Click on a topic below to learn more about it. When you're finished with a section, return to this Table of Contents. In addition to the different understandings of the concept of learning as previously mentioned, students adopt different approaches to learning. Students who engage in a learning task with the intention of understanding or seeking meaning are said to be adopting a deep approach, while those who engage in a task with the intention of memorizing information are said to be adopting a surface approach. The effect of different approaches has been demonstrated by numerous studies relating outcomes of learning to those approaches-adopted.
Students construct meaning as they read, listen, act and reflect on the subject content.
Meaning is given through structure, and it is therefore essential that students be able to interpret the structure of any discourse before they can construct its meaning, which is so crucial to their understanding. Students are asked to engage in some form of activity which, when integrated with other activities, assists them in understanding content. Actions such as those mentioned above are futile for students' learning, unless feedback on individual actions is made available to them. Learners interpret and understand reality by forging links between each of the above aspects while reflecting on the goals of learning, the actions taken, and the results of those actions. This page was copied with permission from Shirley Alexander at The Institute for Interactive Multimedia, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.