Learning to Apply

This textbook was designed to support the Study-classroom Program at West College Primary School (4th, 5th, 6th grades).The program will help students learn how to learn, learn how to understand what they learn and learn how to apply whatever is learned. Learning to Apply Book Three counts. But it does not substitute for the educator, nor can it achieve the objectives without the commitment of the student. The process is triangular. On one side is this book, on another the teacher; but the fundamental side of the triangle is the student.

APPLYING RESEARCH BOOK FOUR is designed to help students to enhance their capacity to detect a problem or doubt that can be tackled with research techniques; to be able to choose and limit a topic; to formulate hypothesis or to define objectives properly and to be able to apply the best criteria when choosing research techniques according to the subject. Communication techniques are underlined to encourage students to express themselves coherently in diverse situations, both in study and social environments. Students are expected to complete the research cycle, with sufficient practical experience to be able to carry out a bibliographical research independently with minor tutoring, being thus able to collect information, process it systematically and prepare and deliver a correct oral or written report.

Book Five of the Learning to Apply Series, is a consolidated version of two former manuals, titled Fieldworks (Duncan, 2010) and Applying Research (Duncan, 2010), used in 10th and llth grades at West College High School. This reform, at the suggestion of Director Cynthia Delgado, is consistent with the fact that the undergraduate paper that Wests students prepare is developed precisely over these two academic years as a single project. During level ten-eleven, students consolidate their capacity for self-education learning how to learn, learning how to comprehend the subjects studied, and learning how to apply the knowledge acquired when faced with todays challenging and changing reality, thereby achieving the final aim of the Series. Students will design and develop an undergraduate report, (tesina in Spanish) which is the final research-report that they are expected to present as part of their graduation process. The tesina is basically an individual study that each student carries out to demonstrate his capacity to formulate a problem, confront it with a basic theoretical framework, using proper methodology and adequate techniques required to close this stage of his academic experience. The course is divided in two parts: Fieldworks, designed to recap formerly acquired knowledge, to set up a professionally oriented research plan and to complete preliminary investigation. The second part, Applying Research, guides students to the completion of their investigation and to the delivery of a competent report.