Meaningful learning What is it and what are its characteristics?

The significant learning it is one of the many types of learning through which you can direct yourself in the world. If you are not very familiar with this matter, let me tell you that there are types of learning, some being more popular than others. The most common are: collaborative learning, rote learning, associative learning, and discovery learning.

All of these are types of learning generated by different stimuli. However, today we will focus our attention on the significant learning, so that you understand what it is and what its most important characteristics are.

What is meaningful learning?

According to the approaches of the psychologist and pedagogue David Ausubel, meaningful learning is a type of learning in which students associate new concepts or information with concepts or information they already have.

During this process there is a new configuration of the information, through the process of readjusting the known, according to the new experiences or data, that is, both the old and the new information are permeated by the knowledge that the company has. person.

Conceptual framework of meaningful learning

Reflection on meaningful learning is framed within the so-called constructivism. In psychology, constructivism refers to all those theories in which it is considered that the human being is in charge of building their reality and experiences, and it does not function as a simple passive entity within the process.

Within constructivism, both theories and practice have the objective of analyzing how individuals construct their meaning systems to give meaning to their experiences and relationship with the world..

In short, constructivist theories focus on the significant structure as the fundamental axis of the construction of the personality.

Characteristics of meaningful learning

Meaningful learning works with anchor points, In other words, both the old and the new information must have a common signifiers that allow the person to chain them in a logical way.

Unlike other types of learning, such as rote learning, meaningful learning does not focus on accumulating data, but on understand information.

For meaningful learning to occur, it is necessary that new ideas connect with previous information the person has. For this, it is of vital importance that the individual has an effective appropriation of the old concepts, in order to facilitate the process of understanding and linking the new information..

One of the meaningful learning objectives is to enrich the student through the assimilation of new information that complements the pre-existing information, all in order to generate a broader panorama of understanding and interpretation of the world.

One of the advantages of meaningful learning is that human beings tend to reject everything to which we do not find logic. That is why, this type of learning is one of the best information transmission techniques, because the student can make use of previous concepts that support the new information that comes into his life.

Meaningful learning is considered a type of relational learning, from the sense in which it is awakened by a set of relationships between new data and previous knowledge based on experiences, data and information that had already been apprehended by the person.

Types of meaningful learning

According to Ausubel's approaches, learning is classified into intrapersonal, cognitive, situational and affective-social categories. Meaningful learning draws from all these sources, and from there the following typologies associated with this type of learning are born.

Representations

The representations are known as the before and after vocabulary for the concept formation. Having this clear, we can say that the learning of representations occurs when the student can relate symbols, with the different meanings to which they allude.

In simpler words, it can be said that the person acquires the ability to interpret arbitrary symbols and associate them with concepts that are linked to the meanings it has of reality.

Concepts

Concept learning refers to the ability to acquire ideas in a unitary, generic or categorical way, also assimilating their main characteristics, what differentiates them from others or what are their criteria.

The person creates concepts from their direct experience, generating hypotheses, investigating, interpreting and checking.

Propositions

This learning occurs through existing concepts, through hierarchical relationships andn which there is a progressive differentiation and also combination processes.

These hierarchical relationships mean that the person creates a hierarchical relationship between the new concept and the previous one, understanding the relationship of dependency and relevance..

In the case of progressive differentiation se goes on to the interpretation of differences between concepts, and in the combination processes, as its name indicates, important data are mixed that collaborate in the understanding and expansion of both concepts.

Conclusions

• In meaningful learning, new concepts must be related to old concepts that serve as the basis of knowledge..
• For this type of learning it is necessary to develop the metacognitive skills, that is, the ability to associate different information.
• More than accumulating concepts, meaningful learning consists of understand and appropriate knowledge.
• This type of learning requires a constant accompaniment of the teacher who should guide the process of assimilation of the concepts.
• Meaningful learning should focus on the ability to relate concepts to broaden the spectrum of student learning.
• The ultimate goal of meaningful learning techniques is to provide students with the ability to learn to learn.
• In meaningful learning, it is vital to Mental opening and the ability to integrate meanings.

We hope that after reading this article you will have much clearer what meaningful learning is about, what are its characteristics and what are the benefits that can be obtained through this learning model.

Perhaps this is one of the most important because it generates a vocation for knowledge and helps the person to relate the information they know from a broader spectrum.