Personal Blogs

In week 12 we have been looking at approaches taken by teachers and students to teaching and learning respectively in higher education.

Richardson (2005), based on surveys and analysis of other research on the subject, concluded that students' approaches to studying depended on their understanding of what learning is and their preceptions of the quality of the course.  He also concluded that teacher's approaches to teaching reflected their concepts of what teaching was mitigated by contextual factors such as the curriculum demands and the students' demands.

This was apparently the distillation of 25 years of developments in the understanding of teaching and learning in Higher Education... Really?  Of course I am simplifying the arguments and conclusions here and glossing over some of the issues around the user of surveys and the correlation and causation implied but as far as I can see, the output is hardly a revelation.

The concepts of what teaching and learning are were key to this and we have looked at this earlier on the course. There are models or metaphors for what learning is (as discussed earlier in the course) ranging from a simple acquisition of facts or information through to a sythesis of understanding though abstraction of concepts and also an evolving of the concept of self.  Similarly, there are a range of perceptions of what teaching is that mirror/lead(?) those of learning from a didactic provider of facts through a facilitator to a coach or mentor.

There was an assumption in the paper that deeper student engagement in the learning based on higher level understandings of what learning is are more valid than simpler acquisition ones.  However, surely these are all valid but in different contexts; not every metaphor or teaching/learning style flowing from that metaphor is valid in every teaching and learning situation.   That said, as the study was concerned with Higher Education, I would assume that it would indeed be desirable to have students engage with the learning at a deeper level as that is surely the point of Higher Education (at least in part) but some subjects and Foundation courses perhaps could quite validly be taught and studied in a didactic/surface acquistion way.

The key message for me was actually addressed very early in the paper and then not really returned to; 'desirable approachies to studying [could be brought about] by appropriate course design', teaching methods and assessment.  Basically, if it is important for students to engage critically with the material rather than just remember facts or what is needed to pass an assessment then design the course so that this comes about.  There are a great many tools (including 'web 2.0' technologies) and techniques available to teachers now that drive students to actively constuct their understanding rather than passively absorb it if that is considered desirable in that context.

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References

Richardson, J.T. (2005) 'Students' approaches to learning and teachers' aproaches to teaching' Open University

Week 5 of the course has started and the first assignment (which I haven't started) is due in soon and my blog has only got up to week 2 so far... This is not good!

During this week, we mainly focussed on metaphors of learning i.e. ways in which we can understand and describe what learning is.  During week 4, we then went on to look at definitions of learning.

Hypothesis

Learning is complex and as a result humans use metaphors to help understand what it is but no one metaphor is a complete description so it is important to maintain an understanding of when you are using a metahpor, why and ensuring that no one metahpor clouds your thinking or teaching/work disproportionately.

Discussion

Sfard (1998) argues that the language of teaching and learning commonsly revolves around the metaphor of learning as acquistionse e.g. gaining or accumulating knowledge, attaining understanding etc.  This acquisition metaphor (AM) is prevalent in teacher-centred education and is essentially orthodoxy.

Other metaphors used include a participation metaphor (PM) that replace static concepts of knowlege with active ones like knowing and use socail verbs like "reflective discourse" and "development through participation"

Even some social theories of learning rely more on AM than PM i.e. the idea that collective understanding is transferred to the individual through interaction and then internalised.  This is predominantly AM rather than PM as the participation is only really a means of transferring knowledge, not constructing it (Sfard, 1998).

Bayne (2205) ilustrated another metaphor, that of identity change (IC) whereby identity is key e.g. the identity of the learner and that these identities can shift as learning takes place.  As students learn enough to begin to teach their peers, their view of their own identity shifts and this is a way of representing learning.  A classic example is the journey from apprentice to journeyman and ultimately master; as the apprentice learns so their identity changes.

There was then significant debate about these metaphors and how useful they were.  There was a general feeling that PM was more applicable to an understanding of how learning can be developed rather than what it is.

Conclusion

Metahors are useful in that, when you reflect upon them for what they are and look beneath them, they can reveal cultural or philosophical bias and also that they can help you challenge orthodox understandings of what learning (and teaching) are.

The broad consensus was was  acquisition can be useful for understanding part of the process of learning i.e. the learner taking something from their environment (teacher, peer group, resources etc).  However, that was just one dimention, real learning was when this was reflected upon, and a shift in competence or self-perception (IC) took place.  PM was more useful in understaning potential mechanisms by which learning could take place rather than understanding what learning itself was.

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References

On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing one  Sfard, 1998

http://edr.sagepub.com/content/27/2/4.short

Deceot. desire and control - the identities of learners and teachers in cyberspace. Bayne 2005

http://www.malts.ed.ac.uk/staff/sian/desirepaper.htm