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Similar to Digital Literacies Thesis Models of Learning
Similar to Digital Literacies Thesis Models of Learning (20)
Digital Literacies Thesis Models of Learning
- 1. Digital Literacies Thesis and Coursework module Models of learning – should they change in digitally mediated settings? Karin Tusting
- 2. Models of learning • Drawing on Tusting and Barton 2003/6, Models of Adult Learning, NIACE • Produced to inform adult literacy and numeracy research • Revisit in relation to digital literacies • Importance of making underlying models of learning explicit
- 3. Models from psychology • Learning in the individual mind – Behaviourism – Cognitivism – Cognitive constructivism – ‘Staged’ developmental models
- 4. Models from psychology • Learning as socially situated – changing participation – Activity theory (social constructivism) • Mind develops through engagement in – Goal-oriented activity – In interaction with others – Using mediating tools – material and cultural – Situated cognition – Communities of practice
- 5. Models from adult education • ‘Andragogy’: characteristics of adults learning, different from children – Learn when there is a reason for learning – Self-directed – Problem-centred, not subject-centred – Have extensive real-life experience to draw on – Learning in relationship to tasks associated with social role / stage of life – Internal, not external motivation
- 6. Models from adult education • Humanistic psychology – Intrinsic drive to growth and self-actualisation • Once more basic needs are fulfilled (Maslow) (image from simplypsychology.org) – Learning as personally / socially transformative
- 7. Models from adult education • Development of various elements of andragogical model – Self-directed learning • Self-directed style, vs. Self-directed activities – Learning to learn – Informal learning
- 8. – Reflective / experiential learning (Dewey) • Learning cycle (Kolb) (image from ldu.leeds.ac.uk) • Learning styles – Transformative learning
- 9. Models from adult education • Postmodern theories of learning – Rejecting notions of ‘truth’ and progress narrative towards integration / actualisation – Experience as an open text – Learning as a process of creative meaning construction
- 10. Summarises key points about adult learning • Adults have their own motivations for learning • Adults have a drive towards self-direction and autonomy in learning • Adults can learn about their own learning processes, explicitly • Adults learn through participation and engaging in practice • Adults reflect on and learn from their real life experiences • Reflective learning is unique to the person; a lot of learning arises from situations and can’t be planned • Adult learning is potentially transformative, as people reflect on experience and see situations in new ways
- 11. > Distinctiveness of learning digital literacies – or not?
- 12. Models of learning digital literacies? • Learning in the digital age – How the affordances of digital contexts shape the sort of learning that happens – How the digital context highlights more general principles about learning – How the digital context offers possibilities different from traditional educational institutions – Implications for learning of young people as ‘digital insiders’
- 13. New models of learning in digital spaces? • Haythornthwaite et al. 2007 – claim that there is a need for new theories and models for the online learning environment – Formal and informal learning – Individual and community learning – New practices
- 14. Impact of computer media on communication – Possibilities for anonymity of individual and audiences, and / or invisibility of physical attributes, local setting, side activities (though – changing with more multimodal activities, video chats?) – Persistence and retrievability of conversational text – living repository for group norms, expertise and identity, enactment of ‘community of practice’ – Attention can be divided between local and remote – eg juggling learning with family and work
- 15. Models proposed – Living technologies (Bruce) – Co-evolution of technology and learning practices (Andrews) – Technology and social tie formation (Haythornthwaite) – Community-embedded learning (Kazmer) – Learner-leaders (Montague) – Braided learning (Preston) • > All address themes of emergence, complexity, embedding contexts – technology and practices co-evolving as living, active system
- 16. Resonances with existing models • Psychology – Constructivism – Activity theory / situated learning – Experiential learning • Adult education – Self-directed – Reflective / experiential – Problem-driven – Drive to move to next stage of development
- 17. Over to you • Do we need new theories to describe learning in digital environments, or can existing models account for what is going on? • Which of the models of learning in the report you read ‘fit’ with learning in digital environments? Which ones don’t fit well? • Do you have other models or metaphors which help you understand learning in digital environments?
