Two years ago (2013), I came across two excellent texts about deep approaches to learning, both written by Prof. Michael Jackson (an outstanding scholar and teacher to whom I’m very much indebted, intellectually and professionally). I’ve shared the insights from these texts – one an encyclopaedia entry, the other a journal article – with my students ever since, encouraging them to adopt deep approaches in their learning. Here are some key ideas from the sources:
– “A student taking a deep approach seeks principles to organize information. In contrast a student using a surface approach tries to capture material in total, rather than understand it” (1)
– Students engaging in surface learning “approach learning as an endless series of isolated lumps of material to be remembered” (2)
– “In deep approaches to learning a student concentrates on what is signified (arguments and conclusion) not on the signs, and tries to apply the concepts being studied to experience, to distinguish argument from evidence, to relate and integrate knowledge from a variety of sources, and to organize material into structures with several dimensions” (2)
– “[I]nstitutions and instructors can authorize students to test concepts, theories, principles, findings, evidence, and argument they find in the university study against their general knowledge, common sense, prior learning, Internet sources, and the like” (1)
– “Deep approaches to learning can be legitimated by encouraging students to relate what they are learning in one course with work in previous or contemporary courses, rather than narrowing the focus to this course alone. Deep approaches to learning grow from encouraging students to apply what they are learning to their own lives and to consider messy reality rather than sterile thought-experiments.” (2)
There are more great insights (e.g. on assessment tasks) in the sources, which are highly recommended.
(1) Michael Jackson, 2012, ‘Deep Approaches to Learning in Higher Education’, Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning, ed. Norbert M. Seel, Springer, New York, pp. 913 – 915
(2) Michael Jackson, 2012, ‘Approaches to Learning and Teaching: Some Observations’, Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis, vol. 33, issue 1, pp. 65 – 71