Learning how to learn

Learning does not stop when a graduate is handed a diploma. In fact, today's jobs require people who are willing and able to learn for the rest of their lives. To succeed in this environment, students need to do more than acquire knowledge while at school. They need to understand how they learn and to acquire useful strategies for learning that they can apply themselves after they leave school.

Everything the students of Randy Cook and Maureen Flynn do in class is designed to help them develop lifelong learning skills. Here the two teachers share just a few of the approaches they use. Frank Jenkins teaches his students about knowledge itself, and he shares some of his ideas for teaching concepts from the study of knowledge, called epistemology, at the high school level.

• Learning logs and multicoloured hats

  Randy Cook and Maureen Flynn
  Allan A. Martin Senior Public School
  Mississauga, Ontario

• Periodic laws, atomic theories and epistemology

  Frank Jenkins
  Ross Sheppard High School
  Edmonton, Alberta