- 18. Activity: Your own learning histories • Produce a ‘timeline’ of your own personal life history of learning which has engaged in some way with digital technologies. You can do a general life history timeline, or focus in more closely on how you have learned to engage with a particular platform (Facebook, Twitter, Moodle (!), ….) • For each ‘point’ on your timeline, try to identify which of the models discussed here represents your learning in the most appropriate or useful way. • Upload a representation of this timeline to the discussion section on the Moodle site. You can – Use the affordances of the Moodle site; – Produce a document and attach it, using software of your choice (make sure it is in a form we can all read though!); – Use a dedicated ‘timeline’ producing site (eg tiki-toki, capzles, dipity) and upload a link to Moodle.
Editor's Notes
- Adult literacy and numeracy research referred to in several ways in the document: - ‘basic skills’ - ‘Skills for Life’So, the document focuses on models of adult learning in particular. This is what makes it distinctive, as a lot of work on learning is focusing on school settings.Relevant here because: - you are adults - many of you are, or are going to be, teaching adults - many of these ideas are more generally applicable.Models of learning important because: - theory of how we learn shapes how we teach and how we design and engage in teaching and learning interactions - also shapes the things that we see, and the things that we don’t see – our pre-existing models frame our understandingsWe all have our own understandings of how people learn that we draw on – shaped by experience as well as reading.It’s useful to think about the academic sources of different understandings of learning – particularly, theories of learning which have been developed within the fields of psychology, and of education, and which have been influential in informing teaching and learning.
- Behaviourism: from a perspective which studied only things which could be observed directly > explained behaviour as conditioned responses to environmental stimuli. Learners tending to repeat behaviour which is rewarded. Useful for addressing specific behaviour changes. Tend to see teaching and learning as about breaking things down into small ‘chunks’, ‘transmitting’ them, practising them, and rewarding successful completion.Observable learning outcomes, pre-planned in advance, associated with this perspective.But: doesn’t concern itself with ‘internal’ mental processes of sense-making, reflecting etc.============================Cognitivism: interested in internal information-processing. Rooted in Gestalt psychology: looking at perception, insight, meaning – especially those moments when the ‘whole’ becomes re-organised in a new way. Thinking of learning as changes in mental constructs and processes, ‘schemata’ or ‘maps’ for representing the world – studied through experiments designed to enable inferring of these changes.Related to staged theories of instruction, breaking down content and supporting learners to build new cognitive structures.Within cognitivism, ‘social learning theory’ was developed, showing that changes in people’s internal representations could be achieved through observing others, rather than doing the task themselves > acknowledging existence of observational learning with others.============================Cognitive constructivism: active role of learners; not just assimilating what they are doing or observing, but actually learners are constructingtheir learning themselves, by interacting with their environment. > Piaget’s developmental model – children take an active role in developing their own cognitive structure, through actively engaging with their environment, choosing their own new experiences.============================Developmental theories: Piaget again – identified the stages of cognitive development through which children pass – reaching, finally, the formal-operational stage of abstract thought in their teens. Other stages of cognitive development looked at adulthood – eg development of reasoning in college students (Perry), developing reflective judgement (King and Kitchener), stages of moral development (Kohlberg). Often these represent a move from ‘absolute’ theories to more ‘relativist’, contextual, situated ones. Finally, there are theories of development which focus on the roles adults engage in, their stages of life, and the impact on their learning processes – the idea that there may be ‘teachable moments’ (Erikson) at which learning appropriate to that stage of development can happen.Tennant and Pogson develop this again within adult learning to suggest that adults progress through dealing with real-life problems which can’t be ‘solved’ but can be ‘resolved’, and they learn through reflecting on their experiences of dealing with similar problems.
