions about far more

complex and obscured situations. Recognition and other similarity

heuristics, in particular, are built up over time and based on lived

experience, and novel situations are interpreted by comparison to

these prior experiences for the closest match. It is easy to see how

the compilation of lived experiences can be expressed in metaphor. We

have a great deal of experience with objects and containers. When

trying to interpret a failure of communication, we readily refer to

memories of failing to transfer containers or objects to another

person. “I’m having trouble getting my ideas across,” we say. “Let me

try to put them into different words.” In this way we make use of

common cultural experiences, heuristics, and resulting metaphors.

Educators make constant use of metaphors, not only in teaching, but in

talking about teaching, and these statements reveal aspects of their

underlying thinking about learning and knowledge. Some of these

statements were collected in an empirical study presented by Martı́nez,

Sauleda, & Huber (2001), reviewing metaphors elicited from in-service

and pre-service teachers. They report, “The majority of metaphors

(57%) formulated by experienced teachers in our main study represent a

notion of learning which is based on behaviourist/empiricist ideas” (p

969). These metaphors typically reflected KNOWLEDGE IS AN OBJECT in

one form or another, with variations based on visual input, digestion,

etc. “Fewer metaphors (38%) produced in the main study could be

attributed to the cognitivist/constructivist domain” (p 970), which

surprised the researchers, because the official curriculum being used

by these teachers is intended to be constructivist. Only a very small

minority of teachers in the study expressed learning in situative or

sociocultural terms. By comparison, a group of prospective teachers

still in formal teacher education programs provided 56% constructivist

metaphors and 22% behaviorist metaphors. The number of participants in

both parts of this study was relatively small: 50 in-service teachers

and 38 prospective teachers, all located in Valencia, Spain, and we

would not expect these percentages to be predictive of results in any

other population. But the finding that in-service teachers tend to

think in behaviorist, conduit metaphor terms, despite their expressed

affiliation with constructivist principles, is consistent with many

other studies (see, e.g., Raymond, 1997). We may hold multiple

metaphorical views of a concept simultaneously, but we may act

primarily on those that are most familiar, most common in our

environments, or simplest to put into practice. Reddy estimated that

at least 70% of the expressions we use for talking about language and

ideas in everyday English are based on the conduit metaphor. The

conduit metaphor has great power in our culture, and it can be

difficult to maintain and act upon other perspectives, even if they

would have greater utility or applicability in a given situation. It

may help if we can become more consciously aware of the alternatives.

What are some of the other metaphors by which we can understand

learning and knowledge? Within the Western Civilization socio-

historical context, theorists from Socrates to the present have

offered alternative metaphors of learning, and we can also seek

outside of Western traditions, in Confucian, Islamic, and other

traditions of learning. As Barbara Rogoff suggests (metaphorically!),

“Examination of cognitive processes in different cultures or

historical periods brings to light the sociocultural channeling of

individual thinking, as with the fish that is unaware of water until

it is out of it” (Rogoff, 1990, p 43). How shall we examine these

cognitive processes? There are, of course, the direct statements of

these various theorists, and many other writers have used this method

of comparison (e.g. Phillips, 1995; Vosniadou, 2007; Shepard, 2004).

But another method we might make use of is the examination of the

metaphorical language used by the theorists themselves. This

methodology is proposed by Rudolf Schmitt, in “Systematic Metaphor

Analysis as a Method of Qualitative Research” (2005). Schmitt proposes

examining the metaphors used in writing for underlying assumptions by

the writers: “The metaphor analysis described in this article does not

intend to use metaphors therapeutically or rhetorically, seeking

rather to bring the use of metaphors and the practices associated with

this to the conscious level; a mission more of enlightenment which can

sometimes be critical of prevalent ideologies” (Schmitt, 2005, p 360).

In other words, do the writings of constructivists employ

constructivist metaphors when talking about their own ideas and

theories? Does socio-cultural research reflect a belief in shared

knowledge of the community within the structure of its metaphorical

rhetoric?

Schmitt proposes that to detect underlying concepts, we examine only

the metaphorical statements in a text: “The practical procedure is

first to copy the metaphors used (in which the target area being

researched appears, including the immediate text-context) and then to

paste these into a separate list. The remaining body of text is then

scanned to find and extract all further metaphoric descriptions of the

topic being researched, until only connecting words, text that is not

relevant to the target area and abstracts with no connection to

metaphors remain” (Schmitt, 2005, p 371-372).

Schmitt warns of the risk of bias introduced by the researcher in this

method: “In many of social science's older metaphor analyses, critics

note certain metaphors such as those from a technical background

(e.g., criticism of the "mind-as-machine" paradigm of cognitive

psychology) without reflecting on their own - most often organic -

metaphors. This is a distortion, which is no longer acceptable” (p

380-381). Schmitt offers this guidance: “For metaphor analysis… the

researcher should shed light on his/her own metaphorical patterns

through self-experience, self-interview with follow-up analysis, etc.;

in order to keep interference from unresolved metaphorical patterns to

a minimum” (p 380). With this in mind, let me state my own

metaphorical bias: I often describe teaching as outfitting expeditions

in an equipment shop—our learners are headed for unknown adventures,

and we don’t know where they will go or what they will be doing, but

we want them to be as well prepared and equipped as possible while

they are journeying. Although this may seem a simplistic instance of

LEARNING IS KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION combined with IDEAS ARE PLACES, I

believe it is a fairly flexible metaphor, easily extended to LEARNING

IS CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS (we will likely encourage

learners to customize or develop their own equipment, maps, etc.),

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE COMPLEX ORGANISMS (we may recommend that our

learners consider becoming acquainted with sled dogs or burros as part

of their “equipment”), and even KNOWLEDGE IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE ON A

ROLE IN A SOCIAL GROUP (we may help our learners find “fellow

travelers” amongst each other and within the broader adventuring

community). Still, it is a metaphorical reference that shapes my own

perceptions, and I shall endeavor to remain aware of this bias as I

conduct my textual analysis. Among other biases, this metaphor focuses

on teaching and the “schooling” process, rather than natural growth or

lived experience within a community of practice.

I have not followed Schmitt’s procedure in the strictest sense; I am

precluded from doing so by the volume of research I propose to survey.

By seeking and selecting examples of specific metaphorical use, I risk

introducing additional bias to this analysis. To address this, I

propose two modifications to the procedure. First, I acknowledge that

my survey will not be a complete representation of the theorists and

their metaphors, but rather a search for known (and claimed) metaphors

in use in textual material. These metaphors are drawn from the

explicit claims of the theorists; I am attempting to validate the

theorists’ claims via their use of metaphor. Second, I will attempt to

be alert to novel metaphors in the writings, especially metaphorical

subsystems, and I will adapt my analysis accordingly.

A further limitation of which I must remain aware is that I am reading

many of these works in translation. Schmitt specifically warns against

this danger, as metaphors are not always translated as faithfully (or

consciously) as the more analytic claims they support. “Jurczak (1997)

compares the French original with English translations of Piaget and

shows that many of Piaget’s biological metaphors were either changed

to mechanical ones or eliminated altogether. The understanding of

Piaget among English speakers is, as a result of Jurzak's findings,

different from the understanding of Piaget among French speakers”

(Schmitt, 2005, p 363). To account for this specific, known

metaphorical translation artifact, I have chosen not to distinguish

between complex mechanisms and organisms in the analysis below; I

justify this partially by noting that there is a common metaphor

COMPLEX MACHINES ARE ORGANISMS that should properly be the subject of

a more detailed analysis than space here permits.

In the remainder of this essay, I present metaphorical statements

drawn from the writings of theorists, educators, and policy makers

across the spectra of behaviorist, cognitivist, constructivist, and

sociocultural metaphors, including Piaget, Dewey, Karpicke & Roediger,

Vygotsky, Rogoff, and others. I have organized these statements by the

metaphors they employ, underlining specific word usages that identify

these metaphorical alignments, and I suggest some of the entailments

and limitations of these metaphorical systems. In the interests of

space, I have included only a few representative metaphors in each

section of this essay; a broader corpus is presented in the Appendix.

I conclude with recommendations for an adult online college program on

the basis of these metaphors, by comparing metaphors of learning with

metaphors of online activity, noting both congruencies and potential

conflicts.

Metaphors for LearningIDEAS ARE OBJECTSAs noted above, this metaphor has powerful currency within our

culture. Objects are easily understood from our embodied experience in

the physical world. Where many theorists differ is in whether objects

are transferred or constructed, and whether they are simple inanimate

structures, or complex and dynamic in nature, resembling living

organisms. Many of the examples in this category do not provide

details about where the ideas originated or how the children acquired

them, but only presuppose that the children “have” them. This metaphor

is further elaborated in the sub-systems below.

