School Journal | Log 9 | Dimensions of Learning

I have thus far learnt a little bit about 7 different skills that children pick up before they begin to attend school. This set of 7 skills match with my basic intuition about the kind things that children learn in this stage of life. But as a framework it feels a little incomplete. So, while synthesising my understanding of learning in this stage of childhood, I thought it would be useful to leverage a more complete and trusted framework that I stumbled upon while writing log 2.

The pyramid of learning is a framework that seems to have been developed by Williams and Shellenberger in 1996. I stumbled upon in it while reading through Kavya Rath’s LinkedIn posts. Before I jump in and try to understand the framework in detail, this image from the Windsor centre is my starting point.

I tried to find the 1996 paper from which this was picked up. And I am fairly certain that this framework was picked up from the 1996 book “How Does Your Engine Run?: Leader’s Guide to the Alert Program for Self Regulation”. I know I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover. But, after having read the description and reviews, I have concluded that this book is not going to tell me too much more about early childhood learning, that I can use in this context. Therefore, I shall rely largely on this pyramid of learning and the 7 key skills identified in log 1.

1. Motor skills
2. Language skills
3. Cognitive skills
4. Creativity & imagination
5. Social & emotional skills
6. Basic worldly concepts
7. Independence, self care and safety

Each of these 2 frameworks appeal to me for different reasons. The 7 skills are very easy to relate to. In some shape or form I am more cognizant of having developed the 7 skills than I am of any of the elements in the pyramid of learning. Or at the very least, the 7 skills are more relatable, and I have some sort of idea of how I might try to help a child learn them. That is why it made for an interesting framework for me to explore through my last 7 logs.

The pyramid of learning on the other hand is more inherently structured. The boundary between one element and another is clear, as is the order of learning. It therefore makes for a more interesting framework for me to use in order to synthesise what I have learnt thus far about the 7 skills that children pick up before going to school.

Pyramid + 7 Skills

Of course, I am now going to try to map the 7 before school skills onto the pyramid of learning, in order to create what seems to me like a slightly more comprehensive model of the big before school takeaways.

At first glance, it seems like only 2 of the 7 skills feature in the lower levels of the pyramid. The majority (5/7) of the skills that I have learnt about thus far seem to feature just in the top level of the pyramid (cognition and intellect). Therefore, my initial thoughts about the 4 levels of learning in the pyramid are:

1. Sensory systems: These learnings are so fundamental, that I doubt there is much that parents and caregivers can do to assist in them. I suspect that this is the reason that they did not come up within the 7 key skills. Most importantly though, children (babies really) must learn to interpret stimuli from their senses before they can engage with the world around them in a meaningful way.
2. Sensory motor development: Amongst the 7 skills that children learn before school, motor skills seem to be the one where learning must be initiated first. Both from a practical and evolutionary standpoint this makes sense to me. Some fundamental motor skills must be developed for survival before a human can do much else.
3. Perceptual motor development: The other one of the 7 skills where development starts relatively early is language. This seems to develop immediately after the most basic of motor skills, and along with other motor skills which are required to improve perception of the world around us. Thus, this phase of development seems to be about improving one’s ability to perceive and engage with the world around us.
4. Cognition and intellect: The final stage of early childhood learning and development is of course the most mature one. This seems to be a phase where children are most capable of perceiving and interacting with their environment. It is therefore the stage where development is possible across all 7 skills, deepening motor and language skills, while developing the other 5 to a great extent.

There isn’t much else of a resource that I was able to find to put these different ideas together. It is after all a complex thought to put into a search engine and expect meaningful responses.

I therefore have to conclude that a framework of learning in early childhood is composed of 8 skills (sensory understanding and the 7 skills that I have covered in some more depth). These 8 skills fit into a sort of hierarchy or pyramid of which skills are picked up when. This isn’t a very elegant framework, and so I’m not going to bother drawing it out. But what I do find interesting is that these 8 skills match to a reasonable extent a well established and far more elegant framework for learning in general, Gardner’s 8 dimensions of learning.

A Generic Framework for Learning

A framework for learning in early childhood is rather specific to that age, context and development priorities. What is in general of much greater interest to me is a generic framework for learning. This sort of a framework should answer 2 key questions.

1. What should we learn?
2. How should we learn?

What to learn

A few google searches along the lines of “dimensions of learning”, “key areas of study” and “framework for school education” returned a range of both structured frameworks and long lists of subject areas. From what I could read through, there doesn’t seem to be a single scientific consensus on a valid framework for what every human should be educated in. Perhaps there isn’t such an answer. But Gardner’s 8 dimensions of learning is a rather satisfying framework for a few reasons. Here is a link to the very well mind .com article on the framework, from which I have taken the diagram below.

• The theory matches well with intuition and experience of the areas one learns about formally as well as through real life experience
• While not scientifically backed, the framework is fairly comprehensive
• The structure is a little bit vague and some dimensions are not as well defined, but the framework remains fairly actionable

There are variants of this theory which include a different number of dimensions. And there are entirely different frameworks which propose a distinct set and type of dimensions of learning. However, I have a personal preference for Gardner’s 8 dimensions of learning because this maps best (not perfectly) onto my personal experience of what school subjects + other important life learning could look like as a framework.

How to learn

A few google searches along the lines of “how to learn”, “steps of learning” and “learning process broken down” returned a lot of pep talk kind of articles and a few interesting structures. Both from this search and from my past reading in this space there was a standout framework which seems to really answer the question. Bloom’s taxonomy seems to be the most structured answer to the levels of learning and the steps that one goes through to be deeply educated in a topic. Here is the link to the Vanderbilt University article from which I have taken the image below.

What I personally love about Bloom’s taxonomy is that it makes sense in application to any area of learning. In specific cases, some levels of learning are less important or distinct. But in most cases of learning, and especially in formal education it almost provides an answer for how to break down the learning process to ensure depth and interest in the education process.

My ideal learning framework

My ideal framework is intuitively a product of the 2 frameworks above. Effectively, I would want to learn across all of Gardner’s dimensions of learning by progressing through each level of Bloom’s taxonomy. To put it another way, Gardner’s 8 dimensions would act as a guide for what subjects to learn. For each of these subjects, one could then progress from fundamental to more complex topics. For each topic, Bloom’s taxonomy would act as a guide to deepen one’s learning, until you “know the topic”.

The Next Set of School Journal Logs

With this framework of learning in place, I intend to now work through the Indian school curriculum (largely CBSE) grade by grade. I would like to use the 8 dimensions of learning to broaden my scope here and there to make sure I don’t miss out on interesting topics which aren’t always formally prescribed by the school system. For each subject and topic, beyond the school curriculum, I would like to use Bloom’s taxonomy to guide my learning activities to ensure that I cover each topic in depth.

While this framework will act as a guide of sorts, I will also try to ensure that what I learn seems interesting and fun. Because education which isn’t interesting is not likely to be effective.