- Activity theory – historically rooted in work carried out in the Soviet Union – was originally developed in resistance to the dominant behaviourist models, exploring how learning takes place not in an isolated way – individual responding to rewards – but in meaningful interaction, towards the achievement of particular goals, in interaction with other people, using material and cultural tools.Vygotsky – how does higher mental functioning emerge? Rather than focusing on the individual, Vygotsky showed how much development derives from social interaction – with other people and cultural artefacts. Cognitive functions appear first on the social plane – ‘intermental’ – then on the individual plane – ‘intramental’. > relations with other people underly higher cognitive functioning. (Notion of ‘scaffolding’ here – the more expert person ‘scaffolds’, supports, the less expert one.) ZPD: difference between what a learner can achieve on their own, and what they can achieve under guidance or in collaboration. Drawing attention to the mediating artefacts as ‘tools for thinking’ – showed how simple mediating tools could enable people to achieve things that they could not otherwise.>> Situated cognition: how thinking happens in real situations, rather than in decontextualised experimental settings. Eg Lave (88) – Adult Math Project – the calculations people could perform eg in the supermarket demonstrated different ‘skill levels’ than pen-and-paper calculations. And real-life problems are often not like educational ones. They need to be resolved without enough information, with other people, without a single right answer. > hard to transfer between decontextualised learning setting and everyday life settings.Communities of practicePeople learn through initially starting as novices, with a role as ‘legitimate peripheral participants’, interacting with people who are more expert, and then gradually moving into a more central position – as long as there are ways for the novice to participate directly in the community’s practice. Wenger (98): joint enterprise, mutual engagement, shared repertoire. Learning in situated social practice, rather than in a decontextualised cognitive way. Whenever people engage in social practices together, learning will take place.
- In what way are models of adults learning distinct from models of children’s learning?1970s especially – and Knowles’ work in particular – this set of assumptions about adult learners – directly opposed to assumptions about children’s learning.Adults are different from children – older, have accumulated more experience, have more demands and commitments. Normally adults have more power, choice, children (in contemporary industrialised societies at any rate) are more likely to be in compulsory education.Originally, more of a prescriptive model, and not very sensitive to the diversity of situations in which people learn.As this work developed, was re-framed to indicate not so much adults vs children, but more that different models of teaching and learning are appropriate for different situations.
- Humanistic theories of personal development – assumes human potential and desire for growth and fulfilment. Rooted in person-centred therapy (Rogers) – assuming everyone has a built-in motivation to make the best of their existence. Maslow developed a model of human development about meeting needs, people move naturally up to the higher levels when more basic needs are fulfilled, and learning is located in the upper parts of the triangle – so people will naturally turn to learning for self-esteem and self-actualisation when the lower needs are fulfilled.Very positive basic understanding of the nature of humanity.
- Various elements of the andragogical model have been developed by different theorists and researchers.Self-directed learning is one area which has gained a lot of attention – particularly with the work of Tough, who discovered through survey research that the majority of adults had engaged in some kind of ‘learning project’ over the previous year, even though most not in formal learning. Adults choose to learn, as they need to.Implications: - incorporate self-direction into instruction? - assess the extent to which someone is self-directed? - assess the extent to which being a self-directed learner is associated with other positive characteristics?Candy – there are both self-directed activities (learning outside formal educational settings; learner being in control of instruction); and self-directed attributes to encourage and develop (autonomy, self-management in learning). These are related, but shouldn’t be confused. Also, self-directedness is not necessarily a ‘good’ in itself – for instance, in medicine, you need to learn the correct body (ha…) of knowledge.=========================================================‘Learning to learn’ model – adults benefit from actively learning about cognitive processes involved in learning, to put them into practice.==========================================================Informal learning – learning outside formal educational settings; learning in unplanned ways; learning in the community; any non-accredited provision – many ways in which people learn in these different ‘informal’ ways. But also, highlights the importance of unplanned / learning through participation in learning in institutions, jobs, communities, activist roles, even in universities and formal institutions.
- Dewey – How we Think, 1933 – the importance of reflective thinking for education. Problem > reflective thinking > learning. Movement from confusion to a resolved situation. (Messy, staged process).Kolb develops this in a famous ‘cyclical’ model of learning – requiring four different modes of adaptation to the world – which for higher levels of learning need to be integrated into a synthesis. Learning is therefore about creatively adapting to the world, and a process of creating knowledge through interacting with environment.Can draw on this to design learning activities …. Ideally people would draw on different ‘learning styles’ at different points in this cycle – but inevitably, people have different distributions of mastery of these different styles. You get a lot of work now which looks to ‘identify’ students’ learning styles and then teach to them – not really the best development of this idea – better to understand strengths and weaknesses and seek to reconcile them.============================Models which focus on the transformative potential of adult learning – either learning as the source for personal transformation through critical reflection, or social transformation.
- Finally, mention the ‘postmodern’ theories of learning – resisting grand narratives and stability, focusing on openness of meaning construction.
- What do you think?
- Haythornthwaite et al. (2007) – Theories and models of and for online learning, First Monday 12 (8)Looking specifically at ‘online learning’
- Living technologies: Living things change, grow, species change. Technologies grow, change in response to their ecology, and species change across generations.Computers are not alive – but, they grow every day (new software, new web etc); not independent of its ecology, in relation to other techs; and not ahistorical – shaped by cultural practices, and drawn on in pragmatic ways to resolve problematic situations. Think of technology as alive – if we see it as tied to lived experience. Focus on ecologies, technology use in settings.Co-evolution: It is not that ICT has a causal impact on learning, but that learning practices and the possibilities afforded by technologies evolve together. Eg, technologies enable learning communities, enabling people to come together via ICT at a particular point in time, sustained through the common purpose of learning – in many different ways (listening in, engaging, memorising, recording, …). Eg, using the technologies to re-shape knowledge through re-shaping texts, either alone or in community.Social and technical foundations for latent ties:Drawing on the sociological model of ‘weak ties’ and ‘strong ties’. Learning in online classes and in social networks – students must turn initially non-existent ties into, minimally, weak ties, maybe strong ones. Social media connect people differently according to the strength of the tie between them – weak ties only through mandated media linked to class (on and offline), strongly tied pairs through many different media. Medium for communication offers ‘latent tie structure’ – making ties possible, but not yet activated. Change to an existing group-wide medium recasts weak ties, but not strong ones. Technology is part of this; participation is also part of this, and instructors need to ‘bootstrap’ this through making people be present online. Helps explain role of different kinds of media, and the important role of instructor or manager in providing and following through with media for class contacts; need to consider what technology enables and disables in terms of access to resources, exposure to others, formation of social ties.CEL:How knowledge is built and applied by learners who take online courses from home settings, and how this is used, distributed, changed in relation to existing ties. People are embedded in work, community, family – they bring this into the online class, and bring what they learn from the course into their community. Hybrid space, comprising both physical and virtual space, and the relationship between the two.Transfers of knowledge are dependent on collaboration – both in the offline ‘community’ and the online ‘social world’, rather than being ‘provided with information’. Decisions about learning are contingent on local conditions, and changing networks of social relations. Highlights the importance of friendship networks, creation of collaborative knowledge, difficulty of assessing individuals in relation to community-embedded learning, challenges about the relationship between learning and the contexts people are embedded in, and lack of change – learning, but still stuck in same context.Learner-leaders: students participate in their own learning, but also in the learning of others – students bring experiences to the community, and lead its direction, in emergent and iterative process of leading and learning. Potential for interaction in many modailities – but only through structures which emphasise and encourage collaboration in these settings. Emerged through studying graduate student courses.Braided learning: through observing a professional network of educators, researchers, policymakers and developers in learning and digital technologies – the history of the community development is interpreted as a creative, progressive ‘braiding’ of texts, opinions and ideas, unfolding in the online context. Braided collaborative text online which reflects diversity, and change of opinions; braided artefacts, which re-interpret online debate for different audiences and purposes. Seen as community of practice – the interests and practices that keep communities together. Braided learning grounded in Salmon’s five-stage model:Access and motivation; online socialisation; information exchange; knowledge construction; development of meta-thinking.