Part1: Setting the table
1.
I know less than I am often inclined to believe
that I know. I am certain that I know less than many others think I know.
2.
Learning is characterized by a change in what a
person (or group of people) know, believe or can do. Learning is fundamentally
about change. To claim that learning has occurred then requires some evidence
of a change. Some learning is intentional – that is to say, associated with a
goal – and some learning is non-intentional – that is to say, incidental or
unplanned or not explicitly associated with a goal.
3.
Instruction, simply and broadly stated, is that
which is intended to facilitate, support or enhance intentional learning.
4.
There are (a) different kinds of things that can
be learned, (b) a variety of learning approaches, (c) different ways to design,
organize, orchestrate and facilitate learning, (d) a variety of tools,
technologies and resources to support learning and instruction, (e) relevant differences
among learners with regard to prior knowledge, interests, preferences, habits,
language, culture, age, gender, individual circumstances, etc., and (f) many of
the aforementioned items change over time, including an individual learner’s particular
circumstances (activities, emotions, friends,
health, etc.) and especially the tools, technologies and resources that
can be used to support, facilitate and enhance learning.
5.
What is known about human learning is based on
the work of psychologists, epistemologists and educational researchers and
includes the work of anthropologists, behaviorial psychologists, biologists,
cognitive psychologists, constructivists, educational psychologists,
epistemologists, neural scientists, organizational psychologists, social
scientists and others. No one discipline or group of researchers offers a
complete account of learning. Indeed, knowledge about human learning is
incomplete and evolving. More complete accounts of learning are likely to
require more systematic multi-disciplinary efforts over a sustained period of
time. Meanwhile, society and educational institutions are committed to
providing effective and reasonable support for learning given limited
knowledge, the wide variety of learning tasks, learning situations and
learners, along with a vast array of learning approaches, tools, technologies,
and resources.
6.
The design of learning activities and
environments and instructional technologies and systems, therefore, is by nature
a dynamic, complex, challenging, and somewhat ill-structured enterprise.
7.
Learners want to learn; educators want to
support learning; designers and developers want to design and develop
appropriate and effective learning approaches, tools, technologies and
resources; institutions and funding agencies want to pursue and support
effective and efficient means to support learning; and researchers want to
better understand all aspects of human learning. There are wants and desires as
well as needs and requirements. There are decisions to be made and policies to
be developed. What are we to do?
Part 2: Preparing the feast
1.
An early holistic and coherent (but not
currently accepted) account of learning and instruction can be found in Plato’s
dialogues known as Meno and Phaedo. In those dialogues, Plato argues
for an alignment of what it is to be a person, what it means to learn
something, and how learning can be supported. With regard to being a person,
Plato argues that a person has an immortal soul (non-material essence) that
existed prior to birth and that continues to exist after birth. Being born
involves a traumatic event – namely, encasing the eternal soul in the transient
form of a human body. Because a soul is immortal and has existed forever, it
already knows everything. However, the process of being born is so traumatic
that it causes the soul to forget most things. Learning, then, is a process of
gradually remembering the things the soul knew before its most recent
incarnation in a body. Instruction – the support of learning – then becomes a
process of reminding a person of what he or she already knows. Plato attributes
that activity of reminding to be best exemplified by Socrates. Socrates, of
course, was rewarded by society for being such an effective reminder (teacher)
that he was put to death for corrupting the youth – getting them to think,
which is to say remember, according to Plato.
2.
It is unlikely that Plato’s account of being a
person, learning and instruction are accepted by many these days. Why mention
it? The reason is that the desire for a coherent and comprehensive account for
learning remains in spite of most people rejecting Plato’s account. To borrow
from Nietzsche, another philosopher, the first question of conscience for an
educational technology researcher or a learning scientist is whether one should
expect a coherent and comprehensive account of human learning (see Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols for the original
version; available at http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html).
By the wayside (a park in Pensacola, Florida where I learned to swim), Socrates
is one of the idols that Nietzsche discusses in detail. Nietzsche generally
praises Socrates for exemplifying the qualities of a genuine skeptic (a seeker
of knowledge who admits to not knowing something and who is engaged in inquiry
to find out) with one exception – namely, Socrates apparently believed that he
knew the value of life and chose to accept the sentence of being put to death
by poison hemlock rather than take the opportunity to escape from jail, which
most assumed he would do. According to Nietzsche, Socrates judged that life was
not worth living and that by dying he would be going to a better place, joining
those immortal souls mentioned previously. Nietzsche points out that a human
life cannot be judged – not by others as their knowledge is necessarily
incomplete and not by oneself as there is an inherent bias.
3.
Why this second journey into old philosophy?
Like T. S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock (see http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html),”I
grow old” … “it is impossible to say just what I mean” … “do I dare disturb
the universe?” … “how should I presume?”
Learning, instruction and education are inherently complex constructs. Perhaps
the skeptical attitude that Nietzsche indirectly suggests is appropriate. There
may not be a coherent or complete or comprehensive account of learning,
instruction and education. Perhaps the attitude worth adopting is one that is
open to alternatives and partial accounts of what seems to be happening and why
in specific situations. Perhaps those involved in educational research ought to
be more modest, especially when making claims about general causal factors.
