Dimensions Of Learning

An Introduction

The days when teachers had their students chant statements of fact to drum them into their heads may be long gone, but critics of American education still charge that learning is too often equated with memorizing information. Educators themselves agree that students need to do more than just acquire knowledge; they must also be able to use knowledge in meaningful ways to make decisions or solve problems, for example. But how can educators ensure that students acquire knowledge and develop the ability to put it to use?

To answer that question, Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering of the Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) have developed Dimensions of Learning, a comprehensive K-12 staff development program produced by ASCD. Based on recent cognitive research, which shows that learning requires the active construction of knowledge, Dimensions of Learning is designed to help educators focus on students' learning as they plan instruction and design curriculums.

What Are The Dimensions Of Learning?

In the past, educators have not organized teaching around the learning process, Marzano claims. To correct that fault, Dimensions of Learning provides "a metaphor for learning that can be used to plan instruction, curriculum, and assessment." The program organizes learning into five "dimensions," or kinds of thinking:

Attitudes and perceptions.

Students' attitudes about school, the material to be learned, and their own ability affect learning both positively and negatively.

Acquiring and integrating knowledge.

To make sense of new information, students use what they already know. They "work out the kinks" in the new information and assimilate it so they can recall it readily.

Extending and refining knowledge.

Students modify what they know, even when what they know is accurate. The thinking skills movement has yielded many strategies to help students do this.

Using knowledge meaningfully.

Students perform tasks that require decision making, investigation, experimental inquiry, problem solving, and invention. This dimension of learning demands thinking that is extended over a long period, student- directed, and focused on authentic tasks.

Habits of mind.

Students develop mental habits that make their learning more efficient. For example, they learn to seek accuracy, avoid impulsivity, and persist when answers are not apparent.

Once educators have become familiar with this model of learning, the next step is "translating this information into real life," says Pickering. For teachers, that means planning units of instruction that evoke the different dimensions of learning. "If you don't plan for it, it's not likely to happen," she notes. Accordingly, a central feature of the program is a framework to help teachers plan units of instruction, while the Teacher's Manual contains abundant instructional strategies.

Focus On The Learning Process

By keeping the focus squarely on the learning process, Dimensions of Learning can serve as a compass for redirecting not only instruction, but curriculum and assessment as well, Marzano says. The curriculum, for example, needs to value depth over breadth.

"If students are going to do more than just acquire knowledge, the curriculum has to be driven by significant ideas," explains Pickering. Some of the traditional emphasis on facts can safely be surrendered, she believes, because students retain information better when they use it meaningfully--whereas they often forget much of what they learn cramming for tests.

The emphasis in Dimensions of Learning on "meaningful-use" tasks ties in with authentic assessment, Marzano notes. Students' ability to apply knowledge is best captured by performance assessments that mirror these complex instructional tasks.

Complex Activities

Kent Epperson, a middle school teacher in the Aurora (Colo.) Public Schools, has used Dimensions of Learning in teaching 6th and 8th graders. The program made him realize he needed to embed meaningful- use tasks in instruction, he says. So he began to devise complex tasks to challenge his students to apply what they learned.

One activity, "Quantum Leap," spurred students to investigate specific aspects of another culture by asking them to imagine they had suddenly been transplanted abroad. Students were handed a slip of paper bearing the name of a town in South America and a brief description of their new family. Their task was to investigate the culture of the region, project how their life there would unfold, and compare that vision to their present life.

Students "really needed to know what would be different" in their new environment, including customs and schooling, Epperson says.Because the unit required students to apply the knowledge they gained through research, it gave them "a clearer, more personalized understanding of what culture is all about." A traditional "make-a-display-on-a-country" project, by contrast, would have yielded only superficial results, he believes.While meaningful-use tasks require "spending a little extra time," they produce better learning than attempts to cover a lot of material that students won't retain, Epperson says. Dimensions of Learning is "not soft on content," he emphasizes.

Jane Pollock, a curriculum coordinator with the Aurora schools, and her colleagues have used Dimensions of Learning as a guide in writing curriculums, in planning staff development, and in developing assessments. One of the program's strengths as a staff development framework, she says, is that it "brings together" good teaching programs that already exist--such as cooperative learning, reading strategies, Tactics for Thinking, and CoRT--by relating them to the types of thinking they reinforce.

Results Of Pilot Research

Through a consortium sponsored by ASCD, Dimensions of Learning has been field-tested in school districts across the country and in Mexico. Teachers have been very enthusiastic, Marzano says. Pilot data indicate that students whose teachers use the program do at least as well as their peers on tests of recall, and outperform them on application tests.

Teachers "love the fact that it's a planning model, not just a bunch of new teaching strategies," Pollock reports. "Planning around having students think is so exciting."

The complete Dimensions program may be purchased from ASCD's Order Processing Dept., 1250 N. Pitt St., Alexandria, VA 22314; (703) 549-9110. Stock no. 614-239. Price: $575.