How do we learn things?

I was introduced to several models of learning during my exploration in how to teach accounting. The one model that stood out for me was Taylor's learning cycle.

In my first few attempts at teaching accounting at the college level, I asked students if they knew how they learned. "Nope" was the typical answer. I energetically teased with a "you are all the way up to college level and no one told you how you do it?"  They leaned in as I explained the Taylor Model.

Learning begins with a disorienting event. Something is said or done that does not match up to what you already know. You get a disorienting feeling. A deer in the headlights feeling. It is uncomfortable to be disoriented. Some have stress and anxiety. What the mind then does can be to respond to this stress with a fight-or-flight reaction. Fight reactions would be similar to "I hate this topic, this is stupid, stupid textbook, the teacher is dumb, what do I need this junk for..." Then I observe students nodding heads and giving nervous laughs as they recall and remember. A flight reaction would be something like procrastination.  "Oh I can just watch this game first then I learn this junk, or my friend just called to go to a party, or I have to go shopping first, then I'll get to this later"

Instead of letting the negative stress and anxiety lead you into fight-or-flight responses, embrace the disorientation feeling, say to yourself "I am feeling disorientation which means I am on the way to learning something new." Encourage yourself to approach it in a positive manner. Getting past the reaction to disorientation is the biggest challenge to learning.

If you live in the City of Chicago, like I do, there really are shootings and people getting shot on your street corner. Police leave the blood on the streets after the body is off to the morgue. One time my Alderman, Joe Moore, got a mop and pail out of a nearby building to wash the sidewalks of a drive-by he witnessed. Violence is real to those living in the city. We don't have "post" traumatic stress disorder, we have "constant" traumatic stress disorder.

We have an overactive amygdala as a result. That amygdala is the part of the brain that does the split second flight-or-fight response. The amygdala has a role in emotion, learning and memory. This is only one of the many factors challenging learning, but is core to many challenges.

Once we recognize the disorientation, we seek to resolve the situation by exploring and searching for information, facts, processes, solutions to problems, and knowledge to match up to the layers of what we already know. This phase uses curiosity. Curiosity needs time to roam around. Curiosity needs space to perform trial and error. We need to experiment. We need to ponder. What happens to many in this phase is the "Efficiency Sargent" takes over.  The learner finds themselves trying to gather and assemble all the knowledge in the easiest (most efficient to them at the time) manner possible. Even if searching means finding the answers on the internet. This produces a very slim level of knowledge. Most likely just enough to pass a quiz or test.

Deep learning occurs during a messy, search for information and many trials and errors. Deep learning occurs when "time" gets lost searching and exploring learning. Have you ever got so deep into a project that 2 to 3 hours passed and you realize you have not even stopped for lunch or dinner? Deep learning happens when the learner is "in the flow." Athletes performing in the "zone" are in a flow state. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who named the process, the flow produces a sense of joy in the person. Things take place effortlessly and pleasure is the response in the flow state. 

Could my students be getting high in the flow state? The reorientation phase of the learning cycle is a satisfaction of stress that caused the disorientation. We now close the circle by progressing to the state of equilibrium. Everything is cool in the equilibrium state. Now is the time to go out dancing at the club.