Learning Modes from and for History

Let's look at how communicating and learning has taken place through different media and modes across history, and then try to become more diverse in the learning modes we each use.

Below I outline five learning modes. I first give some historical background on a given approach, then I suggest ways we can use these modes from history to enhance how we learn about history (or anything else). These modes often overlap, but it is helpful to separate them out.

The modes I'll look at:

1. Oral / Aural Learning
2. Visual Learning
3. Digital Learning
4. Experiential Learning
5. Social Learning

Missing from this list is book learning -- not because it isn't important, but because the other modes are those we need more practice in doing.

As you read over the explanations of these, please think about what learning modes that you use most successfully, as well as those you might employ better. Which modes make for the most engaging learning for you, or which work best for a given subject? Which ones haven't you tried, and which promise to make your learning more interesting? 

In the comments, please chime in with your suggestions or with your personal experiences that underscore the value of any of these learning approaches:

1. Oral / Aural Learning 

• Historically, oral communication has been the primary mode of human communication and has played a major role in society (for example, through public speeches and debates). It still carries great authority. It is often tied to folklore and to storytelling, as well as to oratory and to pedagogy (teaching and learning). Oral communication is often less formal, and at times less factual. It can be more impromptu and more social than other modes.
• Kinds of oral / aural learning
• Memorization and/or recitation
• Listening to speeches, lectures, podcasts, or music (sometimes separated from any viewing component, sometimes not mediated electronically)
• Presenting (sometimes in tandem with visuals)
• Giving a speech (or recording a speech)

2. Visual Learning 

• Historically, visual communication also goes way back (think of cave paintings, or of architecture). Obviously the visual is primary in so many of the arts, and it is also connected to writing because of the visual nature of written symbols. The visual has also been manifest through our bodies: think of how gestures and body language communicate, or how meaningful fashion has been. 
  
  Certain historical periods reflect a flowering of visual art or visual communication. In antiquity (in the western tradition), the cultural flowering of ancient Greece and Rome included all kinds of visual arts, from pottery and statues to vast architectural enterprises. In the European Renaissance, the visual took on new life with painting and buildings and printed visuals like woodprints. We see the visual more tightly tied to instruction and communication (and not just the fine arts) in the 18th century with the growth of the popular press, the start of well illustrated encyclopedias, and with increased uses of scientific diagrams and illustrations. Museums became a thing in the 18th century, where the visual was tied to careful curating of artifacts. And of course in the 20th century, the visual became so prominent with cinema, TV, and later the internet.
• Kinds of visual learning
• Viewing works of art from a given time, place, or period (online, or at venues)
• Watching films or videos
• Creating visuals: illustrations, graphics, graphs, doodles, timelines, idea maps (sometimes blending visual and verbal/textual)
• Observing and recording visual data
• Curating images (for example, on Pinterest) or videos (such as YouTube playlists)
• Creating storyboards, flowcharts, diagrams, etc.
• Graphic note taking
• Designing an infographic, a mini-magazine, a website or blog post, etc.

3. Digital Learning 

• Historically, the digital has become most prominent in the 21st century, but it actually has deep roots much further back in time. The digital isn't equivalent either to "electronic" or "online," even if these are all closely associated today. No, the digital began with conscious uses of numbers and symbols to understand and to manage our world, and with discrete ways of ordering and organizing ideas (think lists, matrices, taxonomies), and instructions (algorithms are ordered sets of instructions, and go back to formulas for tabulating interest or to recipes, and precede software by centuries). Of course, more contemporary "digital" ways of learning (electronic and online) offer a range of diverse modes.
• Kinds of digital learning
• List making, creating ordered arrangements of knowledge via charts, matrices, taxonomies (this can be electronic or not, and is obviously tied to visual / graphic modes of learning)
• Curating media (selecting and organizing images, sounds, videos, etc.)
• Creating instruction sets (recipes, how-to's, or even actual software programs)
• Making infographics, slideshows, Prezi presentations
• Web searches (especially if selected / curated / reflected upon)
• Social media (searching within, or networking, or curating, etc.)
• Content creation (for blogs, websites, social media accounts)
• Finding, listening to, or recording and making audio files or podcast episodes
• Finding, viewing, or recording and making videos, animations, etc.
• Querying experts or enthusiasts via email or social media
• Video conferencing with fellow learners or with experts
• Integrating learning into your life in diverse ways by using digital tools (apps, feeds, wearable tech,)
• Augmented reality (apps) or virtual reality platforms or experiences
• Video games (yes, these can be important learning modes and not just entertainment)
• Commerce (buying and selling digitally, researching products, or engaging in digital capitalism)

