The Mediated Learning Experience

Reuven Feuerstein identified three essential criteria for creating an engaging mediated learning experience: intentionality, meaning, and transcendence.

Mediation enables learners to gain a different experience of stimuli by selecting, filtering, amplifying, or diminishing them according to specific intent. This facilitates the acquisition of different orientations and strategies that contribute to Structural Cognitive Modifiability.

Intention

Researchers have investigated the efficacy of mediated learning experiences. One such method relies on the Global Outcomes and Task Instruction assessment system to measure an individual’s capacity to adapt and learn from new stimuli. The GOTI evaluation comprises 12 components that measure the effectiveness of a child’s MLE process and its internalization by mediators and children themselves. MLE involves an active mediator who guides how children perceive new information and its context, providing meaningful, relevant, and stimulating stimuli for exploration. They may alter frequency, order events, or fluctuate intensity; offer meaning to neutral stimuli; spark curiosity or alertness; or encourage systematic exploratory behavior.

Reuven Feuerstein developed the MLE theory, believing humans have an inbuilt resilience for learning. This belief stems from the premise that every individual’s cognitive potential can be maximized through positive intentionality; students should be motivated to improve areas like problem-solving and metacognition by providing stimulating activities that encourage divergent thinking and originality, as well as skills that support cognitive flexibility and promote self-directed and self-regulated learning.

Meaning

Feuerstein defines a Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) as the quality interaction between an organism learner and its facilitator – in this case, a mediator – and stimuli; this interaction typically takes place formally within family units or peer groups or more structured exchanges such as with teachers; the MLE offers unique advantages that contribute to cognitive modifiability.

Mediated learning experiences involve a mediator interceding between stimuli and organism learners to cause changes in attention, awareness, and perception of external environments. They use verbal and nonverbal communication with learners in the MLE process and various strategies to modify stimuli, such as altering frequency sequence or intensity to promote curiosity, alertness, or perceptual sensitivity in learners.

A mediated learning experience encourages metacognition among its students. This means they become more self-aware about their learning styles, using this awareness to create concept maps and tackle problems – an invaluable skill when encountering unfamiliar environments where they rely on their concept maps for guidance. Teachers who employ such experiences typically report seeing their focus shift from drills and quantity of teaching to quality student learning and motivation.

Transcendence

Instrumental enrichment is an educational method to exploit the human brain’s immense capacity for adaptability and learning. It uses questions designed to prompt deeper analysis of complex issues or challenges and has been shown to increase academic achievement and problem-solving abilities, formal cognitive subtest scores, and standard cognitive subtest scores for its students. Reuven Feuerstein, who first conceptualized it, believed that people could develop more innovation no matter their socioeconomic standing or cultural background.

MLE theory rests on the belief that the cognitive structures of individuals can be altered through interactions with others rather than through isolation. Mediator guided by intention, culture, and emotional investment chooses, enhances, focuses, and frames stimuli relevant to particular learners as they strive toward specific goals.

Teachers who have implemented the MLE approach report that their instruction has moved away from repetitive drills and model answers toward an emphasis on quality learning and student motivation, with greater flexibility in their teaching style and more willingness to accommodate learners’ interests. Meaning and Transcendence mediation scores from Meaning and Transcendence are predictive of postteaching DA scores for learners, indicating the importance and value of conveying this information about learning to learners.

Empathy

Empathy is defined by our capacity to understand another’s emotions and experiences from their point of view; this sets it apart from sympathy, which involves feeling moved by another person’s thoughts and feelings without being affected emotionally. Empathy allows people to connect more easily, build trustworthy relationships more quickly, be influential leaders, or provide care more compassionately – key ingredients to being an excellent leader or caregiver.

Many people possess the natural ability to empathize, while others struggle with it. This could be because of how they were raised or their experiences; someone raised in poverty may find it challenging to empathize with those less fortunate at work; those experiencing domestic abuse might have difficulty showing compassion towards their partners.

Empathy is an acquired skill; everyone can develop it further by becoming acquainted with its three components – cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy. To do so successfully.

WISDOM provides parents with an effective method of interaction called Mediated Learning that is designed to meet the needs of all learners regardless of learning difficulties, levels of giftedness, age, or background. This form of interaction focuses on “how” and “why” thinking processes so all can overcome barriers to their education.