ABSTRACT
A model of learning comprises the following three components: learner inputs, learning agents, and learning outcomes. The student arrives at a given learning experience with a pre-existing set of personal qualities, abilities, knowledge, and histories, all of which may impact their subsequent learning. The authors name these inputs and categorize them into either skill, will, and thrill. They propose that the learning agents can impact learning at either a factual-content (surface) level, an integrated and relational (deep) level, and when learning is extended to new situations (transfer). Finally, learning at each of these levels can be distinguished further, depending on whether the student is first encountering or acquiring into new learning, and whether the student is consolidating the learning at the surface and deep stages. The model proposes that various learning strategies are differentially effective depending on the students' prior knowledge, disposition to learn, motivation to learn the degree to which the students are aware of the criteria of success.
