Running head: Reflection about learning to learn 1

The Lesson that you never learned in School:

“How to learn?”
“Learning to learn” is an article written by Karl R. Wirth and Dexter Perkins aimed at providing a brief
explanation of what learning really means, how people learn, and the importance of getting a lifelong
learning. The content of this article was taken out from a variety of books, articles and web pages
related to learning. This document is mainly addressed to students since they play an active role in the
learning process. However, it can be also useful to educators and practitioners in general as this article
can give insights into how to teach.

Firstly, the authors of this document point out that there are often many assumptions about what it
means to learn. Until several decades ago, teachers thought that learning simply involved the
transmission of information to increase the knowledge of students. Learning has also been equal to
memorizing of facts and the ability to reproduce what memorized, usually in a written test. In addition,
today most people associate the process of learning with formal education at school, college or
university. That is why from an early age, we are all told that we should “get a good education”. In
general, it cannot be denied that getting a formal education is important and necessary in today’s
society because it opens doors to better job opportunities. College graduates, therefore, will have most
possibilities to find a more satisfying and well-paying job, but it actually does not mean these graduated
students have learned in a meaningful way. In fact, Fink (2003) mentioned that several recent studies
have shown that many college seniors have neither good general knowledge nor the necessary skills
for reasoning in today’s society. According to this researcher many students are not actually learning
in spite of being studying at University which will impede them to deal with new situations of daily
life. Some might think that students are unable to retain information for a long time because they don’t
study enough. Nevertheless, the reason for this goes beyond the time learners used to study. If we take
a closer look at the current instructional practices, then we can conclude that teachers are more
concerned about student’s punctuality and responsibility than about learning. Similarly, we are going
to find that students are more interested in passing tests than learning.
In view of this situation, the need arises to adopt new kinds of learning where the teacher is no longer
a “knowledge transmitter” but instead is a facilitator of the acquisition of knowledge and a guide who
help learners to develop their own learning strategies. Similarly, the actual colleges and universities
should help students to become “intentional learners” which implies developing self-awareness about
their learning process. Thus, intentional learners are those who recognize their learning needs and
select and implement their own learning strategies that allows them to learn in more significant way.
In order to achieve this, Wirth and Perkins (2008) cited a recommendation made by an Association of
American Colleges report which states that the theme “how to learn” should be incorporated in any
curriculum. In an increasingly complex world, it is important that students don’t only develop the basic
competences such as team skills, skills in oral and written communication, skills in critical thinking
and problem solving but also the ability and desire for a lifelong learning. In this way, today the focus
of education is shifting from “teaching” to “learning”, from “learning for a short time” to “learning as
a lifelong objective”.

In order to understand what “lifelong learning” means, first it is necessary to revise some definitions
of “learning” given by different authors. Traditionally, this term has been defined as the acquisition of
knowledge or skills through education, practice, experience or memorization. However, some authors
Running head: Reflection about learning to learn 2

have recently provided definitions of learning from a different view. For instance, Atkinson et al.
(1993) describe learning as “a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from practice." In
addition, Simon (1996) has introduced two terms to explain the process of learning, namely, “surface
learning” to refer to the ability of recalling information and “deep learning” that involves the ability of
finding and using what was learned. From the cognitive psychology, learning has been defined as a
constructive process. From this point of view, learning occurs through experiences and interaction with
the environment where learners uses their previous knowledge to construct new information. But
instead of all of these definitions of “learning”, still the meaning of what it really means to learn is
incomplete and weak. It may be said, then, that most students today do not learn effectively because
although their teachers teaches theories, facts, procedures of an specific subject, they don’t teach them,
in my view, the most important lesson: “how to learn”

Generally speaking, learning is a continuous process that begins at birth and continues until death.
Knowledge can be acquired anywhere and whenever that is because learning is unavoidable and
happens all the time. For example, People learn through their lives, in schools, university, at their
workplace, from books or from other people around them. However, although learning is now
recognized as an everyday activity, many people don’t understand how to learn significantly in the
same way as “experts” do it. There are those who think that some people are “experts” because they
have a natural “talent”. Although talent plays an important role in becoming an expert, what actually
makes people to reach a master level is the long hours of practice. In addition, studies show that expert
learners have a better-developed metacognitive knowledge about their learning process and constantly
monitor their understanding and progress. Then, if teachers want to help their students become
intentional or expert learners, they should consider to include explicit instruction about learning in all
their courses. It does not mean that the instruction about metacognitive knowledge is going to displace
the disciplinary content, but can instead be used to support that content. This kind of instruction will
surely encourage students to be more awareness about their learning and to develop their metacognitive
knowledge and skills.

Finally, the reading of this article has some implications for me as a future languages teacher. In future,
for example, I might use this article entitled “learning to learn” as an initial reading assignment in my
courses. This document is, from my point of view, useful for any teacher to help students develop their
metacognitive knowledge and skills, because it presents various meaning of learning, understanding
and thinking. It also emphasizes in research on the brain, learning styles, intellectual development,
critical thinking and metacognition. It also help teachers to establish that their expectations for student
learning in a course go far beyond memorizing content.

To sum up, this document constitutes a reflection about the lesson that you never learned in a school:
“how to learn?” Learn “how to learn” implies to develop metacognitive knowledge and skills about
your process of leaning and to make a metacognitive control of your progress through planning,
monitoring and self-evaluation. Then, as you are learning, you should ask yourself questions like what
are you trying to learn?, what is your best strategy for learning? How is your progress? Are you really
learning something?, In addition, learning has to be understood as a process that goes far beyond
memorizing, recalling or even understanding, facts. Learning is not something you just do for a few
years in college. Learning is a lifelong commitment