The question that was raised the other day about the validity of the learning pyramid made me stop and reflect on a number of ‘principles’ of learning and teaching I had been taking for granted because I had been hearing them in so many places for my entire academic career. One of these related to the issue of ‘active learning’ and the role of experience in learing. These concepts, after all, seem to form the very basis of the learning pyramid. As I was looking at some of the web sites re the learning pyramid (and now that I’ve started looking I am amazed at how many people have highlighted the myth of this ‘truism’) I found a quote that perhaps sums it all up rather nicely, ‘passive learning is an oxymoron’.
So where did all of this come from. Coincidently, I had ordered John Dewey’s, Experience and Education the other week and it arrived on my doorstep a couple of days ago. This book was written in 1938 and it outlines his philosophy of teaching and how learning needs to be embedded in experience. The book was written some years after the ‘progressive’ movement in schools in the USA had started, and I gather Dewey was involved in instigating this movement. As such, he had had chance to reflect on the ‘traditional’ as well as ‘progressive’ modes of teaching and learning. Interestingly, he starts the book with a discussion about either-or and notes that while there was much to criticise about the traditional way of teaching and learning (ie very ordered and highly disciplined classrooms, rote-learning, little interaction between the teacher and students etc), he also pointed out that challenging these things does not necessarily mean doing the opposite as some within the progressive schools had obviously been doing. That is, it is in the practice of teaching and learning that needs to be looked at carefully and that regardless of how sound the philosophy upon which the learning and teaching has been based, interpretation into practice is ultimately what matters.
As such, I suspect it was Dewey and co who started this whole passive/active learning thing and there are some things that I need to keep in mind. Firstly, while there are lots of things I like about Dewey’s philosophy and I gather he was been influential in the Work Integrated Learning movement within universities (I attended a conference last year and his name came up more than once), Dewey was writing in the 1930s and his focus was not on adult learning but on the learning of children. Secondly, this book in particular (and I haven’t read any others to be able to make a general statement) seems to have been written with a specific purpose in mind that was relevant to a specific time period and context. Thirdly, it is based on a philosophy and there is no hard data or rigorous research/evaluation included in the book. While these things do not in and of themselves discredit the book, and I believe there is much that can be applied to a university setting in the 21st century, I need to be aware of these things.
What I do like about the book is that as I was reading, I keep coming back to the Activity Theory, which was also initially formulated in the early 20th century, around the time of Dewey, but in a very different context (Vygostky was a Russian psychologist). However, they have a number of principles that are similar when applied to a teaching and learning situation. First of all, both recognise the need for rules. Dewey talked at length of the need for rules to be agreed upon by all players, but rules were needed nevertheless (it would appear some of the progressives had reacted to the rigid rules of traditional schools by trying to teach and learn with out any rules or agreed-upon social regulations - not sure how one learns in anarchy). Second, both place a huge emphasis on community or on the social context. One of Dewey’s key principles of learning is is based on the concept that ’all human experience is ultimately social; that is involes contact and communication’ (p. 38) and his criticism of traditional teaching was that this element of the social was not adequately taken into account. Third, both acknowledge the work and participation of all players, both teachers and learners (and the broader community). That is, learning is something that the student does and the role of the teacher is to plan and implement circumstances in which learning can occur provided the student is willing to participate. There is a division of labour here and it is contingent on both parties to do their bit. This is where the issue of active learning comes in. The other three components (subject, object and tools/instruments) also seem to be similar between Dewey and Vygotsky and would also be quite readily agreed upon by most. Indeed, most teaching and learning I think has focused on these three without taking into account the bottom of the triangle of the Activity Theory.
So where to from here? I think there are a number of ‘principles’ of learning and teaching that I can work from at this stage, even while I am still learning myself about the evidence that may or may not support these (or at least aspects of them):
1. Learning is a social activity. While it can be a very personal experience and can occur within quite isolated circumstances, it is likely most people draw on their interactions with each other to stimulate changes in thinking (Scott 1997 picks up on the social vs personal learning). As such, activities that provide opportunities to interact with each other are more likely to afford learning than in a more isolated, unidirectional transmission of knowledge (Dewey’s view of traditional teaching, and one could argue the traditional lecture that has no interaction would fall into this category), but that is not to say that isolated, unidirectional modes of teaching do not result in learning in some people some of the time and in certain circumstances this may be the most appropriate mode of teaching/learning.
2. Both learners and teachers have to buy into the interactions in order for learning to occur (from both perspectives) or at least so there is a greater potential for greater learning to occur. As a teacher, my responsibilities are to provide the circumstances and situations that encourage students to want to interact, but I have to also accept that some students come into this classroom with so many other issues going on in their other personal activity systems that their capacity to interact may be significantly reduced.
3. An overt (and if possible mutually agreed upon) set of rules provides the framework within which the interactions occur. Working in an institution, some of these rules I cannot change, but within my own classroom (and increasingly this classroom is created within a LMS with its own possibilities and limitations), I can negotiate to a certain extent some of the rules with the students. Having said that, it is much more likely the rules can be negotiated when there are 40 students in the class than when there are 400 and since I teach at both extremes, I need to think about different strategies for different groups. In both situations, however, the rules need to be made clear to all.
That’s probably as many principles as I can manage at this stage as I start to set up my Moodle sites for next year and plan out my activities.
References
Daniels, H 2001, Vygotsky and pedagogy, Routledge, London.
Dewey, J 1938/1997, Experience and education, Touchstone, New York.
Scott, S 1997, ‘The grieving soul in the transformative process’, in Cranton, P (ed), Transformative learning in action: insights from practice, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco,pp. 41-50.
