Discovery learning — how to construct new knowledge
Knowledge is not shared, it is constructed.
Have you ever noticed when you and your friend Alex are reading the same book, you understand something interesting, but Alex doesn’t? Moreover, he may be surprised by your impression.
Whenever you think you are sharing knowledge, in fact, it’s just a piece of information. Knowledge is constructed by the listener/reader/student depending on his or her context and interests.
This is a story about how knowledge emerges and what’s wrong in modern education with our solution at the end 😉.
History
This is Jean Piaget.
He owned the idea that knowledge transmitted and saved poorly. A good teacher creates an environment for children to self-constructing their knowledge. Perhaps the zeitgeist of the early 20th century pushed him, or I’m biased as a fan of Malevich.
His protege Seymour Papert followed this idea. He invented a new method of learning math with a robot called “Turtle”. Children constructed their own math understanding, learned to think, solve problems, create algorithms, and bug fixing while playing with the Turtle.
Discovery learning
What does constructivism mean? Let’s add a pun and construct some knowledge. Imagine you want to become a popular 👩🏻🎤YouTube blogger.
What do you need to know? What topics do you need to cover?
Think 3 seconds.
.
.
.
My list is:
- 🎨 Design for cover, titles, and avatar.
- ✍️ How the plot is built.
- 👅 Speaking skills for a speech.
- 🚀 Titles animation.
- 📹 Video editing for production.
You don’t need to learn graphic design for several years to create the cover, just copy a style from your favorite channel, put a font with a familiar name, watch a couple of tutorials, and voila.
This is discovery learning — the method when new info is embedded in the person’s context and melds with the previous discoveries.
The goal is clear and evident. No need to explain why the hell you need all of these topics. You realized that you need Graphic Design, Literature, and Motion Design.
The discovery method starts from the bottom step of the abstraction ladder where people manipulate concrete projects:
- Make your own blog.
- Create a paper bridge.
- Come up with a tricky question and ask your peers.
- Calculate the financial model for your business.
Expository learning
The opposite method is called “expository learning”. Let’s expose it, haha.
The teacher gives a prepared, fermented explanation. She throws away the unnecessary (facts, contradictions, delusions), leaves it digestive (boring rules and theses), and pours into us.
She can quickly explain everything in 10 minutes.
If knowledge isn’t constructed into the brain, students will be forced to repeat it over and over again. The human brain is a pretty leaky thing, though neuroplastic enough. You need spaced repetitions, Anki, homework, tutors.
However, the expository method is perfect when you need quickly dive into a new subject and grasp the structured mental model. The blind spots of the discovery method are inevitable. Bits of knowledge that have been constructed in projects turn out to be fragmentary.
Eventually, you’ll need to learn something fundamental from experts who possess this subject structure. Just expose someone’s knowledge. Of course, if only you can keep up with the pace of this expert.
This is the step of the abstraction ladder where people manipulate explainers, rules, mental models, and curriculum.
Both of these methods encounter in modern online education platforms. The expository method lives in Coursera, KhanAcademy, Udemy. The discovery into Primer and Outschool. Tell me if I missed any project-based platform with the discovery method, I love them ❤️.
Discovery with the expository learning in unschooler
In unschooler.me we compose both of these methods.
Student starts with a natural interest to projects they want to create. For instance, on the lower step of abstraction students make a startup with friends. Under the hood, the project is connected to the curriculum.
At any time, they can move to the abstraction stage and study subjects separately — Marketing, Product design, or Analytics.
Just in time.
With a focus on interesting topics at their own pace.
Here, in the curriculum students can find other projects, related to this subject, and step down to a particular problem. For instance, “Prototype with no-code tools” or “Pitch deck”.
Back and forth. From project to curriculum and vice versa. From new knowledge to mental model and back again.
🌞 Connections between projects and curriculum construct an understanding of the subject's benefits with no explanation.
🌞 Knowledge lasts for years when it’s driven by interest.
🌞 Own pace and set of projects construct unique individual learning path without psychological tests and surveys.
We are working on unschooler.me — an educational environment, where students discover new interests.
We are currently looking for a pre-seed round, so if you like the idea email me at lena@unschooler.me.
