How Does Making Connections Affect Learning?

In our first SOS podcast, I mentioned that the brain, with all its neurons and synaptic activity, is nature’s most beautiful network. As new information is embedded into our long-term memories, our brains work to connect the new ideas with other ones previously learned. The more connections branching out in multiple directions from each of our ideas, the more apt we are to remember and actively engage these newly seeded ideas. As the ideas are used and connected, the more they sprout tree-like roots and branches to other ideas. We “water, fertilize, and send sunshine” to our ideas by filling our learning environment with rich stimuli from as many senses as possible. 

The “brain popping,” as Mike Lambert says, really takes off when we start making lateral thinking connections where our ideas and memories are applied to new situations. We then have to reconfigure our thinking and come up with new ideas, often in a problem-solving manner highly engaging to our brains. This is when compelling learning takes place as we move into the creative realm of Bloom’s Taxonomy. To engage our brain in making connections, take a moment to think of a person, place, event, food, smell, sight, etc. Then, let your mind pick up the connections to other ideas that it sends impulses to in reaction to your thoughts. 

The connections are authentic as the networked ideas flood your mind.

So, how do we bring additional stimulation to our classrooms to further expand the “roots” and “branches” of the ideas in our students’ minds? One way is to use cooperative learning techniques. It is a mainstay and well-researched instructional strategy proven to increase learning. The evident interpersonal and group dynamic skills of working together are powerful. But it is the sharing of ideas, hearing different viewpoints, and building off each other’s thoughts to clarify understanding and create new thinking that is the most dynamic.

Many learning theories start the process of learning by building in an “engagement” first phase. Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT has the “Quadrant One” focus on making internal connections to previous learning to make meaning in the new learning experiences. Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman’s Pathways Learning Model, “Phase 1” of the Pathways Learning Model, is for “activating and engaging.” They hit the mark about making connections in the book Pathways to Understanding.

“Our current knowledge about learning informs us that we must support students in making connections; connections between what they know and what they are learning, between what they are learning and the opportunity for application in a variety of contexts; and between the relevance of their newly gained understandings and their own lives.” (p. 10)

Thus, the networking and development of learning environments and communities to make connections improve the learning process in our student’s minds. Now, on to shifting…

By using social networking and generative Web tools like wikis, blogs, netcasts, video conferencing, etc., we expand our students’ cooperative learning opportunities. We increase the variety and richness of the stimulation when we connect our students to other children and adults worldwide. Our students move laterally with their thoughts into the classrooms of students worldwide. They sometimes find that they need to reevaluate their ideas when they hear different perspectives. What seemed pretty simple is often more complex, thus needing problem-solving that often works best in collaboration. Accepted analogies of understanding applied to new cultures and experiences often don’t hold up. Cause and effect thinking is expanded with the complexity of additional and varying viewpoints and information.

This digital expansion of our students’ learning networks highly correlates to the growth of our students’ very networked minds. An excellent example of this idea of making connections to increase learning by using Web 2.0 tools is the Flat Classroom Project. Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay have run this project for two years. We will interview Julie for our SOS Podcast on “How does making connections affect learning?”.