Ton Mooij, Jan Terwel and Günther Huber 10. a Social Perspective on New Learning

According to Simons (1997), schools need ‘process-oriented instruction’ to let pupils learn in a new learning way. He defines this instruction as: “(...) focussing on the further development of the processes of thinking, learning and selfregulation integrated in regular domain-specific instruction (...) it also tries to hand over responsibility for learning and teaching to the learner gradually.” (o.c., p. 12). With young pupils, teachers initially act as external monitors, but gradual scaffolding and metacognitive guidance help pupils to become self-regulators. Moreover, teachers should organize positive self-evaluation and reflection by pupils (o.c.). A change towards new learning will also influence the social characteristics inherent in learning and teaching. Compared to traditional learning, qualities of the social behavior of pupils and teachers, but also the social conditions within the teaching and learning situation, will look differently in process-oriented instruction. This will be true in school but also outside school, i.e. at home and in working places. In this contribution we want to elaborate on social characteristics of, and social conditions relevant to, the new learning approach in educational practice. First, we introduce some theoretical terms to order potentially relevant social characteristics of new learning processes and outcomes. Second, we present different research examples, from different kinds of educational practice. We successively analyze the examples, to illustrate meaningful empirical varieties in the general significance of the social perspective on new learning.