Who is a Learner?
From a learners’ view (ALV), a learner is a pattern seeker; anyone who tries to complete a pattern, so it (re)solves a problem, a puzzle.
In this sense, learners choose how they will adapt, adopt, and refine their behavior patterns to survive the moment they choose to see and hear.
More specifically, a learner from ALV is anyone who pays attention to something that offers comfort or pain, such as completing a word puzzle or avoiding a stalking preditor. This choice is a problem. Learners try to solve problems that affect their comfort and safety
Attention is the first step learners use to learn. Attention occurs voluntarily. People choose to what they will attend in their surroundings.
Behavioral scientists have reported that these choices occur in patterns that form hierarchies of visual attention, auditory attention, etc. People will likely respond first to differences before similarities, unique before familiar, larger before smaller, louder before quieter, red before blue, etc.
The task then for teachers is first to gain attention of students to something in a lesson. Gain attention by applying one or more pattern(s) from visual, auditory, or other hierarchies of attention.
Example
A teacher was walking down a school hallway, heard a noisy high school science classroom of 50 abusive sounding students paying no attention to their teacher trying to get their attention. It was five minutes after class was scheduled to begin.
Teacher 2, the hallway walker, stepped into the classroom, faced the students, smiled, and said quietly, “Clap once if you hear my voice.” Several students clapped. Others look around the room to see what happened.
Teacher 2 then said in the same voice volume and frequency range, “Clap twice if you hear my voice.” About a third of the class looked at Teacher 2 and clapped twice. More of the students looked around the room to see what happened.
Teacher 2 said, “Clap three times if you hear my voice.” The class in unison looked at Teacher 2 and clapped three times.
Teacher 2 said, “If you were in school in Singapore, all 300 students in the class would have clapped once when their teacher stepped into the classroom and asked them to clap once if they heard those instructions.”
That exercise completed Teacher 2’s 20 second lesson demonstrating one way to gain attention of students, so they can learn Teacher 1’s lesson.
Teacher 2 nodded to Teacher 1, who immediately launched into the lesson for the day.
Teacher 2 routinely uses 20 second lesson modules in remedial through advanced placement science classes. Their use promptly accelerates and increases the amount and depth of academic performance on third party measured assessments.
Not all students in schools are learners all of the time, but all learners study that to which they attend in order to choose what to do next.
Learners pay attention. Attention costs learners’ time and effort, but that’s a different description.
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