Why isn't listening and reading enough for learning?

Written by Kristiina Kerge.

We often get questions why our workshops and trainings are discussion-based and why we can't offer prerecorded lectures. 

Our approach is based on educational psychology research so we could support long-term learning. The following is a short insight into why we have chosen this approach.

Listening and reading can provide information, but learning requires learners to do something with that information. This is why our courses include exercises, discussions, real-life cases, questions and opportunities for learners to explain ideas to others.

Take a pause here and think about what is the difference for you between these learning activities:

• You read something.

• You read something and pause to think how this is connected with your life. 

To learn something we need cognitive engagement - the higher, the better.

Cognitive engagement is defined as investment in and effort directed toward learning, understanding, mastering the knowledge or skills (source). This means the more the learner gets to construct the new knowledge themselves (be engaged in the process), the better. And here “engaged” means foremost mentally, not physically - activities can also be hands-on, but they have to be minds-on!

The same applies to recorded training sessions. Watching a recording of a training session is not the same learning experience as actively participating in the exercises, discussions and reflection that take place during the session. A recording can provide access to the trainer’s explanations, but the learner does not automatically engage in the thinking processes if they are just watching and following someone else’s thinking thread. 

Interaction is not simply an enjoyable addition to online learning. Talking with fellow-learners and trainers makes learners’ thinking visible for the trainers so that they know where learners are in their thinking process, in what direction to guide them, as well as address their misconceptions. Well-planned interaction supports learning: learners can use questions, explanations and reactions from others as cues for constructing their new knowledge (source).

This does not mean that learning alone from a text or video cannot be effective. It becomes effective when the learner deliberately stops to think. For example, while reading a text or watching a video, a learner can pause and ask: What does this mean? How does this relate to what I already know? Do I agree? How could I apply this in my work?

The important point is that receiving information and actively thinking about its meaning is not the same process. Pausing creates space to reflect on it, connect it with previous knowledge, question it and consider how it could be used. 

This is also why our training sessions are designed so that participants first express their own ideas. The educator’s input follows. The aim is not only to hear the expert’s answer, but to give learners the possibility to think how this new information is connected with their existing knowledge and to help them construct/adjust their new understanding about the subject. This means that learning needs time, so the content of the sessions must be planned in such a way that learners have time to reflect on it themselves.

Learning something in a way that allows us to use that knowledge later requires active engagement and dialogue, not simply memorising a poem learned in the childhood.

Interested in learning more? Join our next training programme: