Learning With Models

Learning with models constitutes a class of experience-based learning processes that uses a constructed model of the world (or a world of thought) to support a learning experience. A model is a representation of something in the world—a kind of abstraction that may range from a set of assumptions to the basis for a complex and realistic simulation. The learning experience is abstract because the model is not the world but an idealized, focused, or reduced version of an understanding about something in the world, such as a representation of expert understanding or a process. The reasons for using models vary from safe or risk-free initial experiences (e.g., in flight simulation) to carefully guiding the learners to a more complex understanding of a complex problem-solving situation. The goal is to create an experience that contradicts a learner’s current understanding or change a belief about the topic. But the use of a model to support learning should also allow learners to make use of current understanding and prior knowledge. This entry first discusses the use of models in support of learning, how experts [Page 478]approach models, and the importance of feedback in the learning environment. The entry then discusses the principles of effective learning with models.

If a learning model involves expert knowledge, that knowledge represents an analytic model of the world, as shown in Figure 1. An expert model is less complex and less complete than the real world, as is any model. It subsumes the understanding of the expert on a specific subject matter with a specific focus on the experts’ domain.

Figure 1 Learning with models

Models have many uses in support of learning, and one model may be used for multiple purposes. For instance, a model of a medical operation may be used by a counselor to teach about a healing process or by a surgeon to teach about the actual operation. In any case, a second model is created to direct the learning experience, as shown in Figure 1. The learner will interact with this synthetic model of the operation in a simulated learning environment. It is synthetic because the experts design it from their analytic understanding for the purpose of facilitating learning. The learners interact and experience within the context of the synthetic model (the model of the learning environment: the LE model). They use their understanding (the learners’ model: the L model) to try to explain to themselves what they experience—a reflection process that may be conscious or unconscious. Even if learners feel like they are learning something completely new, this is almost never the case because new learning builds on prior knowledge and learning. Figure 1 shows the importance of the experts’ analytic model in the design and development of a learning environment and its role in didactics as well as guidance and feedback. Although the expert model is important, gaining access to the learners’ models is especially important and quite challenging because it needs to occur during a learning experience or very soon thereafter.