LEARNING IS TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE (OBJECTS) VIA WORDS (CONTAINERS)This is one of the most common metaphors used by teachers, learners,

and other participants in the learning process. Learning theorists

incorporating this metaphor into their work include Piaget in his

earlier writings, Karpicke & Roediger and similar theorists in

Information Processing theory, and practitioner-consultants such as

Dede and Thalheimer. In these examples, knowledge is composed of

objects, which can be conveyed, attained, eliminated, developed and

shed. Ideas can be impacted, and can replace one another. Information

Processing Theory research, in particular, consistently conflates test

items with knowledge (objects).

There are a number of sub-systems that may be used within this metaphor:

LEARNING IS ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE OBJECTSThis is the simplest and most common version of the “knowledge

objects” metaphor for learning. Information processing theorists use

phrases like “learning is piling up objects,” and Piaget refers to

knowledge as a “product” of learning. Knowledge objects can be

retained, measured, improved, and “retrieved from memory,” but in an

interesting reference to quantum mechanics and its complex definitions

of matter, knowledge objects might also be changed by observation.

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE STORED IN MENTAL SPACEHow are knowledge objects “stored”? Physical objects have locations in

space, and Karpicke & Roediger often write that knowledge objects are

stored in positions in memory “space,” and learners form paths to

these object locations. The ability of the learner to find these

objects again is a key part of the learning process. The knowledge

objects themselves might not be constructed by the learner, but the

paths to them are.

LEARNING IS CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE OBJECTSIn contrast to metaphors that assume that knowledge objects are

somehow acquired from the external world, many metaphorical references

insist that they are constructed internally by learners. This is the

general metaphor of constructivism, though as we shall see it is

further elaborated in some forms of constructivism than in others. In

the first, simple version, articulated by Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky,

and echoed by later writers such as Ackermann, Cook, Martı́nez, Sauleda

& Huber, and policy makers such as the U.S. Dept. of Labor , the

objects may be static. In these examples, learners are still

containers, but the knowledge does not “arrive” via the “conduit” of

words or other instructional means. Interestingly, Karpicke & Roediger

reveal a metaphor for theory development related more to construction

than to information processing, suggesting that their own metaphoric

representations of learning may be (at least in part) constructivist,

even though they explicitly describe their own theories as

cognitivist. Even Rogoff’s metaphorical language refers to internal

construction of static knowledge structures at times, though as we

will see, she more often uses metaphors involving sociocultural

context, aligning with her intentional statements.

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE LIVING ORGANISMSPiaget elaborated further on the idea of knowledge as objects by

referring to them, metaphorically, as living creatures (sometimes

translated into English as mechanisms). His use of this metaphorical

language predates his formal articulation of learning objects as

dynamic processes, referring to ideas as being born, evolving,

blossoming, and even becoming embarrassed. As Piaget’s work progresses

over time, he begins to speak of ideas being sophisticated dynamic

mental inventions that are able to interact and transform one another.

His terminology becomes more similar to that of Vygotsky, who

frequently refers to psychological processes as plants (e.g. having

roots) or as animals (having outward appearances and sometimes

conflicting historical evolutions), capable of growing, aging, dying,

and becoming fossilized. Many writers, such as Phillips, reference

ideas as organisms that can be “met” or “attacked.” This may be

indicative of a human tendency to anthropomorphize objects and

phenomena in the world (a specific form of metaphorical cognition).

IDEAS ARE PLACESA common alternative metaphor to IDEAS ARE OBJECTS is IDEAS ARE

PLACES. This is distinct from the metaphor described above in which

knowledge objects have locations within mental space—here, the

metaphor is that the knowledge or ideas themselves are locations. This

is the underlying metaphor system to the sub-metaphor LEARNING IS A

JOURNEY, described below. Piaget, Dewey, Vygotsky, and Rogoff have all

used this metaphoric language to describe ideas in terms of

advancements, topography, levels, directions, end-points, and

perspectives. Vosniadou uses this metaphor extensively in her

comparison of cognitive and situative theories. Though this metaphor

is distinct from the IDEAS ARE CONSTRUCTED metaphor, the two

metaphoric systems are often used in conjunction by the same theorists

for different purposes, allowing these theorists to explicate

different aspects of “knowledge” and “learning.”

LEARNING IS A JOURNEYMetaphors can also be combined, as described by Lakoff & Johnson (p

97). “When two metaphors successfully satisfy two purposes, then

overlaps in the purposes will correspond to overlaps in the

metaphors.” Here, knowledge may be situated as objects within some

kind of idea space, and the learner journeys to them. Since the

learner directs (constructs) their own journey, this metaphor combines

the ideas of the LEARNERS CONSTRUCT KNOWLEDGE with KNOWLEDGE EXISTS IN

SPACE. This metaphor is used by theorists from a wide variety of

traditions.

LABOR AND WEALTH Separately from the nature of knowledge as acquired or constructed,

many metaphorical systems exist which treat learning as labor, wealth,

or a combination of both, in keeping with the common Western work-

ethic metaphor LABOR IS WEALTH. However, the two common metaphors we

review here present some incompatibilities when examined closely.

LEARNING IS LABORInformation processing theorists are particularly likely to equate

effort with learning, and make both direct and metaphoric statements

in this regard, but this metaphoric concept is not exclusive to them,

also being seen in Confucian traditions. In both cases, the virtue

culturally associated with effort may be shaping the metaphor, but

this does not detract from the potential utility of the metaphor,

especially within cultures holding this value.

LEARNING IS WEALTHIn Euro-American cultures, particularly, education is seen as an investment, and learning is a form of wealth. This holds true whether the learning is individually held objects or socially distributed history. Of particular interest is the use of the metaphor of LEARNINGIS INHERITANCE, first noted in Dewey’s writings in 1929, but reflectedin examples as late as Rogoff in 1990. This suggests associated concepts of entitlement and social justice, in contrast to the individual effort assumed to be required in the LEARNING IS LABOR metaphor.

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS (OR CONTEXTS) ARE CONTAINERSSocio-cultural theories define knowledge and learning in terms of

membership and participation within a community or context. Even this

preliminary definition reveals an underlying metaphor about SOCIAL

INSTUTIONS AND CONTEXTS AS CONTAINERS. This metaphorical language is

extremely common in the writings of Rogoff, Phillips, Vosniadou, and

Shepherd. It is developed further in the metaphorical systems

KNOWLEDGE IS CULTURAL HISTORY, KNOWLEDGE IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE ON A

ROLE IN A SOCIAL GROUP, and LEARNING IS CONVERSATION, discussed in

more detail below. In these simple examples, social institutions and

contexts can contain both ideas and people as members, and ideas and

members have position within or outside of these containers: they can

be central, peripheral, out of bounds, etc., similar to IDEAS ARE

SPACE. When combined with IDEAS ARE OBJECTS, ideas and social contexts

can be nested inside one another. When combined with IDEAS ARE LIVING

ORGANISMS, social institutions may be viewed as living agents, as well

as containers.

COMMUNITY IS HISTORYThe definition of a community as its socio-cultural historical process

is both explicitly and implicitly referenced by a number of writers.

Of the authors surveyed, Phillips employs this concept most

metaphorically, referring to “powerful folk-tales” as a description of

theoretical traditions, and describing constructivism as a “secular

religion.” Addams’ more general metaphor “connects” children with

“things of the past.” These metaphors suggest ways in which people

relate to and identify with theoretical frameworks that is not neutral

or objective, nor intended to be so.

KNOWLEDGE IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE ON A ROLE IN A SOCIAL GROUPIn contrast to the other metaphorical systems we have discussed so

far, it is difficult to find metaphorical statements of this type in

published literature, though direct claims of this nature are

abundant. In most socio-cultural texts, learning is explicitly, rather

than metaphorically, defined as the role/responsibility of

participation in an activity, and that responsibility for

participation is an object that can be divided, supported, and

transferred.

In a smaller sample of writings, Dewey does provide the contrast of

participator vs. spectator, a metaphor that is later taken up by

authors such as Phillips and Jenkins. Lorrie Shepherd is unusual in

presenting several ideas using group participation or role-oriented

language: teachers have a role, implicitly promised as part of the

“standards movement,” in which they need help; this role involves

“fending off” or “resisting” certain ideas. In Shepherd’s writing,

teachers take on the role of metaphorical defenders of their

classrooms as part of the process of learning to teach/becoming

teachers. Knowles agrees with this characterization of learning (and

research about learning) as a “quest,” and accuses other theorists of

seeing teachers as managers, shapers, and self-appointed deities, and

of seeing learners as servants or drudges. Meanwhile Neem, in

defending traditional residential college learning, defines group

membership in terms of shared experience, though the respective roles

of scouts and masters are also referenced.

