DIMENSIONS

OF
LEARNING
 DIMENSION

1. a measurable extent of a particular kind, such as

length, breadth, depth, or height.

2. an aspect or feature of a situation.

 LEARNING
Learning as relatively
permanent behavioural
modifications which take place
as a result of experience.
THIS DEFINITION OF LEARNING STRESSES ON
THREE IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF LEARNING:

1. Learning involves a behavioural change

which can be better or worse.

 John B Watson is one amongst the first

thinkers who has proven that behavioural
changes occur as a result of learning.
THIS DEFINITION OF LEARNING STRESSES ON
THREE IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF LEARNING:

2. This behavioural change should take place

as a result of practice and experience.

Changes resulting from maturity or growth

cannot be considered as learning.

3. This behavioural change must be

relatively permanent and last for a
relatively long time enough.
LEVELS OF LEARNING
 DIMENSIONS
OF
LEARNING

A Framework for Planning

Instruction Based on
Contsructivist Learning
Developed and tested by the
Mid-continent Research for
Education and Learning
(McREL)
 MARZANO ET AL., 1988
Dimensions of Learning is an
extension of the comprehensive
research-based framework on
cognition and learning described
in Dimensions of Thinking: A
Framework for Curriculum and
Instruction published by the
Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development
(ASCD)
WHAT IS THE IDEA BEHIND DIMENSIONS
OF
LEARNING?

Dimensions of Learning is a
learning-centered framework
for instructional planning that
translates the latest research on
cognition and learning into
practical classroom strategies.
 THE FRAMEWORK SERVES AT LEAST THREE
MAJOR PURPOSES

 It provides a FRAMEWORK for organizing,

describing, and developing research-based
teaching strategies that engage students in the
types of thinking involved in MEANINGFUL
LEARNING.
 It offers a way of integrating the major
instructional models by showing how they are
connected and where the overlaps occur.
 It provides a process for planning and delivering
curriculum and instruction that integrates much of
the research on effective teaching and learning.
THE DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING MODEL
ASSUMES THAT FIVE ASPECTS OF
LEARNING SHOULD BE CONSIDERED
WHEN MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT
CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND
ASSESSMENT:
 FIVE ASPECTS OF LEARNING

 Dimension 1: Positive Attitudes and

Perceptions About Learning
 Dimension 2: Acquiring and Integrating
Knowledge
 Dimension 3: Extending and Refining
Knowledge
 Dimension 4: Using Knowledge
Meaningfully
 Dimension 5: Productive Habits of the
Mind
TEACHERS CAN IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF
TEACHING AND LEARNING IN ANY CONTENT AREA
USING THE SIX BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
 Instruction must reflect the best of what we know about
how learning occurs.
 Learning involves a complex system of interactive
processes that includes five types of thinking the five
dimensions of learning.
 What we know about learning indicates that instruction
focusing on large, interdisciplinary curricular themes is the
most effective way to promote learning.
 The senior secondary curriculum should include explicit
teaching of higher-level attitudes and perceptions and
mental habits that facilitate learning.
 A comprehensive approach to instruction includes at least
two distinct types of instruction: one that is more teacher-
directed and another that is more student-directed.
 Assessment should focus on students use of knowledge and
complex reasoning rather than their recall of low-level
information.
 Dimensions of Learning is a
comprehensive framework or model
to help educators plan learning
experiences for their students. It is
based on extensive research about
learning and how the mind works.
 It has been designed to help
educators improve students’ learning
through planning curriculum,
instruction and assessment using
five critical aspects of the learning
process, or dimensions of learning.
 IS LEARNING
NEW CONCEPTS
SIMPLY A MECHANISM
OF
MEMORIZATION
AND
RECALL?
 THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CONCEPTUAL
MAP ACTIVATES STUDENTS’ THINKING SKILLS

 Remembering (recalling), understanding

(comprehending), applying, analyzing,
evaluating, and creating (synthesizing) are all
part of the cognitive process (Krathwohl, 2002)
and a conceptual map can bring them into play.
 Differentiating between ideas, organizing them
into concept-hubs, and generating a mind-map of
central concepts put into practice their analytical
and creative thinking skills.
 We can’t “turn off” prior knowledge, so we’re better
off making it work for us, not against us. Prompt
the students to express ideas connected to central
concepts and make them realize the source of
these ideas, whether it is another subject or a real-
life example.
 Students pose real-life examples of concepts that
mainly come from personal experience. These are
particularly difficult for us to work with because
they have very long and strong roots.
 Instead of trying to eradicate students’ initial
representations of concepts, use them as the
ground floor, and build upon them.
 Unfold the content and the skills you want to
teach them around the concepts at hand.

 This is a feature of the constructivist

approach: the several elements of your
instruction have a common thread that
makes sense to students because your
material is now connected to the mindmap they
constructed and explored.
 Encourage students to pose inquiry questions on
the material you presented, while keeping in
mind the purpose of different types of questions:
 Factual questions indicate the activation of
lower-order thinking skills, like recall and
comprehension. Factual questions are a
characteristic type of basic information questions
and they usually appear when students get
familiar with new material.
 Conceptual questions demand higher-order
thinking skills, such as analysis and synthesis
(Bloom, 1956). Conceptual questions fall under
the wonderment questions category and they are
generated as students “dig deeper.”
 Provoke the formation of debatable questions that
link facts and concepts, and use them as starting
points for homework assignments.

 These assignments give students the opportunity

to advance all forms of knowledge (procedural,
declarative, and conceptual). As an inquiry
exercise, you can organize group activities for the
design of mini-instruction plans. For a concept
of their choice, they should include both
content-driven and skills-related activities
that they will present to the class.
 In this respect we can also raise the following questions which
revolve around the aspect of setting clear and objective criteria
for evaluating and assessing:
 Is it the essentials which are tested in the assessment of
students’ performance (permanently stored information, facts
of exemplary importance, and in excess of mere knowledge of
facts, “the tools of thought and action”, skills and abilities)?
 In marking the students’ work, are the marks defined by
unbiased criteria?
 Do the standards of performance in the test correspond to those
of the syllabus?
 Have all the requirements which have to be met to achieve a
certain mark been determined beforehand (different levels of
achievement)?
 Does the test also enable the students to understand which
parts of a learning objective they have achieved?
 Have different types of testing been developed for students
with different starting conditions?
 Can the students carry out the tests individually where this
seems appropriate (for example, can they choose the exact
point in time)?
DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF ASSESSMENT
 The different dimensions of students’ assessment include
three levels. By using this cube model, the interdependence
of the three dimensions can be explained.
 Dimension 1 – perspectives: students can assess
themselves (self-assessment) or they can be assessed by
others (assessment by others).
 Dimension 2 – forms: assessment can have three different
forms – assessment of learning processes, assessment of
learning achievements and prognostic. Each form has
advantages and disadvantages.
 Dimension 3 – standards of reference: for assessment a
teacher can orient himself/herself on an individual
standard (the student), on an objective standard (learning
goal) or on a social standard (position of student in class).
It depends very much on the standard of reference what
impact assessment has on the future learning of the
student.
 3.2 Dimensions and levels of learning, assessing
conceptual development, recall of facts and
concepts, application of specific skills,
problemsolving; application of learning to diverse
and new situations.
THANK YOU