Observation
In terms of quantity, Gao retained more information than Wang. The key point of
the fourth characteristic of being an active learner is that active learners get
assistance when they are experiencing problems and they know when they need
help because they are constantlymonitoring their understanding. Though both of
them got the key idea of active learners’seeking assistance, their mental repre-
sentations of what active and passive learners do in detail are vastly different. Gao
accurately paraphrased“monitoring understanding”as“checking understanding”
and retained most of the details pertaining to active learners. On the contrary, Wang
almost mixed active learners with passive learners while recalling what active
learners do in this episode. She said:“because active learners, they, they knowwhat
they not understand and they don’t want to, theydon’t want to know something
until the last, theydon’t want tobe the last one.”Thefirst half is correct, but
afterward the propositional units“until the last”sound abrupt. Presumably, she
wanted to mean active learners don’t want to postpone seeking assistance till the
last minute. Afterward, she sensed something wrong and added“don’t want to be
the last one”while integrating the new information to the developing discourse
structure. But she also believed it was not correct, so she just dropped what active
learners do and shifted to a new structure about passive learners. On the whole, both
participants tried very hard to assign detailed information to either active learners or
passive learners, but differences lie in how accurately and efficiently they assign
those details to separate structures. If the assigning is not successful, then more
working memory is taken up to sort out the coherence between new information
and the existent structure and hence less information is retained.
7.4.6 The Fifth Characteristic of Being an Active Learner
High Achiever
Gao: Active learners willquestion what theyread and listen, butpassive learners
accept all they read and listen on the print page, all the lecturer said. They accept
them asimportant information. Active learnersdon’t question everything. And
when they facedsomething different from theiroriginal existing idea, they will
jump to the different conclusion. (55 words)
Low Achiever
Wang: The sixth (fifth) characteristic is aboutraise questions.Active learners will
raise the questionsthey are meeting, but they meet, but thepassive learners will just
believe what they read and theirprofessors’words. But theactive learners don’t
question everything. If they meet some knowledgedifferent from what they have
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