The comparative scarcity of this metaphor in educational writing

suggests several possibilities:

1. It is not a common way for educational theorists to think, even

those who advocate explicitly for thinking of education in a

socio-cultural form

2. The examples collected of direct statements are actually

metaphorical attempts to describe some more abstract underlying

process

3. Participation in a community is such a basic human experience

that it requires no metaphor.

These are questions that would be worth pursuing further, with a more

systematic metaphorical textual analysis of several key socio-cultural

theorists.

LEARNING IS CONVERSATIONOne very specific type of participation within a community is

conversation, and this metaphor appears more frequently than any

others involving community role. Phillips notes that “voice” is a key

part of inclusion in a group, and Kolb & Kolb warn us to avoid letting

conversational space become dominated by a single role. Vygotsky hints

that when denied conversational opportunities with others, young

children will revert to “egocentric speech,” essentially conversing

with themselves as a critical part of the learning process.

LEARNING IS EMPOWERMENTSpecific references to learning as empowerment of the learners to

overcome oppression are at the core of social reconstructionist and

critical theories of learning. This metaphor is a sub-system of

KNOWLEDGE IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE ON A ROLE IN A SOCIAL GROUP; the role

is specifically leadership. In contrast to the direct claims of

critical theorists, metaphorical statements tend to frame power

relationships in analogies to sports such as judo or gendered power

relationships. Metaphors of this type are more common in curriculum

theory than in learning theory, as they relate to the valuation and

utility of knowledge as much as its epistemological nature.

LEARNING IS NATURAL GROWTHLearning is very often referred to in metaphorical terms as natural

growth, consonant with “Learner Centered” theories of pedagogy. Rogoff

also uses this language within her rhetoric. As we have seen with the

metaphorical system IDEAS ARE ORGANISMS, metaphors of living organisms

and growth are quite common in general.

LEARNING IS EXPERIENCESeveral writers use metaphorical (and direct) statements equating

learning with time spent gaining experience. While not all time

results in experience, there is an underlying assumption that

experience takes time to develop. This is consistent with Gigerenzer’s

theory of heuristic reasoning based on a corpus of experience, though

as Knowles points out, there may be unwarranted assumptions about

where and when this learning occurs that are inapplicable to adult

college learners (discussed further in Section 3, Implications for an

Adult Online Learning Program). The long standing notion of the

“credit hour” is an especially prevalent implementation of this

metaphor.

LEARNING IS TRANSFORMATION OF THE LEARNERDirect claims that learning is (or should be) “transformative” are

common in contemporary educational rhetoric. While there are some

corresponding metaphorical statements in educational literature, they

tend to be vague, in some cases bordering on mystical. The exception

is the related metaphorical sub-system LEARNING IS EMPOWERMENT,

discussed above.

LEARNING IS PERSONAL INTERPRETATIONSome theorists reject the interpretation of learning as a social

activity in favor of a completely “learner centered” approach. This

survey did not find any examples of metaphoric language in this

category. A survey of learner statements might be more helpful in this

regard.

SummaryIt is important to understand that all of the metaphoric systems

explored above are considered “valid.” To this point we have not made

any argument for preferentially choosing between them, and as noted

above, Lakoff & Johnson argue that we can gain significant benefit

from making use of multiple metaphors. Anna Sfard makes a stronger

claim: “The basic tension between seemingly conflicting metaphors is

our protection against theoretical excesses, and is a source of power”

(Sfard, 1998, p 10). With this in mind, we will proceed to examine

each of the metaphor systems identified above in relation to proposals

for an adult online college program.

Implications for an Adult Online Learning Program:The internet is often referred to in terms of transmitting knowledge

objects, and it is easy to become focused on that metaphor of

learning, as well. But if we consider other metaphors of learning, we

realize that we need to extend our understanding to support learning

online. The online environment can facilitate connections to and

within a community; it can be explored. It can certainly serve as a

marketplace. What are some of the other metaphors of learning that an

online environment can facilitate? Are there some important metaphors

of learning that are not readily accommodated in an online

environment? Lakoff & Johnson suggest at least the following:

“Conceptual metaphors… lie behind the building of computer interfaces

(e.g., the desktop metaphor) and the structuring of the Internet into

"information highways," "department stores," "chat rooms," `"auction

houses," "amusement parks," and so on” (Lakoff & Johnson, 2008, p

245). The online environment is essentially a communication medium,

and supports, in general, any metaphors relevant to communication,

though not always to the same extent or with the same fluency as other

media (e.g. face-to-face conversation).

Conflicts in metaphorsAs noted above, metaphoric systems are often mixed within the same

statement. For example:

“In other words, it appears that there is an asymmetry in the direction of knowledge transfer. While there is little transfer of scientific or mathematical knowledge obtained in school to everyday situations, knowledge acquired in everyday settings seems to be ubiquitous and ready to be transferred to other settings” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 60).

Here, Vosniadou employs IDEAS ARE PLACES and IDEAS ARE OBJECTS, as

well as SOCIAL SITUATIONS ARE PLACES. Lakoff & Johnson suggest that

this is possible when metaphors have shared entailments. Objects and

places are part of the same concrete conceptual system, so these mixed

metaphors are coherent. However, this is not always the case.

“Metaphors may be used in the same utterances if they have some

overlap, but it is also possible for such mixed metaphors to be

incoherent” (Lakoff & Johnson, p 95).

*“We can now follow the path of the core of the argument”

This metaphorical statement conflicts because even though there are

common metaphors for arguments involving containers (with a “core”)

and journeys (with a “path”), it is more difficult to conceptualize

something as simultaneously being a container and a journey.

This is a significant point for our next topic, the metaphoric support

of learning in online environments. For each metaphor of learning that

we wish to support, we need to find a compatible metaphor within the

online environment, if we expect to support that conceptualization of

learning.

IDEAS ARE OBJECTSThe conduit metaphor is regularly employed to describe online

learning, where the “content” of the course may consist of “learning

objects,” organized by “objectives,” presented to students in lists,

tracked, and stored in databases, and assessed via a “learning

management system.” As we have seen above, this is a metaphor used

consistently by many learning theorists, teachers, policy makers, and

even students, and while it does not “tell the whole story” of

learning, it is not inherently incompatible with other metaphors that

can be combined to provide a more multidimensional conceptualization

of learning. It is worth exploring how this metaphor is currently used

in adult online college programs, as it is often the default

assumption of instructors, administrators, and students alike.

LEARNING IS TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE (OBJECTS) VIA WORDS (CONTAINERS)It is easy to see how an online learning environment facilitates this

metaphor. The online environment is based on digital transactions;

units of data are sent from central servers to individual computers

and back via interfaces built on the “information processing” model.

There are interesting differences, however, in the “acquisition” and

“construction” sub-systems of this metaphor.

LEARNING IS ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE OBJECTSStatements such as “students need to acquire the basic concepts before

moving on to application” are common in college environments, and

typical online course design illustrates this metaphor. An online

course will frequently present a number of resources for students,

e.g. attached PDF files, videos, links to online sites, etc., and will

follow up such preliminary assignments with assessments. Often these

assessments are in objectivist multiple-choice format, testing for

“retention” of the material, or at best, “comprehension.” Even within

the cognitivist philosophy, few college instructors are familiar with

Bloom’s Taxonomy or its hierarchical value placed on “application,”

“analysis,” “evaluation,” or “synthesis.” Test item banks of multiple-

choice questions are provided by many textbook publishers, and these

items are imported wholesale into quiz management utilities in online

learning management systems. This can probably serve some utility in

learning, but it should not be accepted as sufficient for a complete

learning environment.

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE STORED IN MENTAL SPACEThis metaphor is referred to by both instructors and students, but is

only implemented weakly in online courses. Where an instructor in a

face to face college course might sketch spatial relationships on a

whiteboard or ask students to construct diagrams or concept maps,

either as study guides or as a form of assessment, online courses tend

to rely heavily on text as the medium for student input. Historically,

few students have had easy access to scanners or other digitizing

tools, and creating images in a digital format required special

software and skill. However, it is now possible to embed simple

diagram creation tools into web-based learning systems, and further,

many students have digital cameras in the form of popular mobile

devices such as smart phones or tablets. An online adult college

program may wish to encourage instructors to incorporate visual

representations of knowledge relationships into both course materials

and student assignments, whether graded or not.

