A philosophy of learning by discovering isn’t just something that’s all fun; there’s real merit in it, for hte purpose of findig out what you don’t know you don’t know. Why does this matter for self-design? Sometimes we hold ourselves back because of the lack of awareness of the range of possibility of who we might become. If we know about what else is even an option.
In Mirror I often sent prompts out around this topic. I feel very much influenced by discovery, personally, in my life and feel happy to share more info about the philosophy of ‘discovery learning.’ Here is a bit from Wikipedia’s site, on ‘Discovery Learning’. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_learning
‘Discovery learning is… also referred to as problem-based learning, experiential learning and 21st century learning. Jerome Bruner…argues that “Practice in discovering for oneself teaches one to acquire information in a way that makes that information more readily viable in problem solving”.
‘This philosophy later became the discovery learning movement of the 1960s. The mantra of this philosophical movement suggests that people should “learn by doing”… a discovery learning task can range from implicit pattern detection, to the elicitation of explanations and working through manuals to conducting simulations. Discovery learning can occur whenever the student is not provided with an exact answer but rather the materials in order to find the answer themselves. Discovery learning takes place in problem solving situations where the learner draws on his own experience and prior knowledge and is a method of instruction through which students interact with their environment by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments.
‘Discovery-based learning is typically characterized by having minimal teacher guidance, fewer teacher explanations, solving problems with multiple solutions, use of hand-on materials, minimal repetition and memorization.’
Some characteristics of it are:
- Teacher guidance where the emphasis is on building upon students’ reasoning and connecting to their experiences
- Classroom culture where there is a shared sense of purpose between teacher and students, where open-mindedness and dialogue are encouraged
- Students are encouraged to ask questions, inquire through exploration and collaborate with teacher and peers
This is the ethos behind how I host the conversations and real life and online ateliers. Making it up as we go, exploring together. Which may sound lke I don’t have a plan, but the thing is, there’s this saying that goes, Walker there is no path. Walk, and a path appears.