Learning Facilators

 

Learning Facilators (remarks by J. Michael Spector in 2023 and many times previously)

 What do many research reports show that contributes to learning and performance? Here are three of the recurrent and often cited factors:

 1.     Prior performance and learning. Those who have done well in the past are likely to keep doing well. However, we cannot control who comes to our course and what prior experiences they have.

2.     Time on task tends to result in improved performance. So, how can instructors get students to spend more time on learning tasks? Motivation seems a likely answer, along with compelling real world tasks.

3.     Timely, informative and supportive feedback. Of course, but now there is a frequent tension between institutions increasing class size which tends to limit how much and what quality of timely and informative and supportive feedback an instructor can provide.

 If these learning facilitators are known to support and promote desired learning outcomes, then the nearly ubiquitous fascination with new technologies should be related to those known learning facilitators, IMLTHO.

 We have to take and support learners regardless of their backgrounds or prior experience in the subject area of with technology. Those with strong backgrounds and significant prior experience perhaps need reminders of how little they understand about some aspects of learning and could perhaps benefit from being challenged to step outside their typical belief boundaries. Those with limited knowledge and experience need and deserve our continuing support.

 If motivation results in more time on task and that can then result in improved learning, then perhaps some new technologies and innovative instructional techniques can be motivating to some learners.

Less we forget, learners, all learners, need time, informative and supportive feedback … especially weaker learners and even high performing learners.

 These reminders amount to emphasizing the learning in the vast domain of learning technologies rather than the technologies themselves. It is about learning. It is about using technology to support learning. It is about putting learners and learning first and using technologies that work as a supportive issue.

 But this is just an old man’s opinion based on lessons learned haphazardly and by coincidence. Technologies will not revolutionalize learning. What is likely to revolutionalize learning is for society to place high value on learning for all consistently and for sustained periods of time. Rather than place one’s faith in a specific learning technology, one might consider placing one’s path in a specially dedicated teacher, trainer, or educator. A question of consciousness … does our society genuinely value and support learning for all its citizens? I am inclined to believe we can do better … much better.

 New technologies have a kind of seductive aura that draws in many … but what about that lonely voice that asks: what do you want to learn, why do you want to learn that, how will you know you have made progress, what do you not know or understand, what are you doing about those deficits? If not now, then when? Get on with the learning and be surprised at what you do not know or understand. It is not about the technology … it is about learning. It is not about the technology … it is about using technology to support learning. It is about learning.

 References

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M.C., Norman. M.K. (2010). How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

National Research Council (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/9853

Shute, V. J. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review of Educational Research, 78(1), 153-189. doi: 10.2307/40071124

 By the way, IMLTHO – in my less than humble opinion … I lack humility … among other deficits