Category Archives: autonomous learning

January 30, 2015

Hoskins & Fredriksson (2008) learning to learn

Hoskins, B., & Fredriksson, U. (2008). Learning to learn: What is it and can it be measured? Luxembourg: European Commission Joint Research Centre. Retrieved from http://www.jrc.ec.europe.eu/

The transfer of knowledge and skills from teachers to learners is no longer effective education. We need to empower learners for an unknown future in a rapidly changing technological and global world. Education needs to empower learners to learn to learn.

Learning to learn is not a skill, but a complex competency. Not content nor context based, but transdisciplinary. Competencies are broad and complex, combine knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, and require high levels of cognition (Tiana, 2004). Competencies are measured in real world tasks not general theoretical abilities. Learning to learn is a key European competency necessary and beneficial to individuals and society (Eurydice, 2002).

Defining and measuring learning to learn is difficult. An interdisciplinary theoretical approach is required. Stringher (2006) collected over 40 definitions which spanned metacognition, socioconstructivism, sociocognitive and sociohistorical approaches, lifelong learning, assessment studies, learning strategies, and cognitive psychology and social cultural paradigms. Cognitive psychology examines collecting, processing, constructing, storing and retrieving of knowledge. Whereas, social cultural paradigms examine social contexts and interactions.

Learning to learn includes managing time and information, learning individually and collaboratively, being aware of needs and processes, pursuing and preserving, using guidance, building on prior learning and life experiences, applying knowledge and skills in different contexts, being motivation and having confidence (Educational Council, 2000).

Learning to learn is not intelligence: a fixed mental capability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience (Gottfredson, 1997). Learning to learn is not problem solving: use of cognitive processes to confront and resolve realistic cross-disciplinary situations with unclear solutions and disciplinary areas (PISA, 2003). The European assessment framework includes cognitive domain (identifying proposition, testing rules, using mental tools), affective domain (motivation, strategies, self-esteem, perceived support), and metacognition (problem solving, accuracy).

The University of Helsinki defines learning to learn as ability and willingness to adapt to novel tasks, and self-regulation of cognitive and affective perspectives (Hautamäki, 2002). The Helsinki assessment framework includes context-related beliefs (societal frames and perceived support), self-related beliefs (motivation, action-control, identity, assignment acceptance, self-evaluation, future orientation), and learning competencies (learning and reasoning domain, self management and affective regulation).

The University of Bristol defines Learning Power as a complex mix of dispositions, lived experiences, social relations, values, attitudes, beliefs that shape engagement (Deakin, Crick, Broadfoot, Claxton, 2006). The Bristol assessment framework includes growth orientation, critical curiosity, meaning-making, dependency and fragility, creativity, relationship/interdependence, and strategic awareness.

November 6, 2014

Hase & Kenyon (2007) self-directed learning

Hase, S., & Kenyon, C. (2007). Heutagogy: A child of Complexity Theory. complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 4(1), 111-118.

Hase and Kenyon argue that the notions of pedagogy and andragogy are deficient. Teachers merely facilitate students to acquire knowledge and skills, which they maintain is not learning. Acquiring knowledge and skills allows students to be competent to recall and use that knowledge and those skills in familiar situations. In contrast, learning demands change. However, we need to remember that comfort hinders change. Change occurs in response to distressful needs (and intense desires). Hase and Kenyon define learning as an emergent and integrative process that changes behaviour, knowledge, understanding and becomes incorporated into people’s existing attitudes and values. Learning empowers students to be capable to react and adapt to unfamiliar and unanticipated situations drawing on all their holistic knowledge, skills and values. Hase and Kenyon define capability as beyond competency: being able to adapt to unknown and changing contexts, having appropriate values to work collaboratively, and knowing how to learn.

Pedagogy and andragogy appear to remain teacher-centered with little micro or macro involvement from learners. Curricula are inflexible, which is disappointing because “it is impossible to predict the extent and effect of bifurcation”, i.e. separation of planned curricula and learners’ changing needs. In contrast, heutagogy is self-determined learning. Learner-centered and learner-directed learning which occurs as result of personal experiences. Students become the key drivers and designers of learning processes, activities, objectives and assessments. Heutagogy requires a living flexible curriculum that is able to change as students learn.

Hase and Kenyon recommend action research and action learning as meta-methodologies to empower learners to experiment with real experiences in real world contexts. Action research and action learning provide flexibility to understand unpredictable and complex social phenomena, give ownership and control of the learning to the students, and can also be trialled and tested in subsequent cycles. Alongside action-learning, teachers need to provided personal coaching.

