School is the place we go to learn, and students about to begin the new school year will soon be faced with the difficult task of learning – that is, trying to incorporate new information and concepts into their brains (their protests notwithstanding). In doing so, they will be engaging in both surface and deep learning.
Fishing for Answers
What are surface
and deep learning, and what is the difference? Let’s take an example from the
animal kingdom: Ichthyologists, scientists who study fish, know that some fish
living at the bottom of the deepest oceans glow to guide themselves in the
darkness. Some land creatures, such as the firefly, also glow in the dark, but recently,
some new and surprising animals have been discovered that glow in bright
purple, pink, and blue, an intriguing phenomenon indeed. Why such animals as
the flying squirrel, wombat, platypus, or Southeastern pocket gopher glow is
now under scientific investigation.[1]
Surface learning
in this case means memorizing the names, appearance, locations, and features of
these fish and animals. But if zoologists (scientists who study animals) and
ichthyologists were to meet and study these animals together – posing
questions, comparing the fish to other glowing critters, and applying their
knowledge to determine a pattern – that would be deep learning. Deep learning
is applying and extending memorized information to new problems.
In the Classroom
In the classroom,
surface learning looks like this: The teacher is the focus of the lesson.
Students are taking notes or doing exercises. Mastery of the material means
memorizing it. Students may study by cramming shortly before a test, and then
forget what they have learned shortly afterwards. Students may not be engaged
because they do not understand the relevance for their own lives of memorizing
the material.
In contrast, deep
learning looks like this: Students are working in groups to extend their
present knowledge. The teacher may be coaching or investigating alongside the
students. Mastery means developing a hypothesis, a theory, and a way to prove
it or, alternatively, connecting information in new ways. Tests are not part of
this learning; experiments, research, writing, and discussion are. Students are
engaged and excited about their learning because it has meaning for them and
because they are leading their own learning. These days, deep learning is very
popular.
What is fascinating
is neuroscientists’ discovery that surface and deep learning produce actual
physical changes inside the human brain. Recent studies reveal that, in surface
learning, proteins in the brain are changed. This kind of learning does not
last as the proteins then change again and even decompose. In contrast, when we
use deep learning, the changes are long-lasting, constructed from proteins
combining and new connections forming among types of tissue in the brain.
It would seem,
therefore, that deep learning is superior to surface learning and that deep
learning is what should be stressed in school. Indeed, surface learning has received
a bad reputation of late. Yet, while surface learning is, as its name states,
superficial, both surface and deep learning are necessary parts of the learning
process. Both are what we call “learning,” and both are needed to master a
topic and learn at the highest level.
A Synthesis
According to
Professor John Hattie of the University of Melbourne, Australia, the need for
both surface learning and deep learning can be explained by comparing the
learning process to a continuum. Learners start by acquiring information or
concepts for themselves. Then they progress to asking questions and connecting
these concepts to other information or concepts they previously acquired. This,
in turn, may require additional surface learning to answer the questions or
confirm the connections. The learning cycle is not to be distorted; both
surface learning and deep learning are its basic components.[2]
Consider the field of medicine, for
example. Doctors and nurses as well as therapists, dental hygienists, etc. must
take courses in human anatomy and physiology at the very beginning of their
courses of study. In these courses, they must memorize every bone, muscle,
nerve, and artery as well as their functions. In fact, because this information
is the foundation of their future practice, they over-learn the material, or
“super-surface learn” so that these building blocks of their professions do not
slip out of their brains shortly after an exam. Avoiding the necessary
expertise in human anatomy and physiology would create an utterly incompetent
medical professional, would it not?
This information clearly supports a
vital insight in education, which is that surface learning has its role in
school systems today. Those school districts that create curricula which
exclusively use deep learning – because it is by definition creative, dynamic,
and exciting to students – are doing a great disservice to these children.
Elementary-age schoolchildren must memorize their multiplication and division
tables, but they must also use colorful blocks, called manipulatives, to
explore applications of these number facts. Students of a foreign language must
memorize its verb forms, prefixes, and suffixes to then apply such facts to new
vocabulary as well as to unlock the deeper meaning of readings. The list goes
on and on.
No, it is not true that deeper
learning is better than surface learning, despite the connotations of “surface”
and “deep.” Both are needed in unique patterns on a continuum, as each learning
experience switches back and forth dependent upon the learners and topics
involved. As
educators and parents, we should not permit ourselves to be convinced
otherwise, for if we truly want to produce great thinkers and experts, we must
build educational systems that effectively use surface learning as well as deep
learning.
