The student voice

That's been the focus of my attention for the past couple of days. It's an interesting sentiment, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.

One of the claims that was made was that all education is in effect learner-centered because it is all about getting students through the system in a meaningful way. This is to my mind a bit of a stretch. It makes too many assumptions, the most pernicious being that we (whoever that is) know in no uncertain terms what is best for the future. Unfortunately, the history of the world reveals to us we have precious little clue. No, this is system-centered instruction, at best.

Another assertion of learner-centeredness masquerades as technology-enhanced instruction. The use of technology, especially social-networking tools, promotes interaction amongst learners and helps them learn better. One group participating in this discussion maintains that all interaction promotes learning, another group claims that the technology itself is driving and promoting this. Unfortunately, this is technology-centered instruction, nothing more.

Another strain of thought (which tried my patience) is that giving the students themselves more say makes for learner-centered instruction. Given that I can remember how much I knew when I was 18 compared to how little I know today, I'd say this is little more than a cop-out. My experience has been that most young people rightfully want a lot, but don't really know what they really want, for you need a bit more (sometimes painful) experience to figure that all out. This is more a notion of self-centered instruction than anything else.

In my mind, learner-centered teaching/instruction/... must truly start with the learner, that is, the individual who wants to/must/should/will learn. This means, by default, that we must have a clear idea of what we understand learning to be. It's not clear to me that there is general agreement on what this is. My reading and experience has shown me that regardless of whether it is acquisition of knowledge, skill development, effective ordering of thought, problem-solving or even all of these, learning has one significant and outstanding characteristic: it is individual. No two people learn alike. No two individuals in any given learning situation will learn exactly the same thing. In other words, learner-centered instruction must, by nature, be individualized instruction.

Teachers and learners

The second triangle -- teacher-student-material -- continued to occupy my attention this week. Actually, the material wasn't the focal point. In fact, I wasn't thinking much of it at all, but the other two legs of this triangle, the teachers and students, were very present. Tangentially, of course, the notions of the last triangle from the last time -- types of learning -- were present as well.

What struck me, particularly while reading Price, et al. (2007) and Richardson (2005, 2009) was the degree to which attitudes play such an important role in the process. While the teachers' attitudes are relevant, the real key is the students' attitudes toward their learning. This, though it was not the focus of the articles themselves, appears to be more important than we often think. I remember finding out while working on a paper on reading and reading comprehension that the key factor in children learning to read is not so much the method (e.g. phonetic vs. whole-word) involved, but rather the students' relationship to the teacher. That's what makes the real difference.

In certain regards, this is a point that Brown, et al. (1989) makes when they write of "learning and enculturation". What takes in this apprenticeship-like situation is not merely a transfer of knowledge, rather it is an object lesson and gathering of experience in relation to the attitudes of the tutor/teacher in regarding the work being done. It is a highly affective situation, and this affective dimension is playing a much greater role than our cognitive, objective theories of learning account for.

My own experience in the classroom has shown me that whoever does not want to learn will not learn, regardless of what you as teacher/tutor do. The best you can do, the best you can hope for is to change the potential learner's attitude toward learning, and one of the more effective ways of doing this is by setting a good learning example.

Of course, these thoughts lead us immediately to reflections upon surface and deep learning, subject that Richardson (2005) in particular raises. Things may not be as simple as he suspects, but that's a topic for another time.

References
[1] Brown, J.S., Collins, A. & Duguid, Paul (1989) "Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning", Educational Researcher, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1989), pp. 32-42.

[2] Price, L., Richardson, J.T.E. and Jelfs, A. (2007) "Face-to-face versus online tutoring support in distance education", Studies in Higher Education, vol.32, pp.1–20.

[3] Richardson, J.T.E. (2005) "Students' approaches to learning and teachers' approaches to teaching in higher education", Educational Psychology, vol.25, pp.673–80.

[4] Richardson, J.T.E. (2009) "Face-to-face versus online tutoring support in humanities courses in distance education", Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, vol.8, no.1, pp.69–85.

Coming down out of the threes

Came across an interesting notion: the "iron triangle" ... a play off of the Iron Curtain of old, that is, a barrier that you really can't do too much about. The iron triangle, when it comes to elearning, of course, has to do with accessibility, quality, and cost [1]. Making adjustments on any single leg of the triangle will have an impact on the other two, and as Daniel et al. (2006) put it, this has been "a straitjacket on the expansion of education throughout history" [1]. I suppose the best we can do is strive for balance, but is that just another dead end?

