Personal Blogs

A representation of my own personal learning environment is developing by the minute. Not only am I enrolled into 3 seperate Masters programmes where I am actively involved in collecting analysing, sorting, sharing and storing information in a variety of locations, mainly Delicious and on my own computer. I am also setting up my Netvibes account with all of my networks in one place. facebook, my wiki, blogs and numerous forums etc.  

I found that reading the transcript of Sclater/Weller podcast debate hosted by John Pettit was the most benficial part of this section for me, my perspective on the arguments being put forwards by sclater and Weller are that they both have a valid point. They both want the best environment for student learning although Weller sees the open source web 2.0 learning environment as being driven by the kind of resources that allow students to take a more directive and active role in their own learning, i.e. they go and seek the learning environment which best suits their needs. Although he kind of agrees with Sclater in that the decentralised Personal learning environment may have too many log-ons and things to remember and that a pragmatic solution would perhaps see the number being more manageable. Although this he says spreads the risk of systems being down for example. maybe he also sees that the more actively involved in the learning the student is the more context, meaning and thus learning he may get. 

Sclater on the other hand sees it slightly differently in that he seems to be looking at it from the perspective that there are many problems and issues of availability and access with these mediums and it would be more pragmatic to have the students all using the same system at the same place. This would for example make assessments easier with standardised information and would let the tutors gain some experience in fewer mediums rather than continually having to learn how to use more and more  and yet not becoming proficient in any.

I agree that on the whole the same system approach would allow the teacher to have a bit more control over what is being accessed, however this also misses out on the opportunity to allow the students the lee-way to be more self-directed and autonomous in their study. Indeed a more stringent guiding hand is fine and dandy when studying for a particular topic within a narrow band but actually giving the students the freedom to find their own resources may well be a more positive experience. Indeed it is teaching them how to learn rather than providing them with all the information. To me that is a more valuable experience.   

In my own learning experience, I have been up until recently always been given all of the information that I require and the only thing that I have had to do is remember it. This does not necessarily imply that I have needed to understand the information and one would argue whether learning has taken place or not. Fortunately this has made me more determined to change and shape the future of Navy teaching and learning to include context and meaning along with a more facilitative teaching approach, even to the point of adopting an ask don’t tell strategy, where students are continually asked a variety of teaching and probing questions using a progressive learning style, which builds up the knowledge base and understanding rather than just test memory retention skills. for example, at first using simple questions involving knowledge and memorising information then leading to analysing and synthesising information in a Bloom like manner. only then can we assume that the students have engaged in the cognitive process of deeper thinking and thus enhanced understanding.

I am neither in favour or otherwise of PLEs in the educational context. I believe that certain methods  are more applicable at different times, clearly, there are benefits from both methodologies. I would probably say that now I have been involved in this field for approximately 5 years and I am beginning to think more along the lines of allowing my own students to have the freedom to find their own resources for learning as long as they can come back together to critically analyse and discuss  the implications of their findings along with demonstrating both what they have learned and also allowing them to reflect on others learning. This implies a more instructor led blended approach, i.e. giving them the freedom but also maintaining the path that they must tread with mandated information, such as safety specific content. 

I personally do not see any problem with adopting a PLE, however, in my environment where i am training a person to do a role rather than specifically giving him a breadth of knowledge on a variety of subjects, I need to be careful that i produce someone who is at the optimal operational performance standard and will not become a liability to himself / herself or colleagues. Therefore there are hoops I need to jump through.

As such, I am often approached with the argument that the synthetic learning environment that the Navy is now adopting does not prove competence or allow for the more practical aspects of training to be covered in sufficient depth or context. In a way the masses do not seem to quite understand that we are adopting this methodology as a result of insufficient resources and that no way are we ever going back down the road of proving a whole engine, costing millions of pounds, simply for students to train on.

However, for myself the key point is that we are continuing to train our students to repetitively practice procedures and processes in a safe albeit synthetic environment, which when combined with facilitative question techniques and reflection on answers, discovering exactly the consequences for the user, the system, the command and the ship as a whole, allows the student to have a more comprehensive platform for practically applying their skills in the future and enable them to understand their context of use. This to me is better than the monkey see, monkey do methods of old and when aligned with the exploration of external sources of information on the web for instance provides the student with learning abilities for the future as well as the present.

