In my experience, teachers think their course content is really important, and they privilege memorizing content knowledge over other kinds of learning. In order to resist this tendency in my own teaching, I have attempted to categorize everything that can be learned:

Knowledge – rules and expectations, and content and interdisciplinary knowledge, on a spectrum from exposure to deep understanding (what they recall and understand)

Behaviors – impulse control, habits, and mental and kinesthetic skills, on a spectrum from first try to mastery (what they do and can do)

Dispositions – attitudes, identities, and worldviews (how they feel about and approach what they do and avoid)

Connections – applying something learned in one context to another, such as across readings, units, subjects, or domains, or from a classroom to the real world and one’s lived experience, and vice versa

This list is without hierarchy. Even memorization without understanding can have value in preparing students for other learning experiences. What is important to me is balance. Perhaps every lesson should have a learning objective of each type and seek to integrate all four types of learning.

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