Understanding and Application - The Yin-Yang of Education:

Two opposite but interconnected forces exist in education.

The first force is understanding. This is often taught first when students learn a new concept. Notes, descriptions, videos, graphs, and formulas are some devices used to create understanding.

The second force is application. Educators usually tackle this after students have just learnt about a topic. Solved examples, practice exercises, and experiments are used to test application of knowledge.

After this two-step process, the focus tends to be one-dimensional; exercise after exercise are given to students leaving understanding as a worthless by-product. This approach is why students often wonder: “Why do we even need to know this?”. This results in students disengaging from the learning process. At this point, students begin to fall behind and feel demotivated.

To prevent this, it is vital that both understanding and application (“applistanding” if you will) remain intertwined to ensure students have a holistic view of the subject matter. Furthermore, this union must be placed into a clear context to ensure knowledge is grounded in reality and is relevant.

These two halves need to be used in conjunction to ensure optimal and deep learning. Blind application is not effective at creating solid, foundational understanding. Similarly, a flimsy understanding does not lead to confident application.

Leaving out one half of these interconnected forces does not result in a glass that is half full or even half empty - it often just leaves students feeling an empty apathy towards their learning.

Image credit: "Yin yang (no border)" by Kwamikagami is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.