I have been working on a project now for the past 18 months which includes turning a team of old style training designers into training facilitators and finally have some vindication of what i have been droning on about being right.

The pilot course is ongoing for the next 4 weeks and initial feedback is really positive and the atmosphere in the classroom is very convivial to the point that all students look engaged and more importantly the teacher has been able to spot straight away who needs helps and who he can ask to help. Question techniques have gone down a treat, as have the discussion exercises and the context provided by encouraging the questioning and analytical appraoch is giving the students key skills for life.

Having read and make notes on Students’ Approaches to Learning and Teachers’ Approaches to Teaching in Higher Education ( Richardson, 2005). I discovered that studying falls into Deep, Surface and Strategic learning constructs. Deep which is based on understanding the meaning of course materials and is more of an active role, whilst surface is based on memorising the course materials in order to pass tests and appears more passive in role. Strategic on the other hand is based on the achievement of higher grades. The content, context and demands of the particular tasks. Research has shown that appropriate learning design can help manipulate learners towards these different learning approaches. Some studies show problem based learning curricula encourages deep learning, subject based learning curricula encourages surface learning others found no significant results.Additionally student perceptions of the course quality leads to differing approaches to learning. Others show that is the conceptions of the learning versus the conceptions of themselves which has an important relationship.

Säljö identified five conceptions of learning with the final concept identified later:

1. Learning as the increase of knowledge

2. Learning as memorising

3. Learning as the acquisition of facts or procedures

4. Learning as the abstraction of meaning

5. Learning as an interpretative process aimed at the understanding of reality.

6. A conscious process, fuelled by personal interests and directed at obtaining harmony and happiness or changing society

The first 3 have been identified as surface learning approaches, the final 3 more a deep approach showing that they are linked to the conceptions of learning.

I discovered that teaching can be consigned to two approaches, teacher-focussed aimed at delivering information and student-focussed aimed at bringing about conceptual change. Teachers who adopt a teacher focused approach to teaching encourage surface learning, passive approach, whilst those who adopt a student focussed approach encourage a deep, active learning The review also identified the following approaches to teaching;

1. Teaching as imparting information

2. Teaching as transmitting structured knowledge 

3. Teaching as an interaction between the teacher and the student

4. Teaching as facilitating understanding on the part of the student

5. Teaching as bringing about conceptual change and intellectual development in the student.

Do you think the innovations described in Weeks 8 and 9 as ‘learning design’ would induce more desirable approaches to studying on the part of the students?

This question is relevant to myself as I am now attempting to take a problem based learning curricula forward to encourages deep learning. This will take the services away from its usual subject based learning curricula, which encourages surface learning. Student perceptions of these courses has been very positive so far with Q&A being seen as the most popular facet so far.

Modern learning design innovation should, as this paper suggests encourage a more student focused approach,which would prepare students for their roles as maintainers with a diagnostic deeper thinking bent. In order for trainees to get into these employment roles they need to be fairly ‘switched on’ anyway and from my observations, the instructors have historically relied upon the trainees to put the time and effort into learning after their day has finished at ‘school’ in other words motivation to learn in their own time. This teacher centred approach is endemic in Service environments. Common themes are “your not here to think you’re here to do as your told” These trainees therefore have high levels of motivation to independantly adopt the skills they require for their role.

These concepts, theories and evidence fit my own experience as a learner; I suppose the teacher focussed approach of Service instructors is exacerbated by the autocratic, hierachical environment.

Which of Säljö’s five conceptions of learning best fits your own definition?

My definition of learning in week 4 “Learning is the action of conducting some form of information gathering exercise, be it active or passive in order to gain a full comprehension of newly acquired or additional information. This could involve the building or establishing of neural pathways to enable or enhance existing knowledge, skills and attitudes or practices”

This definition gives an all encompassing view of all of Säljö’s conceptions and covers both surface and deeper learning facets. The similarity between the models was I found rather ‘wooly’ and common sense. For example it seems obvious to me that the disciplinary and situational factors would have an impact upon the perceptions of the learning environment and the conceptions of teaching and that these would in turn affect the approaches to both studying and teaching.