Leading LLL: Five General Factors of Learning — The Case of Learning PHP

I’m happy to report that, after 10 hrs today with w3schools, I covered the basics of PHP. It has been a blast. ([1] to allow and invite streamed reading all notes, in ‘[ ]’ are in the end).

Here are five reflective points, on this particular learning with a bit of generalization on the factors of learning later.

…learners, teachers, and developers of learning environments should be aware of these factors and strive to build the optimum level of them…

(a) Motivation: A few weeks ago, I noted that it would be good to know a bit of PHP. We are working heavily with WordPress code snippets, and most of them are in PHP. Another motivational point was fully understanding what is possible and with what level of ease with PHP. [2]

(b) Background needed: I have past experience with about five different programming languages, from Z80 Assembler to Basic, Pascal, Object Oriented (good old HyperCard), and SecondLife LSL. Later I dabbled with HTML and Javascript and of course CSS. I have not actively programmed for over ten years.

(c) Time for learning: One needs time to immerse in such a learning endeavor fully; 5 min intervals will not do it. In fact, it took me 10 hrs (with one long break).

(d) Learning environment: W3schools gives you a straightforward yet powerful system to learn. Explicit content, menus, and flow. Best of all, they have a built-in simulator that lets you try your code and test your learning. Needless to say that the Google search, as a companion, can also teach you lots of cool things like why you have “__” before some PHP functions (answer: because they are magic!) [3].

(e) Value of learning: I don’t see myself doing heavy programming. But I do see myself understanding PHP code and imagining what can be done and how nice code is. I will also be better able to explain what is needed and examine the results of what is delivered.

(f) Fun: I had fun. 10 hrs passed like magic (I put in 1 hr walk in between). I was in my zone (of proximal development [4]).

In more general terms, these learning factors of:

(a) Motivation for the specific learning; 

(b) Background to the subject matter of the learning;

(c) Time for learning;

(d) Environment (both curriculum, presentation, and delivery);

(e) Value of learning in the future (relate to (a) motivation; and

(f) Fun – and of course, fun that stems from the right mixture of the above.

They are vital in learning in general.

I’m not saying all these factors should be present in all learnings. I am saying that learners, teachers, and developers of learning environments should be aware of these factors and strive to build the optimum level of them to allow people to be in their learning zone.

…build the optimum level of them to allow people to be in their learning zone.

p.s. If you identify more factors kindly let me know.

Notes:

[1]  w3 school for PHP — https://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp 

[2] About PHP — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP

[3] Why __ before certain functions in PHP — https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5348663/why-double-underscore-in-php-function-names

[4] What is the Zone of proximal development — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development