What is Learning and Who is Learning What?

Narrative

One of the interesting points about the movie is that it never specifically addresses how each young woman learns and if their way of learning changes over time. There are many different types of learners and they all need different supports at different times. The challenge in this activity is to watch the movie and note the clues that suggest how these young women learn.

	Materials Needed The Gender Chip Venue with moveable seating to allow for a discussion circle or square

Guided Experience

Sarason (2004) defines learning as:

"Learning is not a thing. Learning is a process that occurs in an inter-personal and group context, and it is always composed of an interaction of factors to which we append labels such as motivation, cognition, emotion or affect and attitude. Neither singly nor in their interactions is the strength of these factors ever zero" (p. vii).

Keeping that definition in mind, participants can create five butcher paper people-- one for of each of the five women in the movie. With each group responsible for understanding the learning story of one woman have them meet and determine roles and what they might be looking for as they watch the film. After viewing the film, have the groups complete their person. They might want to consider what obstacles they encountered, how they learned (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, auditory, sequential, visual, introvert, extrovert, etc.), what were their strengths, where did they need support, what supports were effective? Further discussion might include how the young women talked with themselves about learning. What types of learning were most important at different times in these young women's academic experiences?