LEARNING IS CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE OBJECTSAlthough the acquisition model is still most commonly referenced in

instructor and student statements about learning, many instructors are

at least familiar with cognitivism, and some, particularly those

familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy or a similar model, will try to

incorporate “constructive” assignments into their courses.

The most common form this takes is in asking students to create an

original essay, or sometimes some other artifact, for submission to

the instructor. This is fairly congruent with one interpretation of

the constructivist metaphor, but these artifacts are usually then

assessed on objectivist, acquisition-based grounds. From a practical

perspective, even in a face to face context it is difficult (if not

impossible) to assess or evaluate the knowledge models students

construct for themselves directly, and the distance and

depersonalization commonly associated with online learning systems

seems to make this task even more difficult.

The key limitation to accessing the power of the constructivist

metaphor is that the basis of the assessments is still grounded in

acquisitionist metaphor. The criteria seem too often to be, “show me

how your mental model matches the one I expect,” rather than “show me

that you have developed a functioning mental model.” Many instructors,

having been “schooled” via a knowledge acquisition metaphor, do not

themselves have an explicit understanding of what would constitute a

“functioning mental model.” “Foundational knowledge” is taught as

knowledge to be acquired because it was taught that way to the

instructors, the available textbooks are organized that way, and in

some cases the college curricula themselves are specified in those

terms. As an example, a college catalog might state that students

will “develop a general knowledge of laws and theories in at least one

branch of science” (Granite State College, 2013). Presented with such

a statement, most faculty will test for the ability to retain and

reproduce statements about laws and theories, not mental models.

A college can implement a more constructivist metaphor by carefully

examining its curriculum statements and wording them in constructivist

terms whenever possible. For example, the above statement could be

reworded as “develop and demonstrate appropriate working theories in

at least one branch of science.” This would shift the emphasis from

recitation to application, and would encourage instructors to design

assessments of the theories students have constructed, rather than

grading essays or lab reports based on how well they match theories

students have been presented with.

A college can also institute review criteria for textbooks and other

materials, providing guidelines and exemplars of learning materials

that encourage a constructivist metaphor.

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE LIVING ORGANISMSThe more dynamic view of knowledge objects as changing and interactive

presents an additional challenge to most traditionally organized

college courses, because “acquired knowledge” is often assessed only

once, with perhaps an additional final review assessment at the end of

the term. If we wish to understand how learners’ internal knowledge is

adapting and changing over time, we need to request explications of

those models not once, but at multiple points during the course (or

even in multiple courses), and the resulting models must be compared.

Portfolio systems seem ideally suited to help facilitate this

metaphor. The nature of a portfolio includes student selection,

comparison, and evaluation of artifacts, as well as instructor

assessment. By using a digital portfolio (or “ePortfolio”), more

sophisticated representations of student knowledge can be collected

and compared, even across multiple terms.

An ePortfolio system cannot be implemented for this purpose without

substantial effort in designing appropriate curriculum requirements.

Again, “learning outcome” statements in the curriculum need to be

written to make clear that change and growth are to be evaluated.

Revising our previous statement once again, we might write, “Over

time, develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated working

theories in at least one branch of science.”

IDEAS ARE PLACESAs we have seen in the metaphorical statements cited above, this is

another extremely common metaphor in the educational context. In

contemporary college courses, this metaphor may be implemented as a

vertically organized syllabus, making use of a related metaphor TIME

IS PLACE, with concepts related to one another along a span of weeks.

As with the metaphor KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE STORED IN MENTAL SPACE,

implementation of this metaphor in the online environment has been

hindered in the past by limited access to image digitization and

creation tools, but these tools are now readily available and

instructors may be encouraged to use them. Whether as static charts

created in simple slideshow software or as animated sketches captured

with a tablet or electronic pen (e.g. LiveScribe), spatial

illustrations of concepts and their relationships can be of great

benefit to learners. If feasible, three dimensional online

environments (e.g. Second Life, Minecraft, or other constructed

virtual worlds) may also be used to illustrate conceptual

relationships.

LEARNING IS A JOURNEYOne of my professional colleagues has argued passionately for a

restructuring of web-based learning systems to enable horizontal,

rather than vertical scrolling (Covello, 2015). His reasoning is that

horizontal space is a better representation of progress in learning

than vertical space, which is a holdover from the layout of newsprint,

driven by physical exigencies no longer applicable. While not all

learners (or instructors) might be as closely aligned to this metaphor

as my colleague, it is true that learners enjoy knowing how “far they

have progressed” in their learning activities; LEARNING IS A JOURNEY

is a metaphor readily accessible by both learners and instructors.

Usability studies (e.g. Kerwin, 2014) advise against side-scrolling

interfaces in online environments (learning environments or

otherwise), but other tools may serve the underlying purpose, such as

progress bars, concept maps that indicate “explored” topics, automatic

completion checkboxes, badge collections, and other visual indications

of learner accomplishments. In addition to increasing metaphorical

congruence with learner conceptions of progress, these indicator

systems can also have a motivational effect on learners (Anderson et

al, 2013).

LABOR AND WEALTH Relevant to both LEARNING IS LABOR and LEARNING IS WEALTH is a strong

recommendation that adult online colleges provide flexible methods for

demonstrating prior learning effort (labor) and accomplishments

(wealth). Credit transfer and articulation agreements form a common

baseline of “Prior Learning Assessment” systems, but portfolio

submissions of artifacts of significant educative experiences should

also be a streamlined, readily accessible process. As Offerman (2012)

points out, “failure to accept and recognize prior learning undercuts

the confidence and motivation of adult students.” In addition to

considering offering digital badges as micro-credentials (discussed

below), the college may also want to formally define criteria by which

digital badges may be accepted as evidence of prior learning.

LEARNING IS LABORLearning analytics can provide some insight into how much effort is

being spent in the online system and with which resources, but this

can also be misleading. The real value of this metaphor is the

promotion of deep engagement. Content needs to make use of the “test

effect” supported in Information Processing literature, but in a

broader conceptual manner, requiring learners to continually use and

deepen their mental constructions as they work with the content on

their own time. This argues for simulations, or at least well-crafted

quiz questions with feedback. (See Haladyna, 1997 for thorough

discussion of the construction of quiz questions to assess higher-

order learning objectives.) Commercially developed high-quality quiz

questions are rare, and few faculty in disciplines outside of

Education, whether full-time residential or adjunct practitioners,

have any formal background in constructing assessments. Prepared high-

quality simulations (especially in the sciences) may be easier to come

by. Interaction, preferably with feedback, is the critical element.

LEARNING IS WEALTHAdult learners make many sacrifices to continue their education, in

terms of both time and money invested. While many adult learners do

have goals beyond immediately enhancing employability (Turner et al,

2007), with public discourse increasingly focused on the “return on

investment” of a college education, an institution might do well to

make the value of its programs as visible and portable as possible.

Turner et al suggest that institutions “Develop pre-baccalaureate,

career-related certificate programs that incorporate academic credit

that can be counted toward a degree” (p 11). Open Badge systems can

make these efforts even more granular, providing motivation to

learners in the form of visible accumulation of public evidence of

“wealth” of learning accomplishments (Elkordy, 2012).

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS (OR CONTEXTS) ARE CONTAINERSOnline courses, like their face-to-face counterparts, group students

“within” the “containers” of courses, terms, majors, etc., and these

groupings tend to be reflected in the layout and navigation of the

online environment. However, one of the strongest criticisms against

both online learning and traditional classroom-based learning is that

it is decontextualized. The classroom can provide a learning

community, but not necessarily an authentic community of practice,

often consisting entirely of novice learners and a single instructor

who may or may not be a practitioner. Adult college programs often

make a point of hiring working practitioners as instructors, which can

help connect learners to the authentic community of practice.

Critically, can we foster social relationships in an online

environment? The massive popularity of social media argues that this

should be possible, and moreover, the explosion of professional online

communities in sites like LinkedIn indicates that these can be working

communities of practice (and in fact these have existed online since

Usenet, prior to the construction of the protocols that enabled rich

media in the “World wide web”). Internet users do reference metaphors

of being “in” online groups. We need to work to make these elements of

online courses stronger, both in terms of learners feeling they are

part of a learning community, and learners feeling they are

increasingly part of an authentic community of practice.