Adaptive systems (Bertanafly, 1950; Akoff & Emery, 1972; Emery, 1971, 1986; Emery & Trist, 1965) and Complexity Theory are worth investigating in relation to learning (Davis & Sumara 1997; Doll 1989; Doolittle, 2000). At the time of writing, Hase and Kenyon were still researching the usefulness of heutagogy as a concept, and questioning how learning occurs in complex adaptive systems and how these systems harness and facilitate learning.

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!

March 22, 2014

Fiore (1989) procrastination

Fiore

Fiore, N. (1989). The now habit: A strategic program for overcoming procrastination and enjoying guilt-free play. London: Penguin Books.

 
So we’ve heard it all before: small pieces, set priorities, and JUST DO IT! But it ain’t that simple! Nobody procrastinates due to laziness or disorganization. We procrastinate to relieve stress from negative self-beliefs, resistance to authorities, imbalance of work and play, perfectionism, and fear of success and failure.

Failures to perfectionists are like paper cuts to hemophiliacs. Perfectionists equate average tasks with compete personal failure. However, procrastination protects us from self-criticism because we don’t have time to do our best.

Successes are often rewarded with more and harder work. Like high jumpers who have just cleared the bar, no time to rest, the bar is immediately raised. However, procrastination protects us by reserving energy for subsequent tasks.

Fiore believes that procrastination is a learned behaviour and can be unlearned.

1st. Become aware of avoidance behaviors, e.g. excessive preparation.

2nd. Focus on positive rewards, not negative punishments.

3rd. Reduce imagined risk. Anyone can walk at ground level along planks that are 10m long x 30cm wide x 10cm thick. But procrastinators raise planks high up between buildings, making tasks impossible and freezing with fear. But when buildings burst into flames, procrastinators rush across planks, with less self-judgment. Place safety nets under your planks.

4th. Accept consequences, and choose to do tasks your way.

5th. Improve self-talk. Replace ‘I must finish’ with ‘when I can start’, ‘this project is huge and important’ with ‘I can do one small part’, ‘I must be perfect’ with ‘I may make mistakes’, and ‘I don’t have time to play’ with ‘I must take time to play’!

6th. Plan tasks backwards. Start at deadlines, estimate all parts, including now.

7th. Schedule only play activities. Only record work after 30 minutes of uninterrupted on-task-time. No drinks. No Facebook. Start and complete 30 minutes and then break. I know can do anything I dread for 30 minutes. I say to myself, ‘okay 30 minutes, from now, go’, and then magically several hours pass. This simple mind-trick gets me on-task every time.

If you work with people who procrastinate, encourage choices, praise achievements and avoid criticism (procrastinators self-criticize enough). Ask for commitment not compliance, and express achievable objectives not overwhelming expectations.

I hope that helps. Veel succes.

March 13, 2014

Claxton (2008) inside/outside schools

Claxton Claxton, G. (2009). What’s the point of school? Rediscovering the heart of education. Oxford: Oneword Publications.

I read Claxton for relief from my heavy-going reading list, but Claxton’s comparison of learning inside and outside schools was worth reading.

Claxton says schools offer learning just-in-case for its own sake in narrow pre-graded pieces, with prejudged students achievement levels, and smooth learning that avoids mistakes. Whereas, learning outside schools is just-in-time for real achievement in broad complex ungraded contexts, with gradual increasing skills, and steep zigzagging learning filled with risks. Learners outside schools are curious, collaborative, and seek unknown answers.

Historically, schools are monasteries and factories.  As monasteries, schools preside over knowledge, select knowledge, sever knowledge into subjects, dispense knowledge, and examine knowledge. As factories, schools forge standardized subject production lines for batches of students to manufacture workers who will do the bidding of authorities. Successful students copy, memorize and reproduce (soon outdated) knowledge, but are not prepared for our messy complex real-world. However, Claxton proposes Epistemic Apprenticeships with guides who role model learning and encourage learners to be curious, resilient, balance creativity with logic, handle feedback, approach problems calmly, and be emotionally engaged.  Learners need responsibilities, respect, reality, choices, challenges, and collaboration, which is what I strive for, but many students still demand spoon-feeding and prefer to regurgitate pre-packaged knowledge.

I live outside my original learning culture, and even after ten years, occasional culture-clashes surprise me. Here many teachers appear to believe in the fixed intelligence and predetermined achievement levels that Claxton is so against. Beliefs are powerful self-fulfilling prophecies. For me, the basic core of teaching is believing people can learn and then helping people learn. Piaget defines intelligence as knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do. Intelligence is not what learners can do easily: intelligence is how learners respond to unknown and difficult situations. Grit, resilience and perseverance are better predictors of performance than IQ tests. Believing in labels as valid and fixed only encourages people to give up in difficult situations (the Pygmalion effect).

I’ll re-read Building Learning Power soon.