How can we better prepare our students to be future-ready learners? One of the ways we can empower our young minds to face a future fraught with new challenges is by recalibrating our focus on the meaning of purposeful learning. It encompasses these four forms of learning – life-long, life-deep, life-wide and life-wise. The Guest Editor of this SingTeach issue, Dr David Huang, a Senior Education Research Scientist at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice at NIE, shares more about four-life learning and the importance of deep learning.

What is Four–Life Learning?

While the four forms of learning–life–long, life–deep, life–wide and life-wise–focus on the different aspects of learning, they do not exist in isolation as their developments are interrelated.

Giving an example, Dr David Huang, who is also Associate Dean of the Office of Education Research (OER) at NIE, explains: “When students draw on their (formal) classroom experience and (informal) everyday experience, they also develop a deep mastery of knowledge. Being able to link the formal and informal experience together in learning contributes to both life–wide and life–deep learning.”

Life–wide learning, he explains, is about learning and transfer across multiple contexts. The process of learning extends beyond the parameters of school as it occurs in informal learning environments as well. Life–deep learning, meanwhile, is about having a deep understanding of disciplinary content and involves the development of adaptive expertise. As articulated by Hatano and Inagaki (1986), adaptive expertise seeks to achieve both efficiency and innovation.

Expanding more on the interrelatedness of the four types of learning, he says: “Learning is a continuous developmental process as it occurs across one’s lifespan, from infancy to adulthood. Life–long learning contributes to life–deep learning. At the same time, life–deep learning also acts as a stepping stone for future learning.”

He points out that in the dual processes life-deep learning contributes to the other three types of learning and vice versa. This suggests that the four types of learning are both the means and ends for each other.

More than Just Routine Expertise

Life-deep learning, says David, is of particular importance to him. “Life-deep learning is about developing adaptive expertise, rather than routine expertise. To develop adaptive expertise, students need to explore new learning opportunities that balance efficiency and innovation,” he says.

He is encouraged to see schools investing in helping students develop life-deep learning, particularly in strong procedural knowledge which refers to how one does something, such as solving a word problem. While there is a concerted effort in strengthening procedural knowledge, he points out that sustaining this strength is not enough.

“Children who receive nothing but efficiency–oriented instruction may well be adequate in solving routine problems, but limited in dealing with an uncertain future,” he reiterates.

The necessary ingredients of life-deep learning, he adds, also include procedural flexibilities and conceptual understanding.

The Role of Conceptual Understanding

Conceptual understanding refers to understanding the principles and relationships that underlie a domain. It plays an important role, for example in problem solving, as it increases the ability for flexibility and adaptability, and provides a criterion to select for alternative possibilities for each step of a solution method.

“The direct application of prior knowledge can hardly give rise to learning new concepts,” he says. “As such, developing conceptual knowledge requires a different kind of interaction.”

He acknowledges that while it may be simpler and more efficient for schools and school leaders to build resources that can help students learn how to solve simple problems in academic settings, efficiency-driven instruction may not do justice to developing student innovation or optimizing their potentials.

“Fortunately, I do see schools paying more attention in helping students develop conceptual understanding. For example, I have observed schools using props combined with self-explanation prompts to help students develop their conceptual understanding in a particular subject and increase their potential for adaptability and transfer,” he shares.

Developing Students’ Procedural Flexibility

“Besides continuing the good practices in developing students’ procedural knowledge and conceptual understanding, my research suggests a need for schools to develop students’ procedural flexibility as well,” he says.

Professor Jon Star, an educational psychologist from Harvard University, refers to procedural flexibility as learners knowing multiple procedures to solve a range of problems and being able to choose the best procedure for a particular problem.

David brings up an example of helping students judge whether an integer is divisible by three. “One efficient procedural solution is to sum the digits of the integer and check whether the sum is divisible by three,” he notes.

In contrast, to help students develop procedural flexibility, he suggests that a teacher can first encourage students to come up with as many different methods as possible. Next, the teacher can engage the students in evaluating these methods, choosing the most efficient solutions and justifying their choice.

“By implementing this teaching approach, students can develop both conceptual understanding and procedural flexibility,” he adds.

Nurturing Future-Ready Life-Long Learners

David emphasizes that the purpose of learning should not be limited to the mastery of knowledge (life-deep learning). It should involve guiding students to deal with future transfer tasks (life-long learning) that may be in formal or informal settings (life-wide learning) and may also involve the development and transfer of big ideas or principles such as values, morals, character and historical empathy (life-wise learning).

“Developing all the four forms of learning focuses on constant development (i.e., learn for life) and adaptability. In doing so, we are preparing future-ready learners for an uncertain future,” he affirms.

Reference
Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In H. W. Stevenson, H. Azuma, & K. Hakuta (Eds.), Child development and education in Japan (pp. 262–272). W H Freeman/Times Books/ Henry Holt & Co.