COMMUNITY IS HISTORYOne obstacle to the formation of community within online adult college

courses is that enrollment tends to be discrete, with fewer

participants continuing through a program as a cohort, and frequent

“stop outs” as students balance conflicting responsibilities of work,

family, and learning (Metzner & Bean, 1987). To enable a learning

community to build up a history, community areas outside of courses

need to be enabled and supported. These should include alumni if

possible, as well as previous college learners not currently enrolled

in a specific course. Ideally, these would be self-organized

communities of learners, practicing alumni, and practitioner

instructors, forming online communities around topics and projects of

their own choosing.

Socio-historical context as a component in curriculum also helpful,

though this is generally already incorporated in college courses (and

is sometimes over-emphasized as “knowledge objects” or historical

trivia). The curricular emphasis should be on helping learners

conceive of themselves as a part of the history of a community of

practice, not on seeing the historical community as “other.”

Encouraging students to participate in and share novel oral history

projects, contribute to shared resources such as online encyclopediae,

or other ways to engage with and share community history with both the

learning community and the community of practice are highly

recommended.

KNOWLEDGE IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE ON A ROLE IN A SOCIAL GROUPMany educational contexts assign “group work” without acknowledging

that group participation is itself something to be learned.

Asynchronous learning, the form typically used in online college

programs, makes group activities particularly difficult. Group

projects can be assigned by the instructor, but can be hard for

learners with disparate schedules, goals, and levels of commitment to

coordinate. Encouraging learners to participate in additional groups

and communities outside of the class may be more helpful in any case.

If at all possible, an adult learning program should attempt to

incorporate a strong internship program, preferably working with

alumni to strengthen the learning community beyond graduation as well

as strengthening ties with learners and their proposed communities of

practice. Learners can also be encouraged to participate in online

professional communities. Externally awarded Digital Open Badges (see,

e.g. Elkordy, 2012) may be usefully incorporated into an online

learning program as a way to validate and make visible growing learner

participation in an external community of practice. These badges

encapsulate criteria, evidence, and evaluator credentials in a form

that can be reviewed for credit within the college, as well as

presented to prospective employers or other members of a desired

community of practice.

Learners may not become a part of every community of practice they

encounter within a college program. A curriculum goal such as “Become

a functioning member of a working community in at least one branch of

science” may not be appropriate for every student in every major. But

as students advance to upper level courses, such goal statements

should apply, and should become part of formal assessments in

coursework.

LEARNING IS CONVERSATIONDiscussion can be a strong core of an online college course

experience. Most learning management systems offer well-developed

forum tools. Both practitioner-instructors and students may need

orientation to professional and academic discussions, which differ

significantly from casual discussions in social media with which

learners may be more familiar. The ability to communicate within the

prospective community of practice is a key part of the learning

experience, so learners should be encouraged to begin to participate

in conversations with such community members within and outside of the

college, early and often.

LEARNING IS EMPOWERMENTAgain, empowerment within a group can be seen both within the learning

context and within the learner’s desired community of practice.

Within the learning context, asynchronous communication tools support

coeducational efforts beyond boundaries of geography and schedule,

allowing classes to combine ages, genders, races, physical abilities,

etc. without students necessarily being confronted with or distracted

by these differences (“On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

Steiner, 1993). This can be a powerful advantage to students in often-

marginalized groups, though we can’t take this effect for granted if

learners’ identities are “outed” (Hess, 2014). Asynchronous dialogues

also allow for participation by all learners, not only those quickest

or loudest to respond to an instructor’s question.

As learners grow beyond the boundaries of the “safe” learning

environment, an important goal of adult education is to help students

develop networking skills and responsible sharing online (as opposed

to over-sharing), as well as participation in face-to-face social

contexts. The asynchronous online environment may not be able to help

learners prepare for synchronous face-to-face communications.

Synchronous online communications, such as web-based video

conferencing, may help students with difficulties in these areas

prepare for live, in person interactions, but partnerships with

physically co-located groups may also be necessary to provide the

context for learners to begin to take on more group leadership roles.

LEARNING IS NATURAL GROWTHThis is a metaphor not often given emphasis in college environments. A

college program wanting to incorporate this metaphor into its programs

may consider the advice offered under the LABOR AND WEALTH section,

adapted to offer opportunities for students to receive recognition and

validation for concurrent learning outside of the formal classroom

while in the college program. The ePortfolio systems discussed under

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE LIVING ORGANISMS may also be used to represent

natural growth by the learner.

LEARNING IS EXPERIENCEA criticism of online learning is that it does not include the

immersive experience of a residential college. However, adult learners

tend to have more life experience than traditionally aged students,

and this can be incorporated into the learning process. As discussed

above, ePortfolio systems may be used to provide ways for learners to

represent their experience prior to and concurrent with the formal

college program. Digital Open Badges also offer channels for learners

to document their learning experiences.

More importantly, learning activities in an adult online college

program should be structured to maximize the life experience learners

bring to their formal coursework. Whenever possible, instructors

should be encouraged to ask learners to incorporate their own lived

experiences into projects and assignments.

LEARNING IS TRANSFORMATION OF THE LEARNERThe metaphor of transformation relates to learner identity, and raises

issues of learner control. To what extent do adult learners entering a

college program wish to be “transformed,” i.e. to have their

identities significantly altered? Is it appropriate for a learning

program to hold such goals, regardless of learner interest?

Careful consideration of learner intent is advised here. An adult

online program would do well to take advantage of the ready

availability of survey tools to inquire of learners as to their own

purposes in engaging in the program, and to evaluate efforts at

transformation on the basis of student priorities.

LEARNING IS PERSONAL INTERPRETATIONThis metaphor is possibly the most difficult to incorporate into any

formal learning program, precisely because it is so personal. While an

adult online college program can offer learners a venue in which to

express their own interpretations of learning, it seems inappropriate

to try to make such participation mandatory or to assess it.

On the other hand, the use of portfolios, as described above, often

include a personal reflection and interpretation component, and a

willingness and facility to express one’s personal learning journey

can be seen as a key component to participation within a community.

The online environment can certainly support a metaphor for personal

interpretation; tools for self-expression are abundant in the online

world.

ConclusionsThe online environment presents a rich communication medium, readily

able to support a wide range of metaphors of learning, whether

simultaneously or in turn. The challenge lies in structuring a college

program to take advantage of these communicative facilities and

affordances. Although there are specific accommodations needed beyond

those in a residential college environment, many of the most

significant considerations necessary to support the full range of

learning metaphors are common to traditional face-to-face and online

programs alike, in the form of curriculum review and instructor

guidance. Careful consideration of these metaphorical aspects while

designing an adult online college program may provide an opportunity

to improve upon the typical face-to-face college experience,

especially for adult learners.

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Appendix

IDEAS ARE OBJECTSLEARNING IS TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE (OBJECTS) VIA WORDS (CONTAINERS)Examples:

“That concept is hard to grasp. The idea went right by me. Let me play with the concept for a while. I’ll file that one away. He’s been churning out ideas for years. I’m taking it all in. This concept is constructed out of a number of smaller concepts. I’m a little rusty today” (Lakoff, 1989).

“…for the baby, knowing consists of assimilating things to schemas from one’s own action…The first consequence is that the young child will be at the same time closer to and further away from things than we are ourselves” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“So, if our working hypotheses are correct, the attaining of mechanical explanations, around the age of ten to eleven, is not due simply to the elimination of subjectivism and to a growing empiricism,

but indeed to the development of reason that allows the child to shed both the subjective adherences of his thought and the empirical appearances of things” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“…rational construction seems to progressively replace empirical association…” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“…The child has an essential experience which will impact upon his representation of the world” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“That is what I am trying to convey in claiming that the causality of this stage is essentially moral” (Piaget, 1928/2008)

““Learning is often considered complete when a student can produce thecorrect answer to a question.” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2009, p 966)

“For the read passages, correct recall was 63% for tested items (averaged across the number-of-distractors variable) and only 40% for non-tested items.” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 203)

“Sometimes students use existing concepts to deal with new phenomena. This variant of the first phase of conceptual change we call assimilation. Often, however, the students’ current concepts are inadequate to allow him to grasp some new phenomenon successfully. Then the student must replace or reorganize his central concepts. Thismore radical form of conceptual change we call accommodation.” (Posner, 1982, p 212)

“A medium is in part a channel for conveying content; new media such as the Internet mean that we can readily reach wider, more diverse audiences. Just as important, however, is that a medium is a representational container enabling new types of messages (e.g., sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words).” (Dede, 1996, p 1)

“The premise of this paper is that there is a set of principles that can be found in most instructional design theories and models…” (Merrill, 2002, p 44)

“When we utilize feedback appropriately, we correct learners’ misconceptions and support correct retrieval.” (Thalheimer, 2013)

LEARNING IS ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE OBJECTSExamples:

“If students have not mastered basic knowledge of the subject matter, they have no chance of thinking critically and creatively about the

subject, and testing can help students acquire this body of knowledge”(Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 205).

