Mastering Meaningful Learning: Concepts, Requirements, and Benefits

Defining Meaningful Learning

Meaningful learning is a significant process in establishing a substantive and non-arbitrary relationship between the content to be learned and what the learner already knows:

• Substantive: The content can be expressed by the learner in their own words without losing its meaning.
• Non-Arbitrary: The content can be linked by the learner to their prior knowledge, connecting the new information with existing preconceptions.

Requirements for Meaningful Learning

1. Potentially Significant Materials

   Materials must be relatable to some previous cognitive structure, encouraging substantive and non-arbitrary interaction, and possessing logical significance.

2. Appropriate Learner's Cognitive Structure

   This is the set of concepts an individual possesses about a particular field, as well as the way in which learning is organized. Prior cognitive structure (subsumers) determines how content is organized. If no previous organizations exist, inductive and inclusive materials are used so students can integrate new information.

3. Learner's Disposition for Significant Learning

   The learner must be motivated, confident, feel joy in the learning situation, and maintain an active and positive attitude towards learning.

Types of Significant Learning

1. Concept Learning

This involves abstracting essential characteristics or attributes of a particular category of objects. It occurs in two ways:

1. Concept Formation

   Implies that the characteristics of the concept (criterion attributes) are acquired through direct experience in successive stages of formulation and testing of hypotheses.

2. Concept Assimilation

   Involves defining characteristics using available cognitive structure combinations. The new information is related to relevant previous ideas.

2. Propositional Significant Learning

This goes beyond the assimilation of what words represent. It requires grasping the meaning of ideas of propositions expressed in sentence form, and requires knowledge of the concepts involved in the meaningful learning process itself.

3. Subordinate Learning (Subsumption)

Existing concepts are generally at a higher level of abstraction for the inclusion of new ideas, or existing concepts are modified by new ideas. There are two types:

• Derivative Subsumption

  A specific example of information already possessed by the subject.

• Correlative Subsumption

  Extension, modification, or limitation of the information already possessed by the subject.

4. Superordinate Learning

The previous concepts are at the lowest level of abstraction, generality, and inclusiveness compared to the new ideas. This takes place in the course of inductive reasoning. The new information includes previous ideas that the student already holds.

5. Combinatorial Learning

New ideas generally relate to existing ideas but not in a subordinate or superordinate relationship.

Advantages of Meaningful Learning

Benefits include:

• Teamwork
• Developing diagrams and concept maps
• Critical feedback and solutions