Cambourne's Conditions of Learning

I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Albert Einstein

In this exhibit, we explore the learning theory developed by Brian Cambourne from his research on language acquisition in natural settings. His book, The Whole Story: Natural Learning and the Acquisition of Literacy, first introduced the idea that certain conditions were necessary in order for us to learn language. These conditions were further explored in the article, Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning: Twenty years of inquiry. In both the book and the article, Cambourne describes the eight Conditions of Learning in detail. Below is a figure from the article representing the relationships that exist between the Conditions.

From Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning

Cambourne's work focused on applying these Conditions to literacy instructions. Others, have sought to consider their application in other learning environments. Edmunds and Stoessiger wrote a book and article about their efforts to apply the Conditions to mathematics. Jan Turbill's doctoral research examined the use of the Conditions in teacher inservice. ReLeah Cosset Lent wrote Engaging Adolescent Learners: A Guide for Content-Area Learners using the Conditions as a framework.

From Engaging Adolescent Learners

And I wrote a guess blog post on how I used the Condition to learn to Tweet.

How do the Conditions of Learning fit into your practice?

Theory into Practice - Good Readers

Diane Dahl shares the following exhibit from her blog:

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I've wanted to come up with a clever way for students to remember their thinking for reading strategies. A list just seems too boring. One thing I've learned in BrainSMART is to connect information to parts of the body to make it more memorable. So I came up with this Good Reader Boy poster? (The original poster is shown to the right.)

The (updated) poster connects like this:

• Head: Think. Good readers monitor their own thinking while reading.
• Eyes: Infer. Good readers look for clues to draw conclusions, make predictions, and more.
• Nose: Importance. Good readers sniff out important details.
• Mouth: Questions. Good readers ask questions before, during and after reading.
• Heart: Visualize. Good readers love to make brain-movies while reading.
• Stomach: Schema. Good readers are hungry to connect their text to things they already know.
• Waist: Purpose. Good readers don't waste time ... they choose a purpose for reading and pick the best strategy.
• Hands: Synthesize. Good readers can 'put it all together' to retell and summarize.
• Knees: Monitor Comprehension. Good readers know they need to understand text, and know what to do when they don't.
• Feet: Text Structure. Good readers firmly understand the elements of a story and use it to help them understand.

The Good Readers Poster is available in the "Museum Gift Shop"