“The fundamental question is what knowledge the teacher would like the students to take from the class and be able to use in (transfer to) other situations” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 205).

“Mental imagery in particular is the product of interiorized imitationand not the simple residue of perception as it was previously believed” (Piaget , 1966, p 112).

“Effective instruction should engage students in all four levels of performance: the problem level, the task-level, the operation-level, and the action-level” (Miller, 2002, p 46).

“…we argue in this article that testing not only measures knowledge, but also changes it, often greatly improving retention of the tested knowledge.” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 181)

“The testing effect represents a conundrum, a small version of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in psychology: Just as measuring the position of an electron changes that position, so the act of retrieving information from memory changes the mnemonic representationunderlying retrieval—and enhances later retention of the tested information” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 182).

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE STORED IN MENTAL SPACEExample:

“Alternatively, retrieval may increase the elaboration of a memory trace and multiply retrieval routes, and these processes may account for the testing effect” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 198).

“This result can be understood as due to an increase in the types of retrieval routes that permit access to the memory trace (or perhaps a multiplexing of the features of the memory trace itself)” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 198).

LEARNING IS CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE OBJECTSExamples:

“What a child gets out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which he himself forms with regard to it.” (Dewey, 1929/2004, 22)

“This reversibility is not a primitive matter; it is progressively built up as a function of the same complex structures mentioned above.” (Piaget, 1984, 169)

“The explanations of movement by the air feeding back on itself or of the suspension of clouds by gliding are also rational constructions succeeding the naïve empiricism of the previous stage.” (Piaget, 1928/2008)

“…the child’s reasoning results in the construction of a quantitative and rational world that comes to replace the universe of superficial appearances.” (Piaget, 1928/2008)

"The two central problems which to my mind dominate all questions of cognitive development are (1) to determine whether knowledge consists only in copying or imitating reality, or whether to understand reality it is necessary to invent the structures which enable us to assimilate reality, and consequently …" (Piaget, 1967, p1)

“… the child is obliged, little by little, to construct a reality deeper than that of immediate experience…” (Piaget, 1928/2008)

“We call the internal reconstruction of an external operation internalization.” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 56)

“I hope to provide some conceptual hooks for researchers, designers, and educators, to build on.” (Ackermann, 2001, p 2)

“…we are tempted to offer opportunities for kids to engage in hands-onexplorations that fuel the constructive process.” (Ackermann, 2000, p 1-2)

“Future research is needed to put these conclusions on a firmer foundation” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 204).

“That final trick–of representing prior thoughts as things, gives our minds the awesome power to use the same brain-machinery over and over again–to replace entire conceptualizations by compact symbols, and hence to build gigantic structures of ideas the way our children buildgreat bridges and towers from simple separate blocks. It lets us buildnew ideas from old ones; in short, it makes it possible to think.” (Minsky, 1985)

“Children’s participation in communicative processes is the foundationon which they build their understanding.” (Rogoff, 1990, 195) participation is object, understanding is construction.

“He provides the following striking rejection of the ‘nature as template’ view…” ” (Phillips, 1995, p 8).

“…the interested reader can try his or her own hand at constructing ananalysis of the broader cerncens that are tied in with Piaget’s and Habermas’s views…” (Phillips, 1995, p 11).

“Learning is promoted when learners are directed to recall, relate, describe, or apply knowledge from relevant past experience that can beused as a foundation for the new knowledge” (Merrill, 2002, p 46).

“…students may need additional modules and courses to build foundational knowledge…” (Cook, 2015)

“To support the development of industry competency models, ETA worked with industrial/organizational psychology experts to develop a genericmodel of competencies essential to work performance. The model, referred to as the Building Blocks for Competency Model provides a structure or framework for developing the personal effectiveness, academic, and workplace competencies required by an industry or an occupation.” (U.S. Dept. of Labor, 2012)

“From a cognitive point of view, knowledge consists of interrelated schemata, which are individually and actively constructed by transforming old schemata into new ones or by inductively developing new schemata from a series of varying experiences. Learning is the process of schema construction.” (Martı́nez, Sauleda & Huber, 2001, 967)

KNOWLEDGE OBJECTS ARE LIVING ORGANISMS"There are only three ways in which the birth of the notion of cause can be interpreted…" (Piaget, 1928/2008, p 207).

"When we examine the evolution of causality as a whole…" (Piaget, 1928/2008, p 207).

“We know, indeed, that the movement of projectiles was greatly embarrassing for Aristotle’s physics.” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“During the fourth stage the physical explanation refines itself” (Piaget, 1928/2008)

“…it appears to us undeniable that rational causality owes its blossoming to social influences.” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“…if we are to take up the problem of egocentrism again, which goes hand in hand with the deforming processes of assimilation, we must also situate language and play in the overall context of the individual and social actions of the child” (Piaget, 1966, p 112).

"… (2) to determine whether the actions performed by the subject on reality consist simply in the construction of appropriate images and adequate language, or whether the subject's actions, and, later, his operations, transform reality and modify objects " (Piaget, 1967, p 1).

“…cognitive development is a continuous building of new transformational structures and not the making of cameras or talking machines.” (Piaget, 1967).

“The internalization of socially rooted and historically developed activities is the distinguishing feature of human psychology….” (Vygotsky, 1978).

“I am emphasizing their common methodological framework because its recognition helps us to appreciate the fact that introspective psychology was rooted in the firm soil of natural sciences and that psychological processes have long been understood within a reactive context” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 59).

“A whale, from the point of view of its outer appearance, stands closer to the fish family than to the mammal, but in its biological nature it is closer to a cow or a deer than to a pike or a shark. Following Lewin, we can apply this distinction between the phenotypic (descriptive) and genotypic (explanatory) viewpoints to psychology” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 62).

“Psychological analysis of objects should be contrasted with the analysis of processes, which requires a dynamic display of the main points making up the processes’ history.” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 61).

“The third principle underlying our analytic approach is based on the fact that in psychology we often meet with processes that have alreadydied away, that is, processes that have gone through a very long stageof historical development and have become fossilized.” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 63)

“Pedagogy became a millstone around education's neck” (Knowles, 1979, p 42).

"Learning is an integral part of generative social practice in the lived-in world" (Lave & Wenger, 1991, 35)

“Both these pragmatists… vigorously attack what they call the ‘spectator theory of knowledge’” (Phillips, 1995, p 9).

“Earlier we met Nelson’s rather similar views” (Phillips, 1995, p 10).

“Clearly, all forms of constructivism take a stand on epistemological issues…” (Phillips, 1995, p 10).

“Constructivism also deserves praise for bringing epistemological issues to the fore in the discussion of learning and the curriculum…” (Phillips, 1995, p 11).

“…knowledge, Piaget tells us, expands and plateaus from within, and according to complex laws of self-organization.” (Ackermann, 2000, p 2).

"The views are continually evolving." (Ackermann, 2000, p 2).

“Human goals involve other people and carry feelings with them” (Rogoff, 1990, p 9).

“Recognizing the common paternity of behaviorist learning theory and objective testing helps us to understand the continued intellectual kinship between one-skill-at-a-time test items and instructional practices aimed at mastery of constituent elements” (Shepherd, 2000, p5).

“Learning is promoted when learners are provided or encouraged to recall a structure that can be used to organize the new knowledge” (Merrill, 2002, p 46).

“…a theoretical framework that we believe can be more fruitful…” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 55).

“…any theory that cannot explain transfer is a very inadequate theory of learning” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 57).

“In this distributed cognitive system, mental models continue to play an important role” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 62).

IDEAS ARE PLACESExamples:

“Furthermore, this conception will lead the child step by step to mechanism as a causal principle” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“…in the rational environment in which the civilized child lives, it is obvious that the child’s advancement to the final stages, just described, is singularly facilitated by the continuous influence of the adult perspective” (Piaget, 1928/2008).

“By the conventional method of teaching, the pupil learns maps insteadof the world—the symbol instead of the fact. What the pupil really needs is not exact information about topography, but how to find out for himself” (Dewey & Dewey, 1962).

“Development, as so often happens, proceeds here not in a circle but in a spiral [helix], passing through the same point at each new revolution while advancing to a higher level” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 56).

“Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level….” (Vygotsky, 1978, p 57).

“Welcome on a trip up the Amazon of educational psychology to the jungle of learning theory” (Knowles, 1979, p ix).

“In recent years new frontiers have been opened in such learning-related fields of inquiry as neurophysiology…”(Knowles, 1979, p 28).

“Literacy is an excellent example of the levels of relationship between the cognitive skills of the individual, the cultural technologies employed, and the societal institutions in which skill with technologies is practiced and developed” (Rogoff, 1990, 54-55).

“A contextual approach to understanding active thinking and development assumes multiple directions of development rather than accepting the premise of a unique ideal endpoint” (Rogoff, 1990, 56) .

“To see a problem from a qualitatively different vantage point requires a person to become aware that there is another perspective and that it may offer some advantages” (Rogoff, 1990, 142).

“…children who collaborate attain greater leaps of skill” (Rogoff, 1990, 182).

“Social activity serves not as a template for individual participationbut as a stepping stone, guiding the path taken but not determining it” (Rogoff, 1990, 197).

“I will argue that the main constructivist writers can be located along each of three different dimensions or axes…” (Phillips, 1995, p 5).

“I like to think of Piaget's child as a young Robinson Crusoe in the conquest of an unpopulated yet naturally rich island. Robinson's conquest is solitary yet extremely exciting since the explorer himselfis an inner- driven, very curious, and independent character. The ultimate goal of his adventure is not the exploration as such, but thejoy of stepping back and being able to build maps and other useful tools in order to better master and control the territory under exploration” (Ackermann, 2001, 9).

“This activity can be used to direct students to the yet-to-be-learnednew material…” (Merrill, 2002, p 47).

“…the attempt on the part of the situated perspective to move cognition out of the head is in the right direction…” “We then disucssa set of proposals to soften the boundaries between the cognitive and situative perspectives…” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 55).

“Last, we consider conceptual change not as the replacement of an incorrect naïve theory with a correct one, but rather as an opening upof the conceptual space through increased metaconceptual awareness, creating the possibility of entertaining different perspectives and different points of view” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 60).

LEARNING IS A JOURNEYExamples:

“…a reader can be sympathetic ot the educational or social concerns without being a fellow-traveller with regard to the epistemology, or vice-versa” (Phillips, 1995, p 10).

“Should Childhood Be a Journey or a Race?” (Kaplan & Middleton, 2002).

“Modifying new knowledge to make it one’s own is where a learner movesbeyond the instructional environment and takes the new knowledge and skill into the world beyond” (Merrill, 2002, p 51).

“If educational completion is one of the most important achievements for every American student, we need to leverage the technologies and analytical tools that will eradicate the most common educational mistakes (taking wrong turns, running out of academic gas,

miscalculating the distance, underestimating the costs, and not havinga “norm” to compare a personalized educational journey against)” (Bear& Campbell, 2012).

“Each principle focuses on a different aspect of the educational journey…” (Rassen et al, 2013)

“While Cognitive Load Theory has mostly been concerned with how instructional design of learning materials, assessment activities and teaching approaches can ameliorate or mitigate cognitive overload in the learning of new and complex material, it is argued here that it applies equally to the multiple learning tasks that form the early part of the learning journey of a first time eLearner” (Tyler-Smith, 2006).

“She started her academic journey in the United States in 2000” (Chuang, 2007).

“Using a travel metaphor, complete with a “passport” articulating personal visions of ‘journeys’ (learning goals and perceived knowledgeneeds), teachers engaged in learning units designed by a team of educational specialists including curriculum and development experts” (Elkordy, 2012).

LABOR AND WEALTH LEARNING IS LABORExamples:

“…high-ability students perceive well-structured instruction to be undemanding and invest less effort than needed when so instructed; they enjoy the instruction more but end up learning less than less able students.” (Salomon, 1984, p 649).

“These studies demonstrate the positive effects of retrieval effort onlater retention, and the testing effect reflects another example of retrieval effort promoting retention” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 198).

“Their model assumes that retrieval strength is negatively correlatedwith increments in storage strength; that is, easy retrieval (high retrieval strength) does not enhance storage strength, whereas more effortful retrieval practice does enhance storage strength and

promotes more permanent, long-term learning” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 199).

Again 200: “The results we have reviewed show that testing under conditions of effortful retrieval has a greater transfer effect on later test performance than testing under conditions of easy retrieval” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 200).

“Continuous testing requires students to continuously engage themselves in a course; they cannot coast until near a midterm exam and a final exam and begin studying only then” (Karpicke & Roediger, 2006, p 205).

“For Confucius, learning is closely tied to hard work. He spoke of effort much more than of ability (see, e.g., 18:1).” (Tweed & Lehman, 2002, p 91)”

“There is considerable support for the idea that learning is facilitated when people actively attempt to remember and generate responses themselves, rather than passively processing information spoon-fed to them by someone else.” (Metcalfe, Kornell & Son, 2007, p746)

LEARNING IS WEALTHExamples:

“Through this unconscious education the individual… becomes an inheritor of the funded capital of civilization.” (Dewey, 1929/2004, 17)

“Is our HRD program contributing to long-run gains in our human capital, or only short-run cost reduction?” (Knowles, 1979, p 1)

“Until recently educators of adults have ben wallowing around in this same morass, and after wallowing around in it a bit more ourselves we'll see how adult educators are beginning to extricate themselves” (Knowles, 1979, p 11).

“Learning is the indispensable investment required for success in the "information age" we are entering.” (Gardner, 1983, 8).

“Each generation of individuals in any society inherits, in addition to their genes, the products of cultural history, including technologies developed to support problem solving.” (Rogoff, 1990, 51).

“Competency-based strategies provide flexibility in the way that credit can be earned or awarded.” (U.S. Dept. of Education, 2014).

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS (OR CONTEXTS) ARE CONTAINERS “We have finally really begun to absorb into our culture the ancient insight that the heart of education is learning, not teaching…” (Knowles, 1979, p 41).

“Literacy is an excellent example of the levels of relationship between the cognitive skills of the individual, the cultural technologies employed, and the societal institutions in which skill with technologies is practiced and developed.” (Rogoff, 1990, 54-55)

“Assumptions about the appropriate ways to solve problems and the relative sophistication of different sorts of solutions are nested within the practices of the institutions and technologies of a society.” (Rogoff, 1990, 55)

“The institutions of society carry with them prescriptions for skilledperformance….” (Rogoff, 1990, 57)

“So much of what children are able to do requires their being embeddedin their culture.” (Rogoff, 1990, 138)

“In other words, it appears that there is an asymmetry in the direction of knowledge transfer. While there is little transfer of scientific or mathematical knowledge obtained in school to everyday situations, knowledge acquired in everyday settings seems to be ubiquitous and ready to be transferred to other settings” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 60).

“The transformation of assessment practices cannot be accomplished in separate tests and measurement courses, but rather should be a centralconcern in teaching methods courses” (Shepherd, 2000, p 4).

“All too often, however, mastery appears pat and certain but does not travel to new situations because students have mastered classroom routines and not the underlying concepts” (Shepherd, 2000, p 11).

COMMUNITY IS HISTORY “Can we not say, perhaps, that the schools ought to do more to connect these children with the best things of the past, to make them realize something of the beauty and charm of the language, the

history, and the traditions which their parents represent.” (Addams, 1908/2004, p 26)

“Each generation of individuals in any society inherits, in addition to their genes, the products of cultural history, including technologies developed to support problem solving.” (Rogoff, 1990, 51)

“…constructivism has become something akin to a secular religion” (Phillips, 1995, p 5)

“She might well have written the same about constructivism, which is,whatever else it may be, a ‘powerful folk-tale’ about the origins of human knowledge” (Phillips, 1995, p 5).

“…physics, biology, sociology, and even philosophy are not disciplinesthe content of which was handed down, ready formed, from on high; scholars have labored mightily over the generations to construct the content of these fields…” (Phillips, 1995, p 5).

“A longer-term span of history helps us see that those measurement perspectives, now felt to be incompatible with instruction, came from an earlier, highly consistent theoretical framework…” (Shepherd, 2000,p 4).

“The problem with the content view is that an academic discipline, or any other semiotic domain, for that matter, is not primarily content, in the sense of facts and principles. It is rather primarily a lived and historically changing set of distinctive social practices. It is in these social practices that 'content' is generated, debated, and transformed via certain distinctive ways of thinking, talking, valuing, acting, and often, writing and reading” (Gee, 2003, 21).

