How We Learn
A Key Ingredient for Learning: “Why”
I am a much better teacher (and gardener) today because I completely ruined a cake.
Last December, I finally decided to make a cake using a recipe I had torn out of Bon Appetit a couple of years earlier. Because it looked unusually complicated, the recipe languished in my pile of pages torn from magazines. It called for multiple layers of fillings, a chestnut mousse, and a chocolate syrup to drizzle on the cake before rolling it up. The rolling up was the part that made me nervous. I’d never had much success with this technique; my rolled-up cakes always ended up cracking or splitting. But with a few days off around the holidays, I decided to give it a whirl.
One of the steps involved sprinkling cocoa powder on the cake prior to rolling it in a dish towel. I wasn’t entirely convinced this was necessary but I thought I should follow the steps exactly as outlined in the recipe. I did so, and the cake came out perfectly.
Given how much chocolate was involved, when I made the cake the second time, I opted to omit the cocoa powder sprinkle prior to rolling. There was already plenty of chocolate taste in the cake, syrup, and frosting. Why add more?
Well I learned the answer to that question when I tried to unroll the cake. Unlike the first time when the cake had unrolled perfectly, this time it was completely stuck to the dishtowel. I had to painstakingly peel it away, ruining the cake in the process. It turns out that the cocoa prevents the towel from binding to the cake as the cake cooled in its rolled up shape!
I know that now.
If I had known the cocoa powder had a functional purpose above and beyond augmenting the cake’s taste, I would never have made that mistake. If the recipe had said “dust the cake with cocoa powder before rolling it up — this will ensure the cake doesn’t stick to the towel, making it possible to unroll once the cake is cool”, I would have known why that stage was important and not thought I could omit it.
Only when I made the cake again, without the cocoa dusting, was I able to see the consequences of my mistake and appreciate why the step was necessary. While there were no serious ramifications from my error, I was able to learn from my mistake and make sure I didn’t repeat it. This is because now I understood why the recipe component was important and the function it served.
We can apply the same principle when we think about learning something new or developing expertise in an area. Understanding why a step in a procedure is necessary, which steps can ultimately be safely omitted or combined, and why a particular strategy is effective or ineffective leads to more meaningful learning.
We say that we have learned something meaningfully when we:
- Can relate and connect new concepts or ideas to things we already know
- Are able to use our knowledge flexibly and apply it to new situations.
That is, we have developed expertise. In my cake example, this would mean that I would not likely make the same mistake again when making this exact cake. Moreover, if making a similar cake which needed to be rolled, I would appreciate the need to have something to prevent the cake sticking as it was rolled up.
In contrast, when we haven’t learned things in a meaningful way, we may be able to recall information, or execute a procedure, but not know how it relates to what we already know, or be able to transfer or apply it to new situations. This is what happens when we learn something in a rote way, or cram information into our short term memory without working to make effectively process and make meaning out of it. It may stay there for a while, but will not be particularly durable, useful, or transferable to new situations.
This isn’t a story about how effectively failure can contribute to learning (although it could be). It’s about how just a bit of expert wisdom at the right time can guide novices to content or task mastery more efficiently and effectively.
I had a tree in my garden with roots growing too close to the house. We were advised to have it removed before it damaged anything. The operation needed to happen in two phases (so I was told). First, most of the above-ground part of the tree would be cut, leaving the roots and some of the trunk left to die. After this they would be easier to remove.
Phase one left a large stump with no leaves. A few months passed, though, and green leaves began to grow from the stump. My smart, botanist friend Glenn was staying with us, and he suggested that I cut the leaves from the stump. Had he stopped there with his advice, maybe I would have cut them, maybe I wouldn’t. But to be honest, I didn’t really see the point and my gardening laziness might have got the better of me. I thought he was giving me tips on how to make it look a little tidier.
But he continued. Plants make food they need to grow via photosynthesis and the green leaves are an integral part of the process. (In theory I knew this already). Some of the food can be stored in the plants’ stem and roots, so even if there are no leaves, the stored food can be used to produce leaves which can then produce more food and so on. If I didn’t keep an eye on the tree and cut off these little food-making shoots as soon as they appeared, the tree would keep producing leaves, keep making food, and I would never get to the point where we could more easily remove the tree!
When we are novices, or in the throes of learning new things, corrective feedback is incredibly valuable, but only if we know what to do with it. Corrective feedback on its own is not enough, nor is a statement about what one should do differently. Glenn telling me to cut off the new leaves and leaving it at that would not have been meaningful to me; as a consequence, I might not have done it. But, by helping me understand why cutting the leaves was important, and connecting my actions to my stated goal (getting rid of the tree), Glenn’s advice became valuable.
If we understand why we should do something and how it connects to our specific goals, then we are more likely to be motivated and able to change our behavior in a meaningful way, and can also better transfer that learning to other situations.
In some cases, like in the cake example, students will make discoveries themselves and begin to realize why something is an important step in a process. They have their own aha moment! But we can’t always bank on this happening, or on students persevering in the face of continued failure. And even if they do succeed at something, not knowing why something eventually worked, can make the learning experience less transferable to new contexts.
Novice learners benefit greatly from targeted, specific feedback to help them correct their course and most importantly, understand why the correction is necessary.
Julia Phelan Ph.D is a learning engineer and co-founder of To Eleven. The name was inspired by This is Spinal Tap (“Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? Nigel Tufnel : [pause] These go to eleven”) and embodies the fact that To Eleven goes above and beyond in all they do. To Eleven focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of learning experiences for myriad learners and contexts along with consulting and advising services. www.to11solutions.com
