The Seven Principles of Learning (or the Seven Principles of Learning (or the Seven Principles of Learning))

It is a familiar form of discourse to orient thinking around a number--two for yes and no and black and white and on or off and good and evil and yin and yang; three for trinity; four for nice little spacial boxes built on an x axis and a y axis; etc. One of the classic numbers is, for course, seven: seven days of the week, seven deadly sins, seven sages, and--as none of you knew before now--the seven principles of learning!

The Google winner (Number One, Top of the Charts) on the Seven Principles of Learning comes from the National Research Council and are supposedly based on the "Cognitive Science of How People Learn." As presented on a Utah Valley University website, they are:

1. Learning with understanding is facilitated when new and existing knowledge is structured around the major concepts and principles of the discipline.

2.Learners use what they already know to construct new understandings.

3. Learning is facilitated through the use of metacognitive strategies that identify, monitor, and regulate cognitive processes.

4. Learners have different strategies, approaches, patterns of abilities, and learning styles that are a function of the interaction between their heredity and their prior experiences.

5. Learners’ motivation to learn and sense of self affects what is learned, how much is learned, and how much effort will be put into the learning process.

6. The practices and activities in which people engage while learning shape what is learned.

7. Learning is enhanced through socially supported interactions.

But, wait, I have faked you out, because these are not the seven principles of learning I was trying to source on the Internet. But, then, neither are these, the next set that we find on Google. This time from ASAE, the Center for Association Leadership:

1. Learning involves both support and challenge.

2. Learning involves changing both thinking and action.

3. Learning is an ongoing process of self-discovery.

4. Participants need to feel that the learning experience is both relevant to their situation and authentic to them as a person.

5. Learners and faculty should be involved as equal contributors in the learning process.

6. Learning is a social activity and happens best in the context of a trusting community.

7. Learning experiences should surprise and delight participants.

Whew, that must be the right one, correct? .. Not.
What I was trying to do when starting this search was track down the "Institute for Research on Learning." I know nothing of this organization, but unfortunately, neither would you by doing a simple Google search for it because, as is often the case with once thriving businesses, what they leave behind are worthless links in city and topical directories to addresses and phone numbers long since defunct. But, perseverance pays off and I learn about Peter Henschel, who helped found the Institute, and luckily, in an homage to him following his death in 2002, I learn the Institute for Research on Learning's famous seven principles:

1. Learning is fundamentally social.

2. Knowledge is integrated in the life of communities.

3. Learning is an act of participation.

4. Knowing depends on engagement in practice.

5. Engagement is inseparable from empowerment.

6. Failure to learn is often the result of exclusion from participation.

7. We are all natural lifelong learners.

Wonderful. That must be it! But, no, I have diverted your attention again. Luckily, Peter Henschel lays the groundwork for the diversion, since he admits that "These are not "Tablets from Moses;" rather, they are evolving as a "work in progress."" And, they did evolve, thanks to one of the Institute's own researchers, Etienne Wenger, who tells us the "Seven Principles of Learning":

1. Learning is inherent in human nature.

2. Learning is fundamentally social.

3. Learning changes who we are because it transforms our relationships with the world and our identities as social beings.

4. Learning is a matter of engagement in practice.

5. Learning reflects participation in communities of practice.

6. Learning means dealing with boundaries.

7. Learning is an interplay between the local and the global.

While clearly derivative of the Institute's seven principles, Wenger's principles do stick to the magic of seven--and it was these seven principles that my wife was reading when she asked me to find out of the Institute still exists. It doesn't, but then, unfortunately, neither does the seven. Wenger wasn't happy with that after all, and has to give us another one of those classic numbers--eleven (7-11, 9/11, :

1. Learning is inherent in human nature

2. Learning is first and foremost the ability to negotiate new meanings

3. Learning creates emergent structures

4. Learning is fundamentally experiential and fundamentally social

5. Learning transforms our identities

6. Learning constitutes trajectories of participation

7. Learning means dealing with boundaries

8. Learning is a matter of engagement

9. Learning is a matter of imagination

10. Learning is a matter of alignment

11. Learning involves an interplay between the local and the global

For any of you who have made it all the way through, I hope you have enough sources now for the seven (or is eleven?) principles of learning and can figure out how many of those principles have played out in my research and in my presenting this research to you, our loyal reader. But, of course, we have to let Wenger, who really is in to this, to have the last word, since he has written a book which tells us this all and he has conveniently let his readers know that the "social perspective on learning presented in this book may be summarized succinctly by the following principles" ... and how many is succinct? Well, he doesn't number them, but I count 13, a much more holy number (and not just a baker's dozen!), but you can go read these for yourself!