Surface learning deals with factual information or surface knowledge that is a prerequisite for deep learning most of the time.
To be effective, learning must be active. Effective and active learning are interdependent and can be looked upon as two sides of the same coin.
Differences between Surface and deep learning
From a neuroscience perspective, the learning that takes place in the classroom is essentially about memory formation – its storage and its retrieval.
Neuroscience also tells us that the plasticity of the brain enables a change during learning, and there are changes to both the structure and function of the brain. These changes are different depending on whether the learning is ‘surface’ or deep.
One of the differences between them is to think of surface learning as immediate or short-term learning, and deep learning as a consolidation process that leads to long-term changes.
Deep learning is not about memorizing things, but integrating the facts. Teaching cannot be done in silos.
Surface learning involves recalling and reproducing content and skills. Deep learning involves things like extending ideas, detecting patterns, applying knowledge and skills in new contexts or in creative ways, and being critical of arguments and evidence.
According to John Hattie:
· Surface learning is very much about the idea, the content, the knowledge and the information.
- Deep learning is when you relate or extend or transfer that knowledge.
When are Surface and Deep learning strategies appropriate or inappropriate?
As you’re starting to learn something for the first time, the appropriateness of surface learning comes to the fore. If you’ve never played golf, you’ve never driven a car, then I would expect in the first few lessons that 90% plus of the lesson would probably be about surface learning.
When should learning shift from Surface to Deep?
Movement from surface to deep is a continuum. In fact, learning is very much a staccato. At some point we should be telling the students, to stop learning more and start relating them.
Students don’t do what you ask them or tell them to do. They do what they think or you think, is valuable from the point of view of assessments. So, there is a lot that the teachers can do to make the shift.
How can learners be supported to ‘transfer’ their understanding to new contexts?
Our Short term memory is short as the name indicates. Very often when the task is done, the brain hits the delete button so to say and the information disappears. I had explained the Zeigarnik effect in the article on the mind and body connection. To remember for long, one needs to overlearn. This is the very reason, we memorise the tables. Spelling tests in schools deal with similar concepts. Looking at the similarities and differences also aids in the process.
Let’s take for example a student who solves a math problem and the teacher wants him to try another math problem. If the similarities and differences between these two contexts are pointed out, then transfer can happen. If not the student might remain at the surface level.
How to promote Deep learning – a technique to hone facilitation skills in the teacher and help the students to move to higher-order thinking skills. The process involved is more skewed towards the technique than the content.
The teacher shows the video What is the future of work? World Economic Forum by Jamie MacAuliffe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuDnSqAo784
The teacher organizes the students into 4 groups. She asks them to watch the video carefully, particularly with reference to: The skills Gap, The information Gap, Encouraging Entrepreneurship and the Expectations Gap. After each stage the group pins up the answers for all to see.
1. Everyone generates objective questions based on Facts and data available from the video. These will be the objective questions. For example:
a) Which scene do you recall?
b) Which ideas, concepts caught your attention? Why?
c) What is your understanding of…? How would you describe X?
2. The individuals pool in their ideas in their group. They raise questions that are based on feelings, moods, emotions etc. These will be the reflective questions. For example:
a) What was the high / low point?
b) How did the video affect you?
c) How do you feel about X? What was your reaction when you first learnt about Y?
3. Interpretive: So What? For example:
a) What was the most meaningful aspect of this activity?
b) What can you conclude from this experience?
c) How can we transfer this learning to develop deep learning?
d) How would a technique like this, help you develop HOTS?
e) Given your experience with X, what was the best part about it?
f) Given your experience with Y, are there things you would consider changing about the process?
4. Decision: Now What? For example
Individuals and the group determine future resolutions and/or actions. Each group will look at one of the focus points and discuss.
For example:
a) How, if at all, has this experience changed your thinking?
b) What was the significance of this experience to your study/work/life?
c) What would it take to help you apply what you learned?
d) Out of those different options we have discussed, what would be the first thing you think should get done? What do you now plan to do?
Closure: The teacher gets the students to go through the learning process of identifying the objective aspects of the decision-making. The students will get to know thoroughly the metacognition process at the end of this technique. An ideal process to think critically and enhance Deep Learning.
According to Prof. John Hattie, the most significant effect on student learning is when teachers become learners of their teaching and when students become their teachers”.
Deep learning
Deep learning takes us from Lower-level thinking to higher-level thinking like analysis, creativity, and beyond. If the Physical education teacher knows how many kids in the primary have flat feet, it would be deep learning. Deep learning needs lower-level thinking skills too. The lower-level thinking skills lead to surface learning.
Surface Question – Explain how wind affects the rate of transpiration?
Answer: Wind increases transpiration rate by blowing away the humid air from around the leaf so that more water can be lost from the leaf.
Profound Question – Why do wet clothes on the washing line dry faster on a warm, windy day?
Answer: On a warm, windy day, the rate of Evaporation will be high because the humid air around the clothes get blown away, so more evaporation happens on a hot day.
Questions like what if…. Why…? It can help to delve deeper.
Skills of Deep Learning
Core Skill-1-Critical Thinking and Problem-solving
Teachers have to plan questions based on higher-order thinking skills, which result in deep learning, and higher-order thinking skills can be developed through open-ended questions. Such open-ended questions can be asked during the lesson’s introduction, during the class and even at the study’s conclusion.
Core Skill-2-Creativity and Imagination
Core Skill-3-Communication and collaboration
Communicating orally and in written form and non-verbal communication leads to innovative ideas and solutions.
Core Skill-4-Citizenship
Citizenship has been identified as a deep learning core skill that will enable our students to participate on the international stage, just as today’s climate of interconnectivity demands.
Core Skill-5-Digital Literacy
Digital literacy invokes the other core skills to varying extents depending on the type of activity and choice of technology. For digital technology to contribute to deep learning, it must be transformational rather than transactional; that affects the shift from digital technology to being digitally literate.
Skills and tools used in digital literacy
- Functional skills-Ms word, Ms excel, Ms PowerPoint etc.
- Critical thinking and evaluation-Internet
- Cultural and social understanding-twitter-blogs, discussion forums etc
- Collaboration-Internet –
- Effective communication-Skype, Whatsapp, Email Chat JPTetc.
- Core Skills – Student leadership and Personal Development
- Teacher leaders assume a wide range of roles to support school and students success. Whether these roles are assigned formally or shared informally, they build the entire school’s improvement capacity. Because teachers can lead in various ways, many teachers can serve as leaders among their peers.
Strategies for Deep Learning
- Connect: Create a community of learners
The most significant effect on learning happens when the teachers and the students swap roles. The flipped class could be an example.
- Empower: Activate students to lead their own learning
Active and meaningful educational experiences are critical in helping students reach Deeper Learning goals. Teachers need to provide that ‘hands-on experience’. E.g. A “mock election” representative of the electoral process or generating electricity by building wind turbines can lead to deep learning. Assessments cannot be looked at as marks. There should be rubrics to tell the student where they stand.
- Contextualize
Subjects are not to be taught in isolation. The knowledge becomes more meaningful and holistic when learning is connected to themes, concepts, and multiple issues.
- Beyond school walls
The mobile museum in Mumbai works on a theme every year and visits the school free of cost. Invite it to school. Plan field trips for children. In other words, the integrated approach lends itself to the study of surface vs deep learning. The integrated system is addressed in detail under Chapter 4 under holistic education.
- Judicious use of technology
Interactive boards have made inroads into the classroom. However, they are used generally to teach. For digital technology to contribute to deep learning, it must be transformational rather than transactional. However, the flip side of the epidemic is that every teacher has become tech-savvy and can use technology to support teaching.