“…the beginnings of the conceptual change approach can be traced in the attempts of science educators…” (Vosniadou, 2007, p 58).

KNOWLEDGE IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE ON A ROLE IN A SOCIAL GROUPExamples:

“If the living, experiencing being is an intimate participant in the activities of the world to which it belongs, then knowledge is a mode of participation, valuable in the degree in which it is effective. It cannot be the idle view of an unconcerned spectator” (Dewey, 1916, p 393).

“The New Wave sweeping education into the 1970s is a humanistic quest for an understanding of the complex dynamics of growth and developmentby unique individuals in interaction with their environments” (Knowles, 1979, p 40). Participants in research are cast as heroes in a quest.

“The teaching monks based their instruction on assumptions about what would he required to control the development of these children into obedient, faithful, and efficient servants of the church” (Knowles, 1979, p 42).

“At best they would see the first two years to be drudgery that has tobe endured in order to get to the "real thing" in the third year” (Knowles, 1979, p 48).

“Obviously these theorists are unanimous in seeing teaching as the management of procedures which will assure specified behavioral changes as prescribed learning products. The role of the teacher, therefore, is that of a shaper of behavior. Stated this baldly, it smacks of what contemporary critics of education see as a God-playing role” (Knowles, 1979, p 62). Teachers are seen (by other theorists) asmanagers, shapers, and deities.

“During explicit interaction, adults and children collaborate in structuring children’s roles by dividing the responsibility for activities, with caregivers supporting and extending children’s skillsand subdividing tasks into manageable subgoals for children, and children guiding or even managing the caregivers’ efforts. The structure to support children’s learning and participation evolves as children gain skills that allow them to assume increasing responsibility. This transfer of responsibility is jointly achieved byadults and children.” (Rogoff, 1990, 86)

“I believe that—all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual’s powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits,training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions.” “The onlytrue education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling, and to

conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group towhich he belongs. (Dewey, 1929/2004, 17)

“…learning is synonymous with changes in the ways that an individual participates in social practices.” (Cobb & Bowers, 1999, 6)

“…I argue that teachers need help in fending off the distorting and de-motivating effects of external assessments” (Shepherd, 2000, p 7)

“More recently, the standards movement has been corrupted, in many instances, into a heavy-handed system of rewards and punishments without the capacity building and professional development originally proposed as part of the vision” (Shepherd, 2000, p 9

“Given their own personal histories, our students are able to hate standardized testing and at the same time reproduce it faithfully in their own pre-post testing routines, if they are not given the opportunity to develop and try out other meaningful forms of assessment situated in practice.” (Shepherd, 2000, p 9)

“…excited and engaging teachers in the magnet schools she studied found ways to resist and hold off the pernicious effects of proficiency testing on their curriculum…. Similarly, I believe we should explicitly address with our teacher education students how theymight cope with the contesting forces of good and evil assessment as they compete in classrooms to control curriculum, time, and student attitudes about learning.” (Shepherd, 2000, p 9)

“…involving students in analyzing their own work builds ownership of the evaluation process…” (Shepherd, 2000, p 12)

“Many of the most exciting current assessment projects are being conducted in classrooms but still have researchers at the helm…” (Shepherd, 2000, p 13).

“Learning is a collective process involving the cultural formation and reproduction of symbols and meaning perspectives.” (Brookfield, 1996)

“Thus, scouts camp together, learn together, and work together under the guidance of masters who teach knowledge and model the scouts’ values. Abstracted from this broader culture of scouting, the merit badges would lose their meaning and value.” (Neem, 2012, 64)

“Both these pragmatists… vigorously attack what they call the ‘spectator theory of knowledge’” (Phillips, 1995, p 9).

“Politics, as constructed by the news, becomes a spectator sport, something we watch but do not do” (Jenkins, 2006).

LEARNING IS CONVERSATION “This still leaves plenty of room for us to improve the nature and operation of our knowledge-constructing communities, to make them moreinclusionary and to empower long-silenced voices. ” (Phillips, 1995, p12).

“When the conversational space is dominated by one extreme of these dimensions, for example, talking without listening, conversational learning is diminished.” (Kolb & Kolb, 2005, 208)

“A college graduate should become an interpretive being, capable of not just answering but asking sophisticated questions; of not just knowing facts, but making sense of them; of not just understanding what’s in a book or lesson, but offering original ideas based on theirlearning. Developing this deep understanding depends, as Socrates recognized, on conversations between teacher and student.” (Neem, 2012, 65)

“Upon being deprived of the ability to engage in social speech, children immediately switch over to egocentric speech.” (Vygotsky, 1978, 27)

“Signs and words serve children first and foremost as a means of social contact with other people. The cognitive and communicative functions of language then become the basis of a new and superior formof activity in children…” (Vygotsky, 1978, 28-29)

LEARNING IS NATURAL GROWTH“The process of appropriation from shared activity, in contrast to theprocess of internalization of an external activity, can be likened to the utilization of air and water in the functioning of an organism. Wetend to think of air and water as being outside us, substances that wemust take in for survival. But they are constantly being exchanged inside and outside each living cell of our bodies.” (Rogoff, 1990, 195) Learning is growth

"…learning is nonlinear, recursive, continuous, complex, relational, and natural in humans." (McCombs & Vakili, 2005, 1586)

LEARNING IS EXPERIENCE"Liberal arts education is experiential learning for the mind." (Neem,2012, 65)

“College education can be compared to learning to drive. We all know what it takes to pass a driving test, and we all know how we do it: wecram a bunch of stuff into short- term memory, and then pass a competency-based exam. We also know that becoming a driver is a much different process; it requires guidance and repeated practice (or seattime). WGU’s approach may help students pass licensing exams, but it does not help them become drivers.” Neem, 2012, 64)

“What becomes the unit of exchange if we eliminate the Carnegie unit? Do we need to look for another “container or unit of learning,” one based on mastery, not seat-time?” (Sturgis, Patrick & Pittenger, 2011,22)

“This assumption is that as an individual matures he accumulates an expanding reservoir of experience that causes him to become an increasingly rich resource for learning…” (Knowles, 1979, p 45).

LEARNING IS TRANSFORMATION OF THE LEARNER “…the participation of a role model in the process of education functions as a catalyst in the Becoming of students.” (Sawada & Caley,1985, 17)

“Learning is a transformative process that leads to changes in behavior, attitudes, and thinking.” (Wang & King, 2008, 136)

“For Confucius, a primary goal of learning is behavioral reform by means of a deep internal transformation of the student (2:18, 4:15, 7:3, 7:25, 7:28, 17:23).” (Tweed & Lehman, 2002, 92)

“Lifelong learning is a habit, not an event.” (Beckem, John, & Watkins, 2012, 64)

“Learning can have magical transformative powers. It opens new doors and pathways, expanding our world and capabilities. It literally can change who we are by creating new professional and personal identities.” (Kolb & Yeganeh, 2011, 2)

“Learning is concerned with ideas, their structure and the evidence for them. It is not simply the acquisition of a set of correct

responses, a verbal repertoire or a set of behaviors. We believe it follows that learning, like inquiry, is best viewed as a process of conceptual change.” (Posner et al, 1982, 212)

LEARNING IS EMPOWERMENT“As Gardner Campbell argued, it is no longer adequate to use technologies that primarily excel at "pointing students to data buckets and conduits we’ve already made for them." Rather, he insisted, we need to help students acquire the "digital fluency" necessary for them to assume "creative and responsible leadership in the post-Gutenberg age."” (Mott, 2010, 13)

“Learning participation, with respect to this project and our ecological framework, is about successfully participating as part of an ecosystem, an intentionally bound network, and it fundamentally involves increasing possibilities for action in the world.” (Barab & Roth, 2006, 11)

“If the schools are to be really effective, they must become centers for the building, and not merely for the contemplation, of our civilization.” (Counts, 1932/2004, 32)

LEARNING IS PERSONAL INTERPRETATION"They remind us that learning, especially today, is much less about acquiring information or submitting to other people’s ideas or values,than it is about putting one’s own words to the world, or finding one’s own voice, and exchanging our ideas with others." Ackermann 2

“Learning is full of magic and wonder, when we approach it with an artist’s sensibility and passion, instead of observing with an engineer’s eye for efficiency.” (Schmidt, 2012)

“learning is a personal interpretation of the world… conceptual growthcomes from the negotiation of meaning, the sharing of multiple perspectives and the changing of our internal representations through collaborative learning” (Merrill, 1991, in Smorgansbord, 1997)