July 7, 2014

Nuthall (2007) hidden learning

Nuthall, G. (2007). The hidden lives of learners. Wellington: NZCER PRESS.

Nuthall

The hidden lives of learners describes a huge qualitative and quantitative study of individual student’s learning within classrooms. Data collection included recording individual students’ public and private talk, and semi-structured interviews about prior/post knowledge and learning.

Classrooms are complex social and culturally bound contexts: Teachers adapt to learners’ needs in here-and-now circumstances, making moment-by-moment decisions. However, recommendations to improve teaching often simply state what and how to teach and fail to include why. Also effective teaching judgements are often merely based on current (ever-changing) fashions in education, rather than students’ actual learning gains.

The public sphere of classrooms is only a partial reality. Engaged students are not necessarily learning. Classroom learning co-exists in three worlds: public worlds that we are able to hear and see, semiprivate worlds of peer relationships and social statuses, and private worlds within learners’ minds, that include thinking, knowledge, learning, beliefs and attitudes.

It is difficult see students’ learning. Tests do not measure students’ knowledge or skills: tests reveal motivation and test taking skills, and comparisons. Nuthall’s research shows that students of varying abilities achieve similar learning gains, and post tests mostly reflect prior learning rather than new learning.

Nuthall believes that students learn what they do (which can be copying notes and coping with boredom), and students’ social relationships determine learning. Effective activities are built around big questions, and effectiveness increases when students manage learning activities.

Individual students learn different things from the same activities because prior knowledge, experiences, interests, and motivation affect learning. New concepts are not created or transferred to long-term memory until enough information has accumulated to warrant the creation. If this does not occur, new experiences are treated as just another version and are forgotten. Analysis of students’ private-social and self talk shows that students need exposure to and interaction with three complete sets of relevant information to construct new concepts. Specifically, students need 1) explicit concept description, 2) implicit information, 3) additional background information, 4) preparatory context information, 5) mention/uninformative reference to concepts, 6) activities, and 7) visual resources. Students need time to interact with information—at least three times—to process new concepts. Peer interactions and social relationships greatly affect learning. Teachers can improve learning by becoming involved in peer cultures and shaping class culture.

Learning is highly individual and varied. About a third of a student’s learning is unique and not learned by others in the class.

April 7, 2014

Mitra (2014) future learning

Mitra, S. (2014, April). The future of learning. Plenary given at 48th Annual International IATEFL Conference, International Association of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Harrogate, England.

Mitra’s plenary shook things up. Passionate Twitter comments applauded for and reeled from research that shows that groups of children can learn most things on their own. Mitra is changing traditional learning-cultures and examining autonomous and collaborative learning outside schools.

Mitra showed that children’s test results decreased as distance from Delhi increased. Many factors were constant:  school funding, buildings, and quantity of teaching. But Mitra questioned the quality of teaching. Mitra asked teachers, “Would you like to work somewhere else?” In Delhi, teachers were happy; 100 miles away, teachers wanted to move closer to Delhi; and 250 miles away, teachers answered “Anywhere but here”. Good teaching is rare in remote places. Throughout the world, test-results decrease as remoteness increases (e.g. socio-economic- and ethnical-remoteness). Good teachers and less-able teachers who up-skill, migrate to better contexts. Mitra experimented with removing teachers from learning contexts.

However computers affect learning, computers will affect learning in similar ways in different contexts. So in 1999, Mitra installed computers for dis-advantaged children in India. To keep conditions constant, Sugata provided no adult guidance. After nine months, children had learned computer literacy skills and functional English. Children learned autonomously and collaboratively when teachers were not present. In two months, other children learned English pronunciation, and other children learned advanced molecular biology of genetics, going from 0% to 30% in pre- and post-tests. Observation changes children’s learning behavior, so Mitra recruited a ‘grandmother’ who merely observed and admired, supplying comments such as “Fantastic!” In two months, the children’s understanding of molecular biology improved to 50% in post-testing. In England, groups of children cluster around computers to solve deep cross-curricular questions like “Why is it that almost all men can grow a mustache but most women cannot?” In our digital-world, children can learn most things by themselves, but in autonomous and collaborative ways.

Mitra examines phenomena as theoretical physicist. In the Theory of Chaos, things remain constant in Ordered Systems, and things are random in Chaotic Systems. But where Ordered and Chaotic Systems meet, Self Organizing Systems occur and order appears out of disorder.  Mitra creates Self Organized Learning Environments (with beamed in ‘grandmas’) to facilitate children’s autonomous and collaborative learning.

Children need internet access, big interesting question and room to learn in autonomous and collaborative ways.  In our assessment-driven educational-cultures, changing assessments could instigate changing questions, curricula, pedagogy, teaching, and learning!

February 28, 2014

Stepanek (2014) EAP creatively

Stepanek, I. (2014, February). Implementing creativity in language learning: A practical guide. Paper presented at conference 28. Arbeitstagung des AKS, Vorsprung durch Sprachen, Fremdsprachenausbildung an den Hochschulen, Technischen Universität Braunschweig, Germany.

Starting this blog has surpassed my expectations. I am in the habit of writing: it’s now normal for me to write every day. I’ve finally changed my mantra (after nearly 20 years of academic study) from “I HATE writing!” to “No worries, just write”. I trust learning through huge hours of practical experience, so am sure my writing style and speed will improve over time.

