Student Learning: Learning Practices

Abstract

The phrase ‘learning practices’ has two meanings: on the one hand, it can refer to people learning some (other) practices; on the other, it can refer to practices of learning. In many cases, learning as an initiation into other practices occurs without any ‘teacher’ being present: a person simply ‘learns’ by participating in and often by reflecting on the practice they are learning. On the other hand, we also suggest that learning is also a distinctive practice, especially in formal educational settings where people occupy the role of ‘student’. In such cases, learners often engage in familiar routines and rituals that are distinctive as learning practices. We show that in both kinds of cases, what learners learn is how to go on in language games, activities, ways of relating to others and the world, and the practices that hold these things together. In the first section of this Chapter, we challenge some taken-for-granted views of learning as a process by which people come to possess concepts or skills or values as things that exist in their own right. Instead, we portray learning as a process (and as a practice) of initiation into practices. In the second section, drawing on analyses of empirical material from our case studies of practices, we show how the practice of learning is held in place by practice architectures. In the third section, we show how practices of learning are interdependent with other practices (like teaching, professional learning, leading and researching) in ecologies of practices at particular sites. Finally, we discuss the site based nature of learning practices, particularly in relation to site based education development.