LEARNING STRATEGIES

LUZ AMPARO NOY

SÁNCHEZ

INTRODUCTION
Like Educational Monitors or teachers, our task is to obtain that our
students learn, despite the result not always responds to our
expectations and to our efforts. And it is that the learning depends
on diverse factors: capacity, motivation, previous knowledge, or
strategies of learning. The learning strategies, are the set of
activities, techniques and means that are planned in agreement
with the needs of the students, the objectives who look for and the
nature of the knowledge, in order to make cash the process of
learning.

To define the learning strategies implies to know clearly: objectives

of the course, conception of education, conception of learning, in
agreement with Weinstein and Mayer (1986), the learning
strategies are the actions and thoughts of the students who
happen during the learning, which they have great influence in the
motivation degree and include aspects like the acquisition,
retention and transference. These authors consider to the
strategies like techniques that can be taught to be used during the
learning. This way, the goal of any particular strategy of learning
will be the one to affect the motivational state and affective and
the way in which the student selects, acquires, organizes or Integra
a new knowledge.

In any case the decision making against the escogencia of a

learning strategy, will start off to understand this one like means
for the construction of the knowledge, from the analysis, the
evaluation, the critical thought, the reflection and the debate.
Retaking to Newman and Wehlage (1993), the used strategies will
be due to orient to the authentic learning that is characterized by
five characteristics: thought of high level, depth of the knowledge,
connections with the real world, dialogue noun and social support
for advantage of the student.
A vitally important element in the development of the learning
strategies constitutes the learning atmosphere that in agreement
with Honebein (1996) must consider, the inserted elements in the
graph.

1. CLASSIFICATION OF THE STRATEGIES OF LEARNING IN

THE ACADEMIC SCOPE.

Five types of general strategies in the educative scope have been

identified. The three first help the student to elaborate and to
organize the contents so that is easier the learning (to process the
information), fourth is destined to control the mental activity of the
student to direct the learning and, finally, the fifth of support to the
learning so that this one takes place in the best possible
conditions.

1.1Strategies of test

They are those that the active repetition of the contents implies
(saying, writing), or to concentrate in parts keys of him. They
are examples:

To repeat terms, mnemotécnicas rules aloud, to copy the

material object of learning, to take literal notes, the underlining.

1,2 Strategies of elaboration

They imply to make connections between new and the relative. For
example:

To paraphrase, to summarize, to create analogies, to take notes

not literal, to respond questions (including in the text or those that
can be formulated the student), to describe as the new information
is related to the existing knowledge.

1,3 Strategies of organization

They group the information so that it is easier to remember it.

They imply to impose structure to learning contents, dividing it in
parts and identifying relations and hierarchies. They include
examples like:

To summarize a text, scheme, underlining, statistical chart,

semantic network, conceptual map, ordered tree.

1,4 Strategies of control of the understanding

These are the strategies ligatures to the Metacognición. They imply

to remain conscious than one is being to obtain, to follow the track
of the strategies that are used and the success achieved with them
and to adapt the conduct in agreement. If we used the metaphor to
compare the mind with a computer, these strategies would act like
a central processor of computer. They are a system supervisor of
the action and the thought of the student, and they are
characterized by a high level of brings back to consciousness and
voluntary control. Between the metacognitivas strategies they are:
the planning, the regulation and the evaluation .

• Strategies of planning.

They are those by means of which the students direct and control
their conduct. They are, therefore, previous to that the students
conduct some battle. They take I finish activities like:

• To establish the objective and the goal of learning

• To select the previous knowledge that are necessary to carry
out it
• To disturb the task in successive steps
• To program an execution calendar
• To anticipate the time that is needed to carry out that task,
the resources that are needed, the necessary effort.
• To select the strategy to follow

• Strategies of regulation, direction and supervision

They are used during the execution of the task. They indicate
the capacity that the student must to follow the plan drawn
up and to verify his effectiveness. Activities are realised like:
• To formulate questions
• To follow the plan drawn up
• To fit to the time and the effort required by the task
 • To modify and to look for alternative strategies in case
the selected ones previously are not effective.

• Strategies of evaluation.

They are the ones in charge to verify the learning process.

They are carried out during and at the end of the process.
Activities are realised like:

• To review the taken steps.

• To value if they have been obtained or not them
proposed objectives.
• To evaluate the quality of the final results.
• To decide when to conclude the undertaken process,
when to make pauses, the duration of pauses, etc.

1,5 Strategies of support or affective

These strategies, do not go directly to the learning of the

contents. The mission fundamental of these strategies it is to
improve the effectiveness of the learning improving the
conditions in which one takes place. They include:

• To establish and to maintain the motivation, to focus

the attention, to maintain the concentration, to handle
the anxiety, to handle the time of effective way, etc.

Finally to indicate, that some authors relate the learning

strategy to a determined type of learning. For these authors
each type of learning (by association/by reconstruction)
would be tie to a series of strategies that are to him own.

• The associative learning: TEST STRATEGIES

• The learning by reconstruction: ELABORATION
STRATEGIES, OR OF ORGANIZATION.

The following scheme represents the different types from

strategies graphically.

1 THE PROFESSOR AGAINST THE LEARNING STRATEGIES.

 The main difficulty of the Educational one against the learning
strategies is in the rejection of all innovation: The education of
learning strategies takes with himself the use of certain
methods, in many cases different from which the professors
came using. For some professionals, this supposes an inference
with the accepted practice, they reject and it.

Another difficulty is in the ignorance of the own process of

learning: To teach these strategies depends, largely, of the
capacity that the professor must to discuss the learning with his
students. For it, it is necessary that this one is able to make
their own process conscious of learning.

Finally the election of a learning strategy depends also on the

formation in the methods developed for the education of a
certain content.

1. THE STUDENT AGAINST THE LEARNING STRATEGIES.

The main problem is the resistance of the student to be

active in its learning, motivated by the traditional models of
education and, mainly, because it does not appreciate the
utility of this learning for the yield in the examinations; then
normally these award the mechanical or memorístico
learning.

On the other hand the learning strategies imply but time that
the traditional methods, an environmental disposition in
terms of furniture, materials and of particular way an
independent work but and therefore with self-regulation of
the process, new task for the student who owns a natural
disposition towards the skillful class that only implies work of
the educational one or traditional education.