Personal Blogs

Richardson (2005)

I felt I was actively being encouraged to criticise this piece by the notes and details in the activity.  Believe me we in H800 don’t need any hints when it comes to critiquing, (Les!).  Anyhow, to give us 2 pages of criticisms called discussion was not required.  I feel now I was not my usual disinterested self and I was looking for issues.

On a positive note I enjoyed the differentiation between teachers looking at teaching and learners looking at learning – never thought about it in this separated way.  It would be a good idea to document this kind of feedback from one course and then comparatively analyse it.

I was also interested to note how learners’ perception of their learning environment affects their approach to learning – in my own Public Sector environment I can see how this happens as learners are often surprised by what is required/expected. Also our learning culture would be of breaking down barriers to learning, encouraging participation and developing KSAs for the workplace.  This leads to facilitation where reflectively I believe I have been taking the work out of learning for my learners, the current economic environment has given me the opportunity and impetuous to change this. The much shorter course I am now running makes more demands and I have maintained a culture of challenge and expectation which I have been rewarded for with lots of learner engagement.

Coming back to Richardson; suggesting the quality of a course, the demands of the course and the quality of teaching affects learner approach is a little more obvious, although I don’t think addressing issues of learners' approach is as simple as rectifying these 3 elements.

So if their perception affects their approach then so too does their conception of learning, this is pretty straightforward for me, what you believe about learning will inevitably affect how you approach learning, QED.  I’m not altogether sure about Säjlö’s (1979) 5 learning conceptions, there seems to be a lot of supporting work on this, I’d like to make an appeal to bloggers to comment on this, it just doesn’t sit nicely with me. 

I would of liked bit more reference to learning environment I believe many of us approach learning differently even within the same course depending on the module, activities, learning objective, assessment etc.

I’ll just end on a note that I found Richardson’s analysis of teaching to be too black and white, you’re either teacher-centred or learner-centred.  You’re either Grange Hill or Dead Poets Society...

Karl