That's one triangle, but it turns out there are more. While wading through Richardson (2005) on teachers' and students' perceptions of teaching and learning, it occurred to me -- again -- that there are three fundamental elements to every formal learning scenario: the teacher, the learner, and whatever it is that is being learned (the "stuff", if you will). For the longest time, the teacher was the center of attention. In some cultures, like Germany, the "stuff" was. More recently there has been a (n alleged) shift toward the learner. Isn't this triangle, just as iron as the one above?

That, in turn, got me thinking about what is supposed to come out of all this. In other words, the latest educational buzzword came to mind: learning outcomes. I couldn't help but thinking of cyclicity of things, since my old friend Bloom (1956) who really wanted to address not only the cognitive aspects of the learner, but also their affective and psychomotor aspects as well (another threesome). You can't talk about learning outcomes these days without Bloom getting into the action, and though only one of the dimensions of the person is usually addressed, or at least emphasized, aren't they all equally important?

But, I can't think of Bloom without being reminded of Pestalozzi [4] who emphasized the tripartite nature of the learner as well, though his language was more direct and natural than Bloom's. Dear Pestalozzi, in his simplicity, only spoke of "heart, head, and hands". This works very well in practice, too, as my eight years of experience at the Hermann Lietz-Schule demonstrated, for we, too, took him as our starting point. So, with all respect to Bloom, his ideas were not that original, but they were reformulated for modern times. This is certainly no reason to reject them, but is it a signal to accept them as blindly as we seem to?

And there is one final triangle that ties into all of this as well, and it deals with the heart of the entire matter, namely learning itself. The discussion of learning outcomes, at least as seen through the eyes of vocational education, involves three different types of learning as well: formal learning (what we supposed to be learning), non-formal learning (what we learning instead of what we're supposed to be learning), and informal learning (what we do practically every minute of our lives). This is another triangle that needs be thrown into the mix, is it not?

I know we moderns like to focus on the details, but this is often at the expense of the big picture. When considering education today -- online or off, present or distant, or in any other mode -- it would do us good not to forget that there is more involved than we may first perceive. This means, too, that when we're looking for solutions to educational problems, making an adjustment on one leg of a triangle may not get us the results we seek, but all of these triangle are in fact interrelated. We may always be unadjusting much more than we think we are fine-tuning.

References
[1] Daniel, J., West, P. and Mackintosh, W. (2006) "Exploring the role of ICTs in addressing educational needs: identifying the myths and the miracles", NADEOSA 10th Anniversary Conference, Pretoria, South Africa, 23 August 2006; also available online at http://www.col.org/resources/speeches/2006presentations/Pages/2006-08-23.aspx (accessed 2010-05-05).

[2] Richardson, J.T.E. (2005) "Students' Approaches to Learning and Teachers' Approaches to Teaching in Higher Education", Educational Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 6, December, pp. 673-680.

[3] Bloom, B.S. (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Chicago, Susan Fauer Company, Inc.

[4] Pestalozzi, J.H. (1979) "Über die Idee der Elementarbildung (Lenzburger Rede) und 5 Schriften um 1810", in E. Dejung (ed.) Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Ausgabe, Band 22, Zürich, Orell Füssli.

[5] Cedefop (2008) The Shift to Learning Outcomes: Conceptual, Political and Practical Developments in Europe, Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Technology in education

Back in October 2007, the Economist held a "debate" on whether technology contributed to the quality of education. Even my own course at the Open University was almost named "Technology-enabled education" instead of "Technology-enhanced education" as it was in the end. Why? Because the word "enhanced" apparently convey positive connotations about technology's role in education, and this could give potential students the wrong impression.

I think this caution was warranted. Over the past few years (actually), I've been looking far and wide for a serious critical voice on the subject. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Ludite, but one has to wonder about the pervasive, unbridled enthusiasm for digital technology in all areas, but particularly in education. All this talk of "progress" and "revolutions" and "new paradigms" is getting to me, primarily because I don't know exactly what all these fans (a word derived from the term "fanatic", interestingly enough) are all so excited. I wonder sometimes what they are seeing that I'm not.

Technology in education is one of those "debates" that really isn't one. Too often the issues are phrased in such a way as to be against them is somehow denying a brighter future to our offspring. All the technology in the world can't make it brighter if the power goes out, and I'm wondering how many people there are left who can think without being wired, connected, tuned in, or networked? In other words, I'm much more interested in the healthy -- not hyped -- relationship between (digital) technology and learning.

If no one else wants to tell the Emperor he has exhibitionist tendencies, then I guess I'll have to. And if there is no pole of attraction for the doubters and critical observers, then I guess it's up to me to put one up.