I’m at a foreign language learning conference in Braunschweig, Germany: 28. Arbeitstagung des AKS. The main conference language is German, so I’m limited to attending the occasional presentations in English, but I’ve have just been inspired by “Implementing creativity in language learning: A practical guide” from Libor Stepanek, Masaryk University Language Center, Brno, Czech Republic. Libor bases his teaching methods and learning processes on ideas about creativity from Robinson, Csikszentmihalyi, de Bono, Torrance, Treffinger, Runco, and Gillford among others. He aims to move learners from clear to unclear situations, and from clear to unclear solutions, breaking down students’ barriers of perception, tricking students into using and developing a variety of creative skills, specifically creative fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. I need to talk it him, but somehow he has obtained management approval of a huge university (43,000 students, with approx. 10,000 language center students) to teach without a prepared syllabus, flexibly, using the multidisciplinary class groups as active communities of practice. Libor uses creative practical activities to raise students’ awareness of language, and language learning processes and strategies. He expects time-consuming extensive listening and reading outside of the classroom as students source and select language learning materials for the current learning group. I’m impressed: I’d work on his team.

See Libor’s blog here: www.eapcreatively.blogspot.cz

February 27, 2014

Whitton (2010) digital game learning

WhittonWhitton, N. (2010). Learning with digital games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education. London: Routledge.

 

 

I was curious to read Whitton’s ideas because I’ve investigated vocabulary learning in digital games, but I was surprised by issues relevant to my current research.

Whitton disagrees with Prensky (2001) that generations are digital natives or immigrants: labeling generations is not helpful but limiting. Ability to use technology is not fixed: exposure level and time affect competency and confidence. Whitton also reminds us to consider people involved, organizational issues, the learning context, and nature of technology whe using learning technologies. She offers ideas about how to evaluate the suitability of learning-technologies, based on accessibility and usability.

Whitton summarises general and adult learning theories, which I’m listing as a reminder to revise the originals. It’s time to start writing parts of my thesis: general, adult, digital and community learning!

– Knowles’ (1998) theory of adult learning, andragogy, including purpose, control, awareness of diversity, practical applications, and tasked- focus.
– Savery and Duffey’s (1995) constructivism model, including situated cognition, cognitive puzzlement, social collaboration.
– Grabinger et al (1997) and Land & Hannafin (2000) assertion that online learner-centered learning is influenced by constructivism principles, including support taking responsibility, present multiple views, encourage ownership, offer relevant learning, based on real-life experiences, support collaboration, use multiple digital-tools and rich media.
– Kolb’s (1984) Experimental Learning Cycle, including actively planning, reflecting and integrating theories.
– McConnell (2000) and Palloff & Pratt (2003) state that social constructivism facilitates collaborative learning, allows people to work to their strengths, develops critical thinking skills and creativity, validates ideas, and values different learning styles, preferences, perspectives, and skills.
– Vygotsky’s (1978) social constructivism states that learning occurs first socially and the later individually, and the Zone of Proximal Development is between what learners can do autonomously and with support and guidance.
– Lave & Wagner (1991) Communities of Practice are apprenticeships and learning groups’ norms, processes and identity.
– McConnell (2006) discusses online learning communities.
– Boud & Feletti (1991) define problem-based learning as collaborative solving of real-world, multidiscipline problems, where teachers are facilitators not experts.
– Bloom (1956) separates learning into psycho-motor, affective and cognitive domains, and further defines cognitive for step-by-step objectives as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
– Anderson & Krathwohl’s (2001) revision of Bloom’s taxonomy is remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

February 27, 2014

Kear (2011) online communities

Kear

Kear, K. (2011). Online and social networking communities: A best practice guide for educators. New York: Routledge.

The internet is not transmission and reception. Users are not passive: they learn interactively and create supportive communities using email lists, newsgroups, podcasts, e-portfolios, social bookmarking, media sharing, chat rooms, instant messaging, conferencing, virtual worlds, shared documents, micro-blogging, VoIP, discussion forums, social network, wikis, and blogs. Digital communication is synchronous and/or asynchronous, private or public, and shared one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-many. Digital tools constantly evolve and converge, are convenient, flexible, collaborative, can mimic face-to-face contact, engaging, community building, and integrative with everyday life. However, digital-technologies can discourage participation, be impersonal, delay responses, and be overwhelming (information-overload/failure to filter). Formal digital-learning is improved by making navigation simple and transparent, encouraging social participation, providing face-to-face meetings, integrating online activities with everyday activities and assessments. Be aware that learners’ ages, attitudes to studying (deep and/or surface), topic, and discussion and skill development affect learning.

Communities were based around locations; however, people linked by shared beliefs, values, purposes, practices and interaction are communities: “network of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, belonging, and social identity” (Wellman, 2001), and include digital groups (Preece, 2000; Palloff & Pratt, 1999; Renningar & Shumar, 2002; McConnell, 2006). Online communities are groups (mutual commitment) or networks (known/unknown connections) or collectives (aggregations/actions performed by unconnected individuals) (Dron, 2007; Wiley, 2007). Traditionally information is filtered then published; however, internet information is published and then filtered (Shirky, 2008). Digital communities use stygmergy, contributions from many to develop something valuable.

Communities of practice have mutual engagement, joint enterprise, shared repertoire: members share common purposes, initially observe, actively learn through ‘legitimate peripheral participation, and develop identity (Wenger, 1998). Social presence is required to be perceived as real in digital contexts (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). Digital learning communities integrate social, cognitive and teaching activities by including open communication, group cohesion and affective responses. Communities of inquiry move through a cognitive trigger-event, exploration, interaction, resolution cycles (Garrison et al, 2000). The Conversational Framework explains dialogue, interaction, and feedback (Laurillards, 2009). The Five Stages Model explains learning with digital-communication: access and motivation, online socialization, informal exchange, knowledge construction, development/reflection (Salmon, 2004).