Abstract
Metaphors are widely discussed within educational research and this paper adds to the body of knowledge in relation to students using these as a tool to support meta-learning. Metaphors free up space for creative thinking by moving the mind from one place to another and have been found to be an effective cognitive device for learning. This project focuses on what students are like when they are “learning at their best” and discusses what knowing this information does for both individual self-awareness and working with others. Six final year students spent half a day exploring, developing and pictorially representing their “learning at best” metaphors. All six metaphors were different and showed the internal representations of the individuals when they were learning at their best. However out of the discourse common themes arose from the group in relation to what was needed to support learning these included time of day, mood, pace and environment. All six students were positive that the development of personal learning metaphors was beneficial and thought that it was important that these were developed systematically over time. The benefits were highlighted to be both for the individual working on their own and for understanding others in group work situations.
Highlights
Metaphors are not a new concept within educational research this is largely focused on teachers using metaphors (Alger, 2009; Mahlio, Massengill-Shaw, & Barry, 2010) rather than in this case students developing and understanding their own and each other’s. Lakoff and Johnson (1980: p. 5) key authors in the field believe that metaphors are integral to thought and communicate and are “the understanding and experiencing of one kind of thing in terms of another”
This paper explores students developing metaphors about their own learning preferences and how this can be used to both support themselves and their understanding of others
For each student in this project their “learning at best” model was different there are some factors that were highlighted across the group that could be drawn upon to help others in developing their metaphors
Summary
Metaphors are not a new concept within educational research this is largely focused on teachers using metaphors (Alger, 2009; Mahlio, Massengill-Shaw, & Barry, 2010) rather than in this case students developing and understanding their own and each other’s. Lakoff and Johnson (1980: p. 5) key authors in the field believe that metaphors are integral to thought and communicate and are “the understanding and experiencing of one kind of thing in terms of another”. The metaphor is a vessel which can hold this information in a way that can be developed and changed as the individual grows and builds on their learning and understanding; this is known in the field as “emergent knowledge” (Johnson, 2001) The metaphors in this process have been developed through a set of exercises looking at time; decision making; what’s important and the one that has been most meaningful has been around students exploring what they are like when they are “learning at their best”. As metaphors are known for their ability to move the mind from one place of understanding to another (Cook-Sather, 2003), this type of creative thinking can enable students to explore their own mental models The idea around this concept is that once the student understands what they are like when they are “learning at their best” they can recreate the environment, conditions and attitude whenever they need to be in learning mode and be at their best more of the time.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call