How Much Do We Learn Without Being Taught?
There is an interesting concept in language acquisition theory and deaf studies that I have just recently begun to think about, thanks largely to the research interests of two deaf students in my doctoral program.How much of the learning we do in schools happens as a direct result of teachers' speech and explicit instructions? By contrast, how much of our learning is shaped by more informal interactions as we go about the school day? "Incidental learning" refers to the learning that goes on indirectly or informally, and some researchers have estimated that 80% or more of what we really learn in schools comes from incidental learning.
This is no surprise to many constructivist or student-centered educators, who see student interactions and processes as essential for (meaningful) learning. But an important nuance of "incidental learning" when applied to deaf studies is that much of what makes for rich learning in a classroom is the enormous amount of information students learn from their environment. Think of it this way: If you were a deaf student with an interpreter, you'd have some access to what one person at a time is saying, and you have some ability to communicate with hearing persons (both, of course, require meaning to be mediated by the interpreter, but.) But what about the side conversations that hearing students are privy to? What about when several people speak at once? What about the learning you do with your eyes while also capturing what someone is saying with their ears (I spent quite a bit of my high school hours absently browsing some book or other while 'keeping an ear on' the sanctioned discussion in class).
There are troubling statistics about the development of deaf students in mainstream schools, and incidental learning provides on way to think about why that may be. Not only do we learn much of what we know and do without being explicitly taught, but we learn much of it as we're officially focusing on something else.
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posted by Burke Scarbrough at
09:32
5 comments
5 Comments:
I thought that this was very interesting. The statistics in this article were very suprising to me. Do you think we learn incidental because of the activities that we do in school? I think that if the activity is helpful and fun, the student will learn better.
Thanks for posting my blog's first comment, Chad! I think the point is that we're learning all the time, whether we realize it or not. When I have a conversation with somebody, I might learn from what they say to me, but I also learn (or re-learn) things about how to have a conversation, or how people react to things I say or do. I might also learn from the sights and sounds in the room where we're talking. Learning takes place outside of the "main event", but deaf students have to focus their attention with their eyes. You can miss out on a lot when you don't get to look one place but listen someplace else, or listen to two things at once. The things that go on "incidentally" around us are things we're learning from all the time. We just take most of those things for granted (or at least I do!)
I suppose this answers the puzzle: when you give a pop quiz, or even an announced assessment, the student who has not cooperated in groups, who has not appeared to pay any attention to the lessons, surprisingly, this kid scores the highest!!
I actually have an older brother who is deaf. However, he was not mainstreamed. He attended Baxter School for the Deaf in Maine where I live. I definitely think that he received a better education there than he would have in a regular school. At Baxter, all the students were signing, so as we hear side conversations, they can "see" side conversations. It is amazing how quickly deaf people can sign and understand sign. They have become accustomed to this just as we have become accustomed to speaking and hearing. We can listen to the person speaking to us, but at the same time listen to a side conversation. I have no doubt the same is true for deaf people. They can watch the person signing to them, while also watching a conversation being signed behind that person.
On another note, I do agree that students, in general, learn a lot from their surroundings, visual and auditory. Knowing this, I try to incorporate many chance for student interaction and collaboration in my classroom.
This was a very interesting post/blog. It is true that we are constantly learning and that the surrounding environment has a lot to do with how much knowledge we absorb. I suppose that's why we have word walls and a print-rich environment in our classroom. I can see why having a print-rich environment would be especially important for our dead/hearing impaired students.
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