Perhaps.
4.
After EduSummit 2015 (see http://www.curtin.edu.au/edusummit/event.cfm)
held in Bangkok this September, I mentioned to Punya Mishra that it seemed like
the older I got the less I knew – in the context of an exchange about
creativity. I added that my goal in life was to not know a lot.
5.
Back to the task of what this might mean in the
context of learning, instruction and education – what progress can be made with
regard to systematic and sustained improvement in our understanding of
learning, instruction and education? The question already reflects a bias –
namely that there can be systematic and sustained improvement and that such
improvement is a legitimate and attainable goal. Skeptics have been known to be
optimistic. Scientists have been known to be optimistic, even when arguing that
progress occurs when a hypothesis is shown to be inadequate or wrong. Roger Schank has argued that all learning is
failure driven (for a brief overview, see https://net.educause.edu/apps/er/review/reviewArticles/30114.html).
This account of learning has instructional implications – namely, that there
should be a space that allows for failure and support for understanding and
improving on account of that failure. Schank, then, links the nature of
learning (failure-driven) to the nature of effective instruction (allowing for
and supporting failure).
6.
Given the diverse collection of things to be
learned, resources, approaches, learners, learning situations, and so on,
perhaps the way forward is in terms of baby steps – that is to say, perhaps one
might select a specific family of related cases (e.g., one-on-one tutoring of
reading to a young child, or small group medical diagnosis to general
practitioner interns, or helping environmental students develop potential
policies aimed at a addressing a particular problem, and so on), review prior
research and efforts, design an approach, try it out, refine it, try it out
again, make further refinements, and try it out with still others, thereby
establishing a framework for what is likely to work in that situation along
with, perhaps, an explanation, a theoretical basis and hopefully supporting
evidence. One might then go on to apply the approach in related cases, thereby
building up a conceptual framework with associated evidence and theoretical
foundations for that family of cases.
7.
Given the notion of families of cases, one might
then consider nearby families and take an approach that seems to work for one
family of cases to another family and investigate what variations might be
needed to see progress in terms of learning in those cases. Of course there are
issues involved in identifying a family of cases and what constitutes nearby
families. There are nearly always issues involved in what educational
researchers do because learning, instruction and education are complex,
ill-structured enterprises. Just because one finds issues with a particular
approach, or with the approach of a particular group of researchers, does not
mean that that approach or their perspectives are wrong or wrongheaded. If an enterprise
is really dynamic, complex and ill-structured, then ought we not be open to
alternative approaches and explanations, however far they seem from our own
points of view? To add to the complexity, learning and instruction are by their
very nature dynamic enterprises. That is to say that during a learning activity
or instructional sequence, what the learner is doing or what the learner
understands is likely to change. Moreover, in a problem-solving context, the
problem itself may well change while a learner is engaged in finding a solution
or solution approach.
Part 3: Enjoying the feast
1.
Recalling Nietzsche’s criticism of Socrates, one
might conclude that judging one’s own works and creations is perhaps a biased
enterprise and best left to others, even though their knowledge may be
incomplete. This suggests that replication studies (not exact duplications but
studies involving similar goals, instruments, methods and participants) will
enhance our understanding (like seasonings we add to a dish we have prepared).
2.
Perhaps what is done in this study or case can
be regarded as something to be improved upon in a future study or case – we can
nearly always do better (tell those invited to the feast that this is basically
an experimental feast … next year’s feast will be even better).
3.
Working alone or in isolation or within a closed community is not likely to be an efficient way to make progress with regard to
understanding dynamic, complex and ill-structured phenomena (invite a variety
of people to the feast and plan for spirited conversation over the meal).
4.
During the investigation, be open to changing
the questions being asked and the direction of the effort – after all, the
context involves dynamic, complex and ill-structured problems (be prepared to
listen and ask rather than preach and teach; sample a different dish).
5.
Think of the enterprise as a system with many
interrelated components and relationships among those components; the
boundaries of a learning or instructional or educational system are necessarily
fuzzy and arbitrarily drawn for the purpose at hand (one cannot serve
everything at a feast – focus on what seems most relevant but be willing to
change, at least in the next iteration of the feast).
6.
Adopt the Universal Underlying Principle of all
Systems (UUPS – pronounced ‘oops) – namely that before you begin the
investigation, a mistake has already occurred. Then recall the three UUPS
corollaries: (x) mistakes rarely happen in isolation, (y) one rarely has
sufficient resources to do what one believes should be done, and (z) others
generally have better ideas. After all, learning inherently involves (a)
humility (admitting that one does not know), (b) effort (committing time and
resources to finding an acceptable solution), and (c) openness (willingness to
explore alternative explanations and revisit assumptions). Learning about
learning might then require similar kinds of things (savor the variety of
dishes involved in the feast and think ahead to the next feast).
7.
Do not forget to share findings and seek
critiques (don’t forget the dessert – contributing to what is known and
publishing findings).