4. Experiential Learning 

• Experiential learning is learning by doing. Historically, experiential learning preceded formal education or schooling. Consider how children learn by doing in the home, or via apprenticeships. "Experiential learning" is a way of accounting for a kind of learning that comes through travel, or through engaging a specific physical environment. Think of how people have learned to hunt, or to plant, or to sew, or to bake. So much of current education is tied to abstract learning (via books and visual or electronic media) that we sometimes forget how common and profound is learning via various experiences, including physical labor and work. "On-the-job training" is experiential learning. So is digging a ditch, weeding a garden, or changing a tire.
  
  Historically, experiential learning can be tied to the romantic resistance to formal education (consider Rousseau's emphasis on learning by being in nature rather than in a classroom). Travel has been a huge part of experiential learning across history, and was sometimes tied to exploration, to tourism, or to trade. Consider how merchants had to learn foreign languages, currencies, and cultures for the sake of trade. Another historical example of experiential learning involving travel has been the "grand tour," a kind of educational rite of passage in the 17th-19th centuries that involved travel across Europe (for the privileged, anyway). We can link this to today's study abroad programs. Museums, which came of age in the 18th century, became a standard kind of experiential educational experience. Internships, a kind of modern apprenticeship, are a common kind of experiential learning today, as are various modes of applied learning done both within and outside of schools (labs, for example, or vocational apprenticeships).
• Kinds of Experiential Learning
• Nature experiences (if prepped for and reflected upon)
• Athletic experiences (if prepped for and reflected upon)
• Domestic arts, crafts, making, and caring (cooking, decorating, making clothing, instructing and training children, care for the elderly or infirm) 
• Vocational learning (crafts and trades)
• Hands-on hobbies (woodworking, welding, crochet, knitting, sewing, decorating, landscaping, working on cars, making models, quilting, cooking, painting, crafting, etc.)
• Games (especially if this includes a social experience, and not always electronic games)
• Exercise and athletics (if reflected upon)
• Travel (to new places, near or far, especially if prepped for and reflected upon)
• Visits to historical or cultural venues
• Live music (if appropriately reflected upon)
• Making and creating: physical crafts, food, etc.; digital creations; artistic creations of all types. This could include exhibiting, sharing, or selling.
• Lab work and experiments (informal or formal)

5. Social Learning
Learning with and for other people is so common that it may seem not to merit special attention. However, this is such a critical mode of learning that I draw special attention to it -- in part because we may too readily defer to isolated modes of learning, or we may limit the range of how we do socialize our learning. It's good to reflect on how one's learning can be enhanced by making it more consciously a social experience.

• Historically, learning has been intensely a social experience (think of learning within families, learning in school settings, and the many kinds of informal learning that takes place through conversation). The courtiers of the Renaissance modeled sophisticated conversation and "sprezzatura" as a mode of interactive learning. This was echoed in a later period, the 18th century, when salons (for the elite) or coffee houses (for the commoners) provided venues for gathering and sharing ideas, including intellectual treatises or political writings. Every form of formal education has a social aspect to it: tutoring, apprenticeships and internships, classroom discussions, online educational forums, etc.
• Kinds of Social Learning
• In-class discussion
• Online discussion 
• Communication with co-learners (not necessarily in the same classroom or institution)
• Sharing learning with family and friends ("homies")
• Finding and consulting with enthusiasts and experts, either in person or online
• Sharing interim learning efforts and in-process projects with co-learners, homies, enthusiasts, and experts
• Exhibiting, publishing, or more formal presentation/sharing of learning activities (showcases, conferences, symposia, etc.)
• Use of social media for research purposes, for creating a personal or professional learning network, or for general conversation on a subject about one is learning
  
  It may be useful to contrast social learning with non-social (or even anti-social) kinds of learning. Reading a book is not a social learning experience (unless one converses about it in some way). And learning can be relatively less or more social.