What Learning Looks Like: Reading, Comprehending, Interpreting, Expressing

Learning is a process of development. You start with a skill, and then build on it. You all now know, or at least have had some experience - finding interesting material about the neighborhood on which you've chosen to focus. It is not enough to just find that material. You must read it carefully, and then interpret it: translate it into your own words and express it to an audience.

There is a purpose in all this: learning is not simply copying information from one source to another. Maybe when you are in elementary school it helps to write "A" "A" "A" over and over again, but as you grow older you need to develop another skill: that of understanding the material that you have read and making it your own by describing it to others using your own words.

If I was simply satisfied by your copying a paragraph from a website into your PowerPoint presentations I would not be teaching you anything. You would not be learning anything. This is a bad habit that a lot of schoolchildren have been allowed to get away with for years, but it is plagiarism, and it is not allowed in my class.

The reason that you have to fill out the Web Site Paraphrase Form is because you need to be able to take information in, understand it, and describe what you know. It is possible to simply copy something down and have no idea what you are writing or talking about. That is not learning. That is faking. I am not interested in what you can fake. I am interested in what you can understand.

Do not use a source from the internet that is too confusing or full of technical terms you do not understand. Use information from web sites that are clear to you. Read the information they give you and then describe what you have learned - as if you are explaining it to another student. Put it in your own style. Describe the history of the place as you understand it.

The stages of learning here are:
reading
comprehending
interpreting
expressing

You read, you figure out what each word means, you figure out the whole meaning and message of what you have read, and then you express your thoughts about what you have read, either verbally or through your own writing. That is what learning looks and feels like.