Tag Archives: learning

July 28, 2015

Biesta (2014) risk of education

Biesta, G. (2014). The Beautiful Risk of Education. London: Paradigm Publishers.

The beautiful risk of education (2013) adds to ideas Biesta presented in his previous books Beyond Learning (2008) and Good education in an age of measurement (2010).  Biesta maintains that schooling has three aims: socialization, qualification and subjectification (i.e. becoming a subject). In this latest book, Biesta proclaims that education needs to embrace risk rather than reduce risk, and he discusses this with reference to creativity, communication, teaching, learning, emancipation, democracy and virtuosity.  Current educational policies aim to make education stronger, more secure, more predictable, and risk-free. However, Biesta asserts that policy-makers oversimplification of learning is potentially damaging and veer away from what education ultimately means. After all education is not a simple transfer transaction between machines. Education is a complex social-interaction between human beings and slow, difficult, out-of-comfort-zone learning that pushes boundaries is the powerful learning that sticks. Instead of seeking to reduce risk, education needs to embrace risk as an essential part of teaching, learning and schooling.

Biesta voices concern over the relatively recent paradigm shift from the traditional teacher as an authority to the constructivist teacher as a facilitator of learning.  Biesta interprets constructivism as a theory of learning not a theory of teaching, and he makes a clear distinction between learning from (leren van) and being taught by (leren aan).  A teacher should not be reduced to an agent that speeds transfer of knowledge from one vessel to another.  Teachers are essential in a learning environment to empower learners to reach beyond their immediate known grasp.  Biesta reminds us that we need to remain aware that teaching does not necessarily result in learning and indeed we cannot predict any of the effects of teaching.

Biesta also discusses teacher education. He declares teacher education has become over-simplified by structuring programs on narrow pre-defined competencies. To be qualified to teach, learner-teachers merely demonstrate achievement of separate competencies. Biesta sees it as insufficient to have knowledge and skills of separate parts of teaching because teachers must be able to perform multiple tasks in complex learning contexts with multiple conflicting factors.  Teacher education also provides a role modelling function so that learner-teachers become aware of the social expectations and shared traditions of teaching. It is this apprenticeship role within an active Community of Practice that Biesta values.  Biesta proposes an alternative to current competency based teacher education, that develops virtuosity and replaces narrow competencies with teachers’  judgements. Biesta states that learner-teachers can learn virtuosity by studying the virtuosity of others. But who is judged as being a virtuoso? Which contexts allow virtuosity to be seen?

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.

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 26, 2014

Bytheway (2014) Top 40 creations

Top40

Create language learning activities from Top40 songs to connect to child and teen language learners. Bring their outside-school world into classrooms. Don’t use your favourite ‘old’ songs. Use learners’ hot songs to to increase motivation and build respectful relationships.

Create these activities fast because you’ll throw them out within three months.

Quickly select a song. Is it 1) hot? 2) safe & 3) learnful?

Hot?
Use Google to find the Top40 songs in your country. In the Netherlands, about 35 of the Top40 are in English. Look at how many weeks songs have been in the charts. Teens consider a song old after about three months.

Safe?
Children enjoy many totally inappropriate songs. However in schools, swearing, sex and drugs are out. Use Google to find the lyrics and scan for anything inappropriate. Learners choose our songs and our agreement is that if principle walks in while the song is playing, I will keep my job. We never had any problems.

Learnful?
The song has to be learnful. If something is full of beauty, it’s beautiful; if something is full of learning, it’s learnful. Some say the word I need is educational; however learning and education are different! Know your learners and context and judge what suits your learners’ needs.

Balance the activities using Nation’s Four Strands.

1)      Use input for meaning-focused listening and reading. The learners are familiar with almost all the language. Support understanding by reading the lyrics while listening to the song.

2)      Use output for meaning-focused speaking and writing. Use the lyrics to scaffold speaking or writing activities. Replace words (verbs, nouns, adjectives, prepositions) to create original lyrics with similar structures or use phrases as sentence starters.

3)      Zoom in for language-focused learning. This is new language for the learners. Look at the details of the lyrics (e.g. pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary). Selects aspects for special attention.

4)      Zoom out for fluency development. The learners use language they already know faster and more automatically. Use issues and themes in the song for speaking, writing, listening and reading, activities.

 

Bytheway, J. (April, 2014). Create original language learning activities from Top 40 songs. Presented at 48th Annual International Association of Teaching English as a Foreign Language Conference. Harrogate: IATEFL.
Retrieve Prezi from https://prezi.com/avbqkk6plzwb/

Bytheway, J. (July, 2014). Create Language learning activities from Top 40 songs. Presented at TeachMeetNZ Virtual at the National Conference for Community Language and ESOL. Wellington: TESOLANZ & CLANZ.
Retrieve Slideshare from http://www.slideshare.net/Julie_Bytheway/julie-btw-createlearningtop4020140712.
Retrieve video from http://teachmeetnz.wikispaces.com/